YouTube Transcript API

The simplest YouTube transcript API there is: add .txt to a video ID and get the full transcript back as a clean, readable document. No API key, no SDK, no signup — just one HTTPS request you can run from cURL, the browser, or any language.

Quick start

Take the 11-character video ID and request this URL:

That's the whole API. For youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ the ID is dQw4w9WgXcQ, so:

curl https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ.txt

Try the live example → Or use the web tool

Endpoint reference

Method	Endpoint	Returns
GET	/transcript/{VIDEO_ID}.txt	Full transcript as a clean, timestamped Markdown document.

Query parameters

Parameter	Endpoint	Description
lang	/transcript/{VIDEO_ID}.txt	Optional. A YouTube language code such as en, es, or zh-Hant. Falls back to a human-uploaded track, then the auto-generated track.

curl "https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ.txt?lang=en"

Response format

Content type is text/markdown; charset=utf-8. A short metadata header (title, source URL, language, duration, word count, and the other available caption languages) is followed by the transcript, grouped into short paragraphs with [m:ss] timestamps:

# Transcript: Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Language: en · Duration: 3:27 · Words: 481
Other available languages: a-en (en) [auto], de-DE (de-DE), ja (ja), pt-BR (pt-BR), es-419 (es-419)
To request a specific language: https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ.txt?lang=LANG_CODE

[0:00] We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I...

[0:19] I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand...

The output is Markdown, so it renders cleanly in chats, docs, and agents while staying readable as plain text.

Code examples

JavaScript (fetch)

const id = 'dQw4w9WgXcQ'
const res = await fetch(`https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/${id}.txt`)
const transcript = await res.text()
console.log(transcript)

Python (requests)

import requests

video_id = "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
url = f"https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/{video_id}.txt"
transcript = requests.get(url).text
print(transcript)

Shell (cURL)

curl -s "https://youtube-transcript.ai/transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ.txt"

Why this YouTube transcript API is the fastest path

• One request, zero setup. No key exchange, no OAuth, no SDK install. The video ID is the request.
• Edge-cached for 24 hours. Responses are served from Cloudflare's global edge; repeat calls for the same video and language return in milliseconds.
• Agent- and LLM-friendly. The .txt path makes the response a readable document, so web-browsing agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) and scrapers ingest it directly — no JSON parsing, no headless browser.
• Open CORS. Call it straight from front-end JavaScript without a proxy.
• Clean, structured output. Caption cues are merged into readable paragraphs with light timestamps and a metadata header — ready to drop into a prompt, a summary pipeline, or a document.

Pricing & limits

The free tier is intended for normal, low-volume use — personal projects, prototypes, and scripts. It is not a resale or bulk-ingest tier, and sustained high-volume traffic is rate limited. If you're building a commercial product on top of it, email hello@youtube-transcript.ai with your use case and rough daily volume.

FAQ

Run the live example → Commercial use? Talk to us