Simple YouTube API

An unofficial lightweight Python wrapper for extracting video metadata and transcripts from YouTube videos.

Features

• 🎥 Extract video metadata (title, thumbnail, description)
• 📝 Get video transcripts in various languages
• ⚡ Simple and easy to use interface
• 🔒 No API key required

Installation

uv (a Python package and project manager) is recommended for managing and installing packages in isolated environments.

uv add simple-yt-api

You can also install it using pip:

pip install simple-yt-api

Quick Start

from simple_yt_api import YouTubeAPI

yt = YouTubeAPI()

url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

metadata, transcript = yt.fetch_all(url_or_id=url)

print(f"Metadata: {metadata.to_dict()}")
print(f"Transcript: {transcript}")

Example Output:

Metadata: {
    'video_id': 'dQw4w9WgXcQ',
    'title': 'Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)',
    'img_url': 'https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg',
    'description': 'The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Never: The Autobiography 📚 OUT NOW! Follow this link to get your copy and listen to Rick’s ...'
}
Transcript: [
    {'text': '[♪♪♪]', 'start': 1.36, 'duration': 1.68},
    {'text': "♪ We're no strangers to love ♪", 'start': 18.64, 'duration': 3.24},
    ...
]

More examples can be found in the examples directory.

API Reference

YouTubeAPI Class

YouTubeAPI()

Initializes the API client.

fetch_metadata(url_or_id: str) -> VideoMetadata

Retrieves metadata for a specific video.

Returns: VideoMetadata object containing video_id, title, img_url, and description. Use .to_dict() to convert to a dictionary.

Note: description is not consistent about fully including the video description. It may be truncated in some cases.

fetch_transcript(url_or_id: str, language_code: str = "en", output_format: str = "json") -> list[dict] | str

Retrieves the transcript for a specific video.

Returns: A list of dictionaries (JSON) or a plain string containing the transcript.

fetch_all(url_or_id: str, language_code: str = "en", output_format: str = "json") -> tuple

Convenience method to retrieve both metadata and transcript simultaneously.

Returns: A tuple (metadata, transcript). If an error occurs for either part, that element will be None.

Error Handling

The library includes custom exceptions:

• YouTubeAPIError: For YouTube API related errors.
• IpBlocked: When IP is blocked by YouTube.
• RequestBlocked: When request is blocked by YouTube.
• NoVideoFound: When a video is not accessible or doesn't exist.
• NoMetadataFound: When no metadata is found for the video.
• TranscriptsDisabled: When transcripts are not available for the video.
• NoTranscriptFound: When no transcript is available for the video.

Limitations & gotchas

• Not all videos have transcripts available.
• Transcripts may not be available in all languages.
• Some videos only have auto-generated transcripts which may not be accurate.
• The library relies on web scraping techniques, which may break if YouTube changes its page structure.

Warning

Sending too many requests in a short period might lead to your IP address being temporarily blocked by YouTube. Use responsibly.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Links

• GitHub Repository
• PyPI Package
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