yt-dlp-transcripts

A powerful Python tool for extracting video information and transcripts from YouTube videos, playlists, channels, and channel playlists. Built on top of yt-dlp and youtube-transcript-api.

Features

• 📹 Single Video Processing - Extract metadata and transcripts from individual YouTube videos
• 📚 Playlist Support - Process entire playlists with progress tracking
• 📺 Channel Videos - Download information from all videos on a channel
• 🗂️ Channel Playlists - Process all playlists from a channel
• 🔄 Resume Capability - Automatically skip already processed videos
• 🎯 Auto-Detection - Automatically detect URL type (video/playlist/channel)
• 📊 Rich Metadata - Extract title, description, upload date, duration, view count, and more
• 📝 Transcript Extraction - Get full video transcripts when available
• 💾 CSV Export - Save all data in easily accessible CSV format

Installation

Via pip

pip install yt-dlp-transcripts

# As a command-line tool (after pip install)
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" -o video.csv

To run from source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/yt-dlp-transcripts.git
cd yt-dlp-transcripts
poetry install
poetry shell

# With poetry (after poetry install and poetry shell)
python -m yt_dlp_transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" -o video.csv

Usage

yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" -o output.csv
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID" -o output.csv
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@channelname/videos" -o output.csv
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@channelname/playlists" -o output.csv

Options

Option	Short	Description	Example
--url	-u	YouTube URL (auto-detects type)	https://youtube.com/...
--output	-o	Output CSV file path	output.csv
--help		Show help message	(flag, no value)

Output Format

The tool exports data to CSV with the following fields:

Common Fields

• video_id - YouTube video ID
• title - Video title
• url - Video URL
• description - Video description
• transcript - Full video transcript (when available)
• upload_date - Upload date (YYYYMMDD format)
• duration - Video duration in seconds
• view_count - Number of views
• channel - Channel name
• channel_id - Channel ID

Additional Fields for Playlists

• playlist_name - Name of the source playlist
• playlist_url - URL of the source playlist

Additional Fields for Channel Videos

• channel_source_url - URL of the channel page

Examples

Research and Analysis

# Analyze a conference talk playlist
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLconf2024" -o conference_talks.csv

# Extract all videos from an educational channel
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown/videos" -o math_videos.csv

Content Creation

# Get transcripts from your competitor's channel
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@competitor/videos" -o competitor_analysis.csv

# Archive your own channel's content
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@yourchannel/videos" -o my_backup.csv

Academic Research

# Collect lecture series for analysis
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlecture" -o lectures.csv

# Get transcripts from multiple related playlists
yt-dlp-transcripts -u "https://www.youtube.com/@university/playlists" -o all_courses.csv

Python API Usage

from yt_dlp_transcripts import (
    get_video_info,
    process_single_video,
    process_playlist,
    process_channel,
    detect_url_type
)

# Get video information as dictionary
video_data = get_video_info("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID")
print(video_data['title'])
print(video_data['transcript'])
print(video_data['duration'])

# Process content and save to CSV
process_single_video("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID", "output.csv")
process_playlist("https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID", "output.csv")
process_channel("https://www.youtube.com/@channel/videos", "output.csv", mode='videos')

# Auto-detect URL type
url_type = detect_url_type("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID")  # Returns: 'video'

Features in Detail

Resume Capability

The tool automatically tracks processed videos and skips them on subsequent runs. This allows you to:

• Interrupt and resume large downloads
• Update your dataset with only new videos
• Avoid redundant API calls

Progress Tracking

When processing multiple videos, the tool shows:

• Current video number and total count
• Video title being processed
• Success/skip status for each video

Error Handling

• Gracefully handles missing transcripts
• Continues processing even if individual videos fail
• Provides clear error messages for troubleshooting

Rate Limiting

The tool respects YouTube's rate limits. If you encounter 429 errors:

• The tool will continue processing and get available metadata
• Transcripts may be unavailable during rate limiting
• Consider adding delays or processing in smaller batches

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• yt-dlp
• youtube-transcript-api
• click

Limitations

• Transcript Availability: Not all videos have transcripts available
• Rate Limiting: YouTube may rate limit requests with large datasets
• Private Videos: Cannot access private or age-restricted content without authentication
• API Changes: YouTube's API may change, affecting functionality

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Running Tests

pytest

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Built on top of yt-dlp
• Transcript extraction via youtube-transcript-api
• CLI interface powered by click

Author

Shawn Anderson

Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions:

• Open an issue on GitHub
• Check existing issues for solutions
• Provide detailed error messages and URLs (when possible) for debugging

Changelog

v0.1.0 (2025-08-28)

• Initial release
• Support for videos, playlists, channels, and channel playlists
• Auto-detection of URL types
• Resume capability for interrupted downloads
• CSV export with comprehensive metadata