yt-transcripts 0.1.0

CLI tool for extracting transcripts from YouTube videos, playlists, and channels

yt-transcriptss🎼

A Python CLI tool for extracting transcripts from YouTube videos, playlists, and channels.

Installation

pip install -e .

Or install dependencies directly:

pip install youtube-transcript-api yt-dlp

Usage

yt-transcripts [OPTIONS] SOURCE...

Sources

The tool accepts multiple source types:

• Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Channel URL: https://www.youtube.com/@ChannelName
• Playlist URL: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID

Options

Option	Description
-f, --format	Output format: text, json, srt, vtt (default: text)
-l, --language	Preferred language code(s), can be specified multiple times (default: en)
-o, --output	Output file or directory (default: stdout)
--max-videos	Maximum number of videos to process from channel/playlist
--list-only	Only list videos without extracting transcripts
-v, --verbose	Verbose output
-h, --help	Show help message

Examples

Single Video

# By URL
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

# By video ID
yt-transcripts dQw4w9WgXcQ

Multiple Videos

yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID1 VIDEO_ID2 VIDEO_ID3

Output Formats

# Plain text (default)
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -f text

# JSON with timestamps and metadata
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -f json

# SRT subtitles
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -f srt

# WebVTT subtitles
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -f vtt

Save to File

# Single file
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -o transcript.txt

# Multiple videos to separate files in a directory
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID1 VIDEO_ID2 -o ./transcripts/

Channels

# List all videos from a channel
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/@anthropic-ai" --list-only

# Extract transcripts from first 10 videos
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/@anthropic-ai" --max-videos 10

# Save channel transcripts to directory as JSON
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/@anthropic-ai" --max-videos 5 -f json -o ./transcripts/

Playlists

# List videos in a playlist
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknGvNjby9efdf" --list-only

# Extract all transcripts from playlist
yt-transcripts "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknGvNjby9efdf"

Language Selection

# Prefer Spanish, fall back to English
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -l es -l en

# Prefer French
yt-transcripts VIDEO_ID -l fr

Output Formats

Text

Plain text with all segments joined together:

We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I...

JSON

Structured data with metadata and timestamps:

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "is_generated": false,
  "segments": [
    {
      "text": "We're no strangers to love",
      "start": 18.64,
      "duration": 3.24
    }
  ]
}

SRT

Standard subtitle format:

1
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:21,880
We're no strangers to love

2
00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:26,960
You know the rules and so do I

VTT

WebVTT subtitle format:

WEBVTT

00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:21.880
We're no strangers to love

00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:26.960
You know the rules and so do I

Error Handling

The tool gracefully handles common errors:

• Transcripts disabled: Reports when a video has transcripts turned off
• Video unavailable: Reports when a video is private or deleted
• No transcript found: Reports when no transcript exists in the requested language

Errors are included in the output rather than stopping execution, so batch processing continues even if some videos fail.

Dependencies

• youtube-transcript-api - Transcript extraction
• yt-dlp - Channel and playlist video listing

License

MIT