AI & DATA
Every YouTube video,
as searchable text
Pull transcripts from 1000s of YouTube videos at once. Auto-generated or manual captions, any language. Perfect for building video RAG, summaries, or training datasets.
Any
Language or Channel
$0.010
Per Transcript
Auto+Manual
Both Caption Types
JSON
With Timestamps
USE CASES
What you can do with this data
Video RAG Systems
Index 1000s of YouTube videos into vector DB. Let users ask questions, retrieve timestamp + transcript chunks, return clickable video answers.
Bulk Summarization
Summarize every video in a channel, every week. Hand over to newsletter, to ops digest, to team KB.
Podcast / Course Content
Course creators: extract transcripts from existing lecture uploads. Feed to LLM to auto-generate notes, quizzes, study guides.
Competitor Content Analysis
See what your competitors teach on YouTube. Cluster topics, find content gaps, identify top-performing narratives.
Translation Pipelines
Pull English transcripts, send to DeepL / GPT for translation, republish as subtitles in 10+ languages.
Dataset Building
Build training data for speech-to-text models, or fine-tune LLMs on domain-specific video content (medical, legal, technical).
OUTPUT FIELDS
Fields extracted per video
Full transcript text
Timestamped segments
Video ID + URL
Title
Channel name + URL
Published date
View count + likes
Description
Tags + category
Language detected
Auto vs manual captions
Video duration
HOW IT WORKS
Three steps to structured data
Input videos
Paste URLs, channel handles, playlist IDs, or upload CSV. Actor handles all formats.
Extract
For each video: fetch captions, fall back to auto-generated if manual missing, extract metadata in parallel.
Export / pipeline
JSON with timestamps for video RAG, CSV for bulk analysis, or webhook to your LLM.
COMPARISON
Why this actor vs alternatives
| Feature | This Actor | YouTube Data API | youtube-transcript-api (OSS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Zero — just run | API key + quota tier | Self-host |
| Transcript API | Yes, all languages | Captions endpoint only | Yes |
| Auto-generated captions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk processing | Unlimited via Apify | Quota-limited | DIY scaling |
| Metadata included | Yes (full video data) | Yes | Transcript only |
| Handles throttling | Built-in proxies | Hit quota = blocked | DIY |
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What if a video has no captions?
The actor falls back to YouTube’s auto-generated captions. If neither exists, it returns the video metadata without transcript and marks status.
What languages are supported?
Any language YouTube supports. For each video, the actor detects default language and pulls that transcript. Specify language param to force.
How does it handle rate limits?
Apify residential proxy pool rotates IPs automatically. Typical throughput 100–300 transcripts/min without throttling.
Can I pass a channel and get all videos?
Yes — pass @handle or channel URL. Actor paginates through uploads, pulls transcripts for every one. Can limit by date or view count.
Is there a timestamp per word?
Segment-level by default (3–10 second chunks). Word-level timestamps available via param but 2x cost.
START NOW
Turn YouTube into searchable text
One run = thousands of transcripts. Build video RAG, summaries, or training sets in hours.
Extract YouTube Transcripts →