YouTube Transcript
Authentication Type: API Key
Description: Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos with precise timing information for content analysis and accessibility.
Authentication
To authenticate, you'll need a RapidAPI key for the Video Transcript Scraper API.
Note: The free plan includes 3,000 requests per month.
Transcript Operations
Retrieve video transcript data.
Get Video Transcript
Fetch the transcript for a YouTube video by video ID.
Operation Type: Query (Read)
Parameters:
- videoId
string(required): The YouTube video ID to get transcript for (e.g., "dQw4w9WgXcQ"). Must be a bare 11-character YouTube video ID — not a full URL. Passing a full URL or an invalid ID will throw an error before any API call is made.
Returns:
- transcript
array of objects: Array of transcript segments with timing information- text
string: The transcript text segment - start
number: Start time in seconds - duration
number: Duration of the segment in seconds
- text
Example Usage:
{
"videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
}
Errors & Rate Limiting
| Condition | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Monthly quota exhausted (HTTP 429 with monthly quota message) | Terminal error — the tool will not retry; the request count for the month is used up. |
| Short-window rate limit (HTTP 429 without monthly quota message) | Transient error — automatically retried. |
| Server errors (HTTP 5xx) | Transient error — automatically retried. |
| No captions available | If the video has no captions or transcript, the tool throws a BadRequestToolError. This is not retried; try a different video. |
| Invalid video ID | If videoId is not a valid 11-character YouTube ID, the tool throws a BadRequestToolError before making any API call. |
Common Use Cases
Content Analysis:
- Extract video content for text analysis and sentiment research
- Create searchable transcripts for video content libraries
- Analyze speech patterns and keyword usage in videos
Accessibility:
- Generate closed captions and subtitles for videos
- Create text-based summaries of video content
- Enable text search within video content
Research and Documentation:
- Extract quotes and key points from educational videos
- Create timestamped notes and references
- Analyze presentation structure and content flow