YouTube Transcript

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos using the youtube-transcript-api.

Usage

Run the script with a YouTube URL or video ID:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID"

With timestamps:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID" --timestamps

Defaults

• Without timestamps (default): Plain text, one line per caption segment
• With timestamps: [MM:SS] text format (or [HH:MM:SS] for longer videos)

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• https://youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• Raw video ID (11 characters)

Output

• CRITICAL: YOU MUST NEVER MODIFY THE RETURNED TRANSCRIPT
• If the transcript is without timestamps, you SHOULD clean it up so that it is arranged by complete paragraphs and the lines don’t cut in the middle of sentences.
• If you were asked to save the transcript to a specific file, save it to the requested file.
• If no output file was specified, use the YouTube video ID with a -transcript.txt suffix.

Notes

• Fetches auto-generated or manually added captions (whichever is available)
• Requires the video to have captions enabled
• Falls back to auto-generated captions if manual ones aren’t available