YouTube Transcript Extractor
Get plain-text transcripts from any YouTube video or Short in seconds. Paste a URL, copy the captions. No sign-up required.
How It Works
Paste the URL
Copy the YouTube video or Short URL and paste it above.
Extract transcript
Click the button. The tool pulls the captions and returns plain text.
Copy and use
Copy the transcript for summarisation, RAG, content repurposing, or research.
What You Can Do With YouTube Transcripts
Summarisation & RAG
Feed transcripts into LLM summarisation, RAG pipelines, or semantic search.
Content Repurposing
Turn long-form YouTube videos into blog posts, social threads, or newsletters.
SEO Research
Mine keywords and topics from trending videos for content strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a transcript from a YouTube video? ›
Paste the full YouTube video URL into the input above and click "Extract Transcript". The tool fetches the video, pulls the captions, and returns a plain-text transcript in seconds. No account or API key is needed for single lookups.
Is this YouTube transcript extractor free? ›
Yes. This tool is completely free for individual use. You can extract transcripts one at a time without signing up or providing a credit card. For bulk or programmatic access, use the CreatorCrawl API with 250 free credits on signup.
Can I extract YouTube transcripts in bulk? ›
This page handles one video at a time. For bulk processing, use the CreatorCrawl API. One API call per video, structured JSON response with both timestamped segments and a plain-text field, and you can process thousands of videos programmatically.
Does it work with YouTube Shorts? ›
Yes. The extractor works with standard YouTube videos and Shorts as long as the video has captions available. Most uploaded videos include auto-generated captions, so coverage is high across the platform.
What format are YouTube transcripts returned in? ›
On this page you get plain text, which you can copy straight to your clipboard. Through the API, each response includes both a full plain-text transcript and a timestamped segment array with start and end times in milliseconds, making it easy to pipe into LLM summarisation, RAG pipelines, or subtitle workflows.
Does the YouTube Data API support transcripts? ›
No. The official YouTube Data API v3 does not return video captions at all. You need to use the internal timed-text endpoint, which is unofficial and changes without warning, or a dedicated transcript API like CreatorCrawl.
Can I use YouTube transcripts for AI workflows? ›
Yes. The plain-text output feeds straight into LLM summarisation, sentiment analysis, topic modelling, RAG retrieval, fine-tuning, and semantic search pipelines. Always ensure your downstream use complies with YouTube Terms of Service and applicable copyright laws.
Need Bulk YouTube Transcripts?
The CreatorCrawl API returns both plain-text and timestamped transcripts. Process thousands of videos programmatically. Start with 250 free credits.