YouTube Transcript Actor ## 📌 Introduction ### 🎯 What is this actor? The YouTube Transcript Actor is a powerful tool designed to extract transcripts from YouTube videos. It takes a YouTube video URL as input and returns the transcript in a structured format. ### 🚀 Key Features - Extract transcripts from YouTube videos - Support for multiple languages - Option to include timestamps - Clean text formatting - JSON output for easy integration ### 🔍 Use Cases - Content creators can generate subtitles for their videos - Researchers can perform sentiment analysis or text processing on video transcripts - Accessibility advocates can make video content more accessible --- ## 📥 Inputs ### 📝 What does the actor take in? The YouTube Transcript Actor accepts the following inputs: - startUrls (required): A list of YouTube video URLs to extract transcripts from. - includeTimestamps (optional): A toggle to include timestamps in the output (Yes/No). ### 🔒 Restrictions - You must provide a valid YouTube URL. - Some videos do not have transcripts available (e.g., live streams, private videos). ### ✅ Example Input json { "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPMJOaD-eZk"], "includeTimestamps": "Yes" } --- ## 📤 Outputs ### 📝 What does the actor return? The actor produces: - A clean transcript (default: plain text) - Timestamps (optional) - JSON format for structured data processing ### ⚠️ Restrictions - If a video has no transcript available, the result will be null. ### ✅ Example Outputs #### 🔹 Without Timestamps (includeTimestamps: "No") json { "transcript": "We have skewed the lines. We are no longer raising women in our culture..." } #### 🔹 With Timestamps (includeTimestamps: "Yes") json { "transcript": [ { "timestamp": "0:01", "text": "We've skewed the lines." }, { "timestamp": "0:04", "text": "We are no longer raising women in our culture." } ] } --- ## ⚙️ How to Use ### 🏁 Running the Actor 1. Log in or Sign up on Apify. 2. Create a new task and select "YouTube Transcript Actor". 3. Enter the YouTube video URL(s) in the startUrls field. 4. Choose whether to include timestamps (includeTimestamps: "Yes" or "No"). 5. Start the task and receive your transcript in JSON format. ### 📊 Interpreting Results - If timestamps are enabled, the transcript is returned as an array of objects ([{ timestamp, text }]). - If timestamps are disabled, the transcript is returned as plain text. --- ## 🛠️ Troubleshooting ### ❌ Common Issues & Fixes | Issue | Possible Cause | Solution | | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | | Transcript not found | Video has no transcript available | Choose another video | | Invalid URL error | URL is incorrect or missing | Ensure the URL is valid | | Empty transcript | YouTube restricted the transcript | Try another video or region | --- ## 🔗 Additional Resources - Apify Platform - Check out my profile --- ## 🙌 Acknowledgments This actor was built with the support of the Apify community and the YouTube API. Special thanks to all contributors! 🎉