✨ YouTube Transcript API ✨

This is a python API which allows you to retrieve the transcript/subtitles for a given YouTube video. It also works for automatically generated subtitles, supports translating subtitles and it does not require a headless browser, like other selenium based solutions do!

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Install

It is recommended to install this module by using pip:

pip install youtube-transcript-api

You can either integrate this module into an existing application or just use it via a CLI.

API

The easiest way to get a transcript for a given video is to execute:

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
ytt_api.fetch(video_id)

Note: By default, this will try to access the English transcript of the video. If your video has a different language, or you are interested in fetching a transcript in a different language, please read the section below.

Note: Pass in the video ID, NOT the video URL. For a video with the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12345 the ID is 12345.

This will return a FetchedTranscript object looking somewhat like this:

FetchedTranscript(
    snippets=[
        FetchedTranscriptSnippet(
            text="Hey there",
            start=0.0,
            duration=1.54,
        ),
        FetchedTranscriptSnippet(
            text="how are you",
            start=1.54,
            duration=4.16,
        ),
        # ...
    ],
    video_id="12345",
    language="English",
    language_code="en",
    is_generated=False,
)

This object implements most interfaces of a List:

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
fetched_transcript = ytt_api.fetch(video_id)

# is iterable
for snippet in fetched_transcript:
    print(snippet.text)

# indexable
last_snippet = fetched_transcript[-1]

# provides a length
snippet_count = len(fetched_transcript)

If you prefer to handle the raw transcript data you can call fetched_transcript.to_raw_data(), which will return a list of dictionaries:

[
    {
        'text': 'Hey there',
        'start': 0.0,
        'duration': 1.54
    },
    {
        'text': 'how are you',
        'start': 1.54
        'duration': 4.16
    },
    # ...
]

Retrieve different languages

You can add the languages param if you want to make sure the transcripts are retrieved in your desired language (it defaults to english).

YouTubeTranscriptApi().fetch(video_id, languages=['de', 'en'])

It's a list of language codes in a descending priority. In this example it will first try to fetch the german transcript ('de') and then fetch the english transcript ('en') if it fails to do so. If you want to find out which languages are available first, have a look at list().

If you only want one language, you still need to format the languages argument as a list

YouTubeTranscriptApi().fetch(video_id, languages=['de'])

Preserve formatting

You can also add preserve_formatting=True if you'd like to keep HTML formatting elements such as <i> (italics) and <b> (bold).

YouTubeTranscriptApi().fetch(video_ids, languages=['de', 'en'], preserve_formatting=True)

List available transcripts

If you want to list all transcripts which are available for a given video you can call:

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript_list = ytt_api.list(video_id)

This will return a TranscriptList object which is iterable and provides methods to filter the list of transcripts for specific languages and types, like:

transcript = transcript_list.find_transcript(['de', 'en'])

By default this module always chooses manually created transcripts over automatically created ones, if a transcript in the requested language is available both manually created and generated. The TranscriptList allows you to bypass this default behaviour by searching for specific transcript types:

# filter for manually created transcripts
transcript = transcript_list.find_manually_created_transcript(['de', 'en'])

# or automatically generated ones
transcript = transcript_list.find_generated_transcript(['de', 'en'])

The methods find_generated_transcript, find_manually_created_transcript, find_transcript return Transcript objects. They contain metadata regarding the transcript:

print(
    transcript.video_id,
    transcript.language,
    transcript.language_code,
    # whether it has been manually created or generated by YouTube
    transcript.is_generated,
    # whether this transcript can be translated or not
    transcript.is_translatable,
    # a list of languages the transcript can be translated to
    transcript.translation_languages,
)

and provide the method, which allows you to fetch the actual transcript data:

transcript.fetch()

This returns a FetchedTranscript object, just like YouTubeTranscriptApi().fetch() does.

Translate transcript

YouTube has a feature which allows you to automatically translate subtitles. This module also makes it possible to access this feature. To do so Transcript objects provide a translate() method, which returns a new translated Transcript object:

transcript = transcript_list.find_transcript(['en'])
translated_transcript = transcript.translate('de')
print(translated_transcript.fetch())

By example

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()

# retrieve the available transcripts
transcript_list = ytt_api.list('video_id')

# iterate over all available transcripts
for transcript in transcript_list:

    # the Transcript object provides metadata properties
    print(
        transcript.video_id,
        transcript.language,
        transcript.language_code,
        # whether it has been manually created or generated by YouTube
        transcript.is_generated,
        # whether this transcript can be translated or not
        transcript.is_translatable,
        # a list of languages the transcript can be translated to
        transcript.translation_languages,
    )

    # fetch the actual transcript data
    print(transcript.fetch())

    # translating the transcript will return another transcript object
    print(transcript.translate('en').fetch())

# you can also directly filter for the language you are looking for, using the transcript list
transcript = transcript_list.find_transcript(['de', 'en'])  

# or just filter for manually created transcripts  
transcript = transcript_list.find_manually_created_transcript(['de', 'en'])  

# or automatically generated ones  
transcript = transcript_list.find_generated_transcript(['de', 'en'])

Working around IP bans (RequestBlocked or IpBlocked exception)

Unfortunately, YouTube has started blocking most IPs that are known to belong to cloud providers (like AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Azure, etc.), which means you will most likely run into RequestBlocked or IpBlocked exceptions when deploying your code to any cloud solutions. Same can happen to the IP of your self-hosted solution, if you are doing too many requests. You can work around these IP bans using proxies. However, since YouTube will ban static proxies after extended use, going for rotating residential proxies provide is the most reliable option.

There are different providers that offer rotating residential proxies, but after testing different offerings I have found Webshare to be the most reliable and have therefore integrated it into this module, to make setting it up as easy as possible.

Using Webshare

Once you have created a Webshare account and purchased a "Residential" proxy package that suits your workload (make sure NOT to purchase "Proxy Server" or "Static Residential"!), open the Webshare Proxy Settings to retrieve your "Proxy Username" and "Proxy Password". Using this information you can initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi as follows:

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
from youtube_transcript_api.proxies import WebshareProxyConfig

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi(
    proxy_config=WebshareProxyConfig(
        proxy_username="<proxy-username>",
        proxy_password="<proxy-password>",
    )
)

# all requests done by ytt_api will now be proxied through Webshare
ytt_api.fetch(video_id)

Using the WebshareProxyConfig will default to using rotating residential proxies and requires no further configuration.

You can also limit the pool of IPs that you will be rotating through to those located in specific countries. By choosing locations that are close to the machine that is running your code, you can reduce latency. Also, this can be used to work around location-based restrictions.

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi(
    proxy_config=WebshareProxyConfig(
        proxy_username="<proxy-username>",
        proxy_password="<proxy-password>",
        filter_ip_locations=["de", "us"],
    )
)

# Webshare will now only rotate through IPs located in Germany or the United States!
ytt_api.fetch(video_id)

You can find the full list of available locations (and how many IPs are available in each location) here.

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However, you are of course free to integrate your own proxy solution using the GenericProxyConfig class, if you prefer using another provider or want to implement your own solution, as covered by the following section.

Using other Proxy solutions

Alternatively to using Webshare, you can set up any generic HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy using the GenericProxyConfig class:

```python from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi from youtube_transcript_api.proxies import GenericProxyConfig

ytt_api = YouTubeTranscriptApi( proxy_config=GenericProx