Transcribe YouTube Videos

Fetch transcripts from any YouTube video. No API key required.

When to Activate

• User shares a YouTube URL and wants to discuss its content
• User asks "what did they say about X in this video?"
• User references a video and needs the transcript
• User wants to summarize, quote, or analyze video content

Workflow

Step 1: Extract Video ID

Parse the YouTube URL to extract the video ID. Handle these formats:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• VIDEO_ID (direct ID)

Step 2: Fetch Transcript

Run this single command that handles installation and fetching in one shot:

python3 -c "
try:
    from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
except ImportError:
    import subprocess, sys
    try:
        subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--user', '-q', 'youtube-transcript-api'])
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
        subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--break-system-packages', '-q', 'youtube-transcript-api'])
    from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

def fmt_time(seconds):
    m, s = divmod(int(seconds), 60)
    h, m = divmod(m, 60)
    return f'{h}:{m:02d}:{s:02d}' if h else f'{m}:{s:02d}'

api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = api.fetch('VIDEO_ID')

# Print with timestamps every ~30 seconds for navigation
last_ts = -30
for entry in transcript:
    if entry.start - last_ts >= 30:
        print(f'\n[{fmt_time(entry.start)}]')
        last_ts = entry.start
    print(entry.text)
"

Replace VIDEO_ID with the extracted ID.

Features:

• Self-installs dependency on first run (handles macOS Homebrew Python)
• Adds timestamp markers every ~30 seconds for easy video navigation
• Clean output without per-line timestamps (reduces noise)

Step 2b: Fetch Without Timestamps (Optional)

If you just need raw text without any timestamps:

python3 -c "
try:
    from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
except ImportError:
    import subprocess, sys
    try:
        subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--user', '-q', 'youtube-transcript-api'])
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
        subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--break-system-packages', '-q', 'youtube-transcript-api'])
    from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = api.fetch('VIDEO_ID')
for entry in transcript:
    print(f"{entry.start}: {entry.text}")
"

Step 3: Format Output

Present the transcript with:

1. A header indicating the video URL
2. The full transcript text (without timestamps for readability)
3. Optionally offer to save to a file if it's long

Error Handling

If the transcript fetch fails:

1. Check if the video has captions enabled
2. Try fetching auto-generated captions with language fallback:

python3 -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript_list = api.list(video_id='VIDEO_ID')
print('Available transcripts:')
for t in transcript_list:
    print(f'  - {t.language} ({t.language_code})')
"

Dependencies

Requires youtube-transcript-api Python package. The fetch script auto-installs it on first run, handling:

• Standard Python environments (--user install)
• macOS Homebrew Python (--break-system-packages fallback)

Manual install if needed:

pip3 install --user youtube-transcript-api
# or on macOS with Homebrew Python:
pip3 install --break-system-packages youtube-transcript-api