Package: youtube-transcript-api
YouTube Transcript/Subtitle API (including automatically generated subtitles and subtitle translations)This is a python API which allows you to get 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!InstallIt is recommended toinstall this module by using pip:pip install youtube-transcript-apiIf you want to use it from source, you'll have to install the dependencies manually:pip install -r requirements.txtYou can either integrate this moduleinto an existing application, or just use it via anCLI.APIThe easiest way to get a transcript for a given video is to execute:fromyoutube_transcript_apiimportYouTubeTranscriptApiYouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(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 different language's transcript, please read the section below.This will return a list of dictionaries looking somewhat like this:[{'text':'Hey there','start':7.58,'duration':6.13},{'text':'how are you','start':14.08,'duration':7.58},# ...]Retrieve different languagesYou can add thelanguagesparam if you want to make sure the transcripts are retrieved in your desired language (it defaults to english).YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(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 atlist_transcripts().If you only want one language, you still need to format thelanguagesargument as a listYouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id,languages=['de'])Batch fetching of transcriptsTo get transcripts for a list of video ids you can call:YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcripts(["video_id1","video_id2"],languages=['de','en'])languagesalso is optional here.Preserve formattingYou can also addpreserve_formatting=Trueif you'd like to keep HTML formatting elements such as<i>(italics) and<b>(bold).YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcripts(video_ids,languages=['de','en'],preserve_formatting=True)List available transcriptsIf you want to list all transcripts which are available for a given video you can call:transcript_list=YouTubeTranscriptApi.list_transcripts(video_id)This will return aTranscriptListobject  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 picks manually created transcripts over automatically created ones, if a transcript in the requested language is available both manually created and generated. TheTranscriptListallows you to bypass this default behaviour by searching for specific transcript types:# filter for manually created transcriptstranscript=transcript_list.find_manually_created_transcript(['de','en'])# or automatically generated onestranscript=transcript_list.find_generated_transcript(['de','en'])The methodsfind_generated_transcript,find_manually_created_transcript,find_transcriptreturnTranscriptobjects. They contain metadata regarding the transcript:print(transcript.video_id,transcript.language,transcript.language_code,# whether it has been manually created or generated by YouTubetranscript.is_generated,# whether this transcript can be translated or nottranscript.is_translatable,# a list of languages the transcript can be translated totranscript.translation_languages,)and provide the method, which allows you to fetch the actual transcript data:transcript.fetch()Translate transcriptYouTube has a feature which allows you to automatically translate subtitles. This module also makes it possible to access this feature. To do soTranscriptobjects provide atranslate()method, which returns a new translatedTranscriptobject:transcript=transcript_list.find_transcript(['en'])translated_transcript=transcript.translate('de')print(translated_transcript.fetch())By examplefromyoutube_transcript_apiimportYouTubeTranscriptApi# retrieve the available transcriptstranscript_list=YouTubeTranscriptApi.list_transcripts('video_id')# iterate over all available transcriptsfortranscriptintranscript_list:# the Transcript object provides metadata propertiesprint(transcript.video_id,transcript.language,transcript.language_code,# whether it has been manually created or generated by YouTubetranscript.is_generated,# whether this transcript can be translated or nottranscript.is_translatable,# a list of languages the transcript can be translated totranscript.translation_languages,)# fetch the actual transcript dataprint(transcript.fetch())# translating the transcript will return another transcript objectprint(transcript.translate('en').fetch())# you can also directly filter for the language you are looking for, using the transcript listtranscript=transcript_list.find_transcript(['de','en'])# or just filter for manually created transcriptstranscript=transcript_list.find_manually_created_transcript(['de','en'])# or automatically generated onestranscript=transcript_list.find_generated_transcript(['de','en'])Using FormattersFormatters are meant to be an additional layer of processing of the transcript you pass it. The goal is to convert the transcript from its Python data type into a consistent string of a given "format". Such as a basic text (.txt) or even formats that have a defined specification such as JSON (.json), WebVTT (.vtt), SRT (.srt), Comma-separated format (.csv), etc...Theformatterssubmodule provides a few basic formatters to wrap around you transcript data in cases where you might want to do something such as output a specific format then write that format to a file. Maybe to backup/store and run another script against at a later time.We provided a few subclasses of formatters to use:JSONFormatterPrettyPrintFormatterTextFormatterWebVTTFormatterSRTFormatterHere is how to import from theformattersmodule.# the base class to inherit from when creating your own formatter.fromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportFormatter# some provided subclasses, each outputs a different string format.fromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportJSONFormatterfromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportTextFormatterfromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportWebVTTFormatterfromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportSRTFormatterProvided Formatter ExampleLets say we wanted to retrieve a transcript and write that transcript as a JSON file in the same format as the API returned it as. That would look something like this:# your_custom_script.pyfromyoutube_transcript_apiimportYouTubeTranscriptApifromyoutube_transcript_api.formattersimportJSONFormatter# Must be a single transcript.transcript=YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id)formatter=JSONFormatter()# .format_transcript(transcript) turns the transcript into a JSON string.json_formatted=formatter.format_transcript(transcript)# Now we can write it out to a file.withopen('your_filename.json','w',encoding='utf-8')asjson_file:json_file.write(json_formatted)# Now should have a new JSON file that you can easily read back into Python.Passing extra keyword argumentsSince JSONFormatter leveragesjson.dumps()you can also forward keyword arguments into.format_transcript(transcript)such as making your file output prettier by forwarding theindent=2keyword argument.json_formatted=JSONFormatter().format_transcript(transcript,indent=2)Custom Formatter ExampleYou can implement your own formatter class. Just inherit from theFormatterbase class and ensure you implement theformat_transcript(self, transcript, **kwargs)andformat_transcripts(self, transcripts, **kwargs)methods which should ultimately return a string when called on your formatter instance.classMyCustomFormatter(Formatter):defformat_transcript(self,transcript,**kwargs):# Do your custom work in here, but return a string.return'your processed output data as a string.'defformat_transcripts(self,transcripts,**kwargs):# Do your custom work in here to format a list of transcripts, but return a string.return'your processed output data as a string.'CLIExecute the CLI script using the video ids as parameters and the results will be printed out to the command line:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ...The CLI also gives you the option to provide a list of preferred languages:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ... --languages de enYou can also specify if you want to exclude automatically generated or manually created subtitles:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ... --languages de en --exclude-generated
youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ... --languages de en --exclude-manually-createdIf you would prefer to write it into a file or pipe it into another application, you can also output the results as json using the following line:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ... --languages de en --format json > transcripts.jsonTranslating transcripts using the CLI is also possible:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> ... --languages en --translate deIf you are not sure which languages are available for a given video you can call, to list all available transcripts:youtube_transcript_api --list-transcripts <first_video_id>If a video's ID starts with a hyphen you'll have to mask the hyphen using\to prevent the CLI from mistaking it for a argument name. For example to get the transcript for the video with the ID-abc123run:youtube_transcript_api "\-abc123"ProxyYou can specify a https proxy, which will be used during the requests to YouTube:fromyoutube_transcript_apiimportYouTubeTranscriptApiYouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id,proxies={"https":"https://user:pass@domain:port"})As theproxiesdict is passed on to therequests.get(...)call, it follows theformat used by the requests library.Using the CLI:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> --https-proxy https://user:pass@domain:portCookiesSome videos are age restricted, so this module won't be able to access those videos without some sort of authentication. To do this, you will need to have access to the desired video in a browser. Then, you will need to download that pages cookies into a text file. You can use the Chrome extensioncookies.txtor the Firefox extensioncookies.txt.Once you have that, you can use it with the module to access age-restricted videos' captions like so.fromyoutube_transcript_apiimportYouTubeTranscriptApiYouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id,cookies='/path/to/your/cookies.txt')YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcripts([video_id],cookies='/path/to/your/cookies.txt')Using the CLI:youtube_transcript_api <first_video_id> <second_video_id> --cookies /path/to/your/cookies.txtWarningThis code uses an undocumented part of the YouTube API, which is called by the YouTube web-client. So there is no guarantee that it won't stop working tomorrow, if they change how things work. I will however do my best to make things working again as soon as possible if that happens. So if it stops working, let me know!DonationIf this project makes you happy by reducing your development time, you can make me happy by treating me to a cup of coffee :)