# jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api

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 and it does not require an API key nor a headless browser, like other selenium based solutions do!

Repository: https://github.com/jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/youtube-transcript-api
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: youtube-api, subtitles, youtube, transcripts, youtube-subtitles, youtube-transcripts, python, transcript, subtitle, cli, captions, youtube-captions, youtube-transcript, youtube-video, translating-transcripts, asr, youtube-asr
Last push: 2026-05-19T18:17:07+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 81/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 83, release rhythm 68, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3057, "days_push": 106, "days_rel": 216, "gap_med": 17, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 8116, forks 820 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:13.254532+00:00)

## What it is
A Python library and CLI that retrieves transcripts and subtitles for YouTube videos, including auto-generated captions, with subtitle translation support. It requires no API key and no headless browser, unlike selenium-based alternatives.

## Use cases
- get the transcript of a youtube video in python
- download subtitles for a youtube video without an api key
- fetch auto-generated captions from youtube
- translate youtube subtitles to another language
- scrape youtube transcripts for text analysis
- extract captions from youtube videos for a dataset

## When to choose
- you need YouTube transcripts programmatically without an API key or headless browser
- you want a lightweight Python library or CLI for captions including auto-generated ones
- you need subtitle translation support

## When to avoid
- you need to download video or audio files themselves, not just transcripts
- you need transcripts from platforms other than YouTube
- you require an officially supported YouTube Data API integration

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: http-client, cli, nlp
- domain: developer-tools, media, apis
- platform: python, cli, cross-platform
- tags: youtube, subtitles, transcripts, captions, youtube-api, no-api-key, asr, natural-language-processing

## Member repositories
- jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api (main) score 81

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:13.254532+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:30:38.178173+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:13.254532+00:00, sha 0dddc25dca6e)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/youtube-transcript-api/json (fetched 2026-08-29T08:28:41.570574+00:00, sha bfad9a130ad7)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.