How to Get YouTube Transcripts in Python

youtube-transcript-api is a well-maintained Python package that fetches YouTube's own caption data directly - no API key, no YouTube Data API quota.

pip install youtube-transcript-api

Fetch a transcript with a video ID:

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = api.fetch("dQw4w9WgXcQ", languages=["en"])

for snippet in transcript:
    print(snippet.text, snippet.start, snippet.duration)

This works reliably on a laptop. Deployed to a cloud server, it can hit real, well-documented failures - IP blocking, PoTokenRequired, and a 'transcripts disabled' error that isn't always what it looks like. See the full diagnostic checklist for the exact causes and fixes.

Grab a free key from the dashboard - 100 free credits, no card required.

pip install requests

No proxy pool, no IP-blocking maintenance - just an HTTP request:

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://getyoutubetranscript.com/api/v1/transcript",
    params={"v": "dQw4w9WgXcQ"},
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."},
)
result = response.json()

print(result["data"]["transcript"])
print(result["data"]["word_count"])

A failed request returns an error object instead of raising a library-specific exception, so the same error handling works across every endpoint.

{ "success": false, "code": "...", "message": "..." }

Looping over a list of video IDs works the same way - just watch your plan's requests-per-minute limit. See the rate limit guide for backoff and retry logic.