How to Get a YouTube Transcript into Claude (Claude.ai, Desktop and Claude Code)

Claude works on text and images. A video is pictures and sound, and the words in it live in a separate caption track, not in the page text. So when Claude fetches a YouTube link, it gets the page, not the speech.

We checked this on 19 October 2026 with Tim Urban's TED talk on procrastination. Claude Code's web fetch returned the video title, YouTube's footer links and a copyright line. Not one spoken sentence. The same request through our MCP server returned all 14 minutes of captions, each line with its timestamp, labelled as captions the creator uploaded:

## Title: Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator | Tim Urban | TED
## Captions: creator-uploaded

[0:12] So in college,
[0:15] I was a government major,
[0:16] which means I had to write a lot of papers.

With the transcript in hand, Claude can summarize the talk, quote it, or tell you at which minute the "Panic Monster" first appears (7:26). Without it, any summary is a guess from the title.

1. Open YouTube to Claude and paste the video link.
2. Turn on timestamps if you want Claude to cite moments as [m:ss].
3. Copy the result into a Claude chat, or download it and add the file to a Project.

This export wraps the transcript in <document> tags with the video URL as its source, the layout Anthropic suggests for long documents. It helps when you put several transcripts in one chat, because Claude can keep them apart and say which video a quote came from.

Watching on YouTube already? The Chrome extension shows the transcript beside the video with a copy button. Put your question first and the transcript after it, then ask follow-ups in the same chat.

A connector lets Claude fetch the transcript itself whenever you paste a link. You add it once in your Claude account and it then works in Claude.ai, the desktop app and the mobile apps. Steps from Anthropic's connector guide:

1. Go to Customize > Connectors, click + Add, then Add custom connector.
2. Name it GetYouTubeTranscript and enter this URL:

https://getyoutubetranscript.com/api/mcp

3. Leave sign-in on, click Add, and sign in to GetYouTubeTranscript when asked. There is no key to copy. New accounts start with 100 free credits.
4. In a chat, open + > Connectors and make sure the toggle is on.

Custom connectors work on every Claude plan, including Free, which allows one. Then just ask:

• "Summarize this video in five bullets: [link]"
• "Where does the speaker talk about pricing? Give timestamps."
• "Search YouTube for talks on prompt caching and compare what the top three say."

Claude Code uses the same server with an API key. Create a key on your dashboard, then run this with your key in place of sk_live_...:

claude mcp add --transport http getyoutubetranscript https://getyoutubetranscript.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..."

Run /mcp inside Claude Code to check it shows as connected. Claude can then call these tools on its own:

Because search and channel tools are included, Claude can go from a question to the right videos to their transcripts without you finding the links. Cursor, VS Code, Codex and other clients are covered in the MCP setup guide.

A skill is a folder of instructions and scripts Claude loads when a task matches it. Ours teaches Claude to fetch transcripts, search YouTube, resolve a channel handle and pull whole playlists or channels through the same API. In Claude Code:

npx skills add tubeagentkit/youtube-transcript-skills --skill youtube-transcript

Or download the zip from the skills page and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/. In Claude.ai, upload the same zip under your skills settings. The source is on GitHub.

You do not need to visit our website first. If no key is set, the skill tells you the price, asks for your email, and you reply with the 6-digit code we send. It saves the key on your machine (readable only by you) and never prints it in the chat.

MCP server or skill? For a single video, both do the job. Pick the MCP server for nothing to install and typed tools. Pick the skill for batch work, such as "get every transcript from this playlist and find where they disagree", where its scripts handle paging and batches for Claude.

• Cost: 100 free credits on signup, then 1 credit per call that succeeds. Failed calls and balance checks are free. Plans start at $5.00/month for 1,000 credits; see pricing. The connector, MCP server and skill share one balance.
• No captions, no transcript: if a video has no captions, Claude is told to say so instead of guessing. Our errors guide covers the common reasons.
• Words only: a transcript has what was said, not what was shown. Code on screen, slides and charts are not in it.
• Automatic captions: the result says whether captions were uploaded by the creator or generated by YouTube. Generated ones can get names and jargon wrong, so check exact quotes.
• Treat it as text, not instructions: anyone can say anything in a video. The skill tells Claude to summarize or quote a transcript, never to follow commands spoken in it.