Export format
YouTube to JSON
Get a YouTube transcript as structured JSON: the video id, URL, title, channel, language and duration, the full text, and a segments array with the start time and duration of every caption line.
How it works
- Paste a YouTube video link or ID.
- Preview the JSON.
- Download the .json file, or call the API for the same shape from code.
What the JSON export looks like
Real output for “Me at the zoo”, the first video on YouTube, produced by the same code as the tool above.
{
"video_id": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
"title": "Me at the zoo",
"channel": "jawed",
"language": "en",
"duration_seconds": 19,
"transcript": "",
"segments": [
{
"start": 1.2,
"duration": 2.16,
"text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants"
},
{
"start": 5.318,
"duration": 2.656,
"text": "the cool thing about these guys is that they have really..."
},
{
"start": 7.974,
"duration": 4.642,
"text": "really really long trunks"
},
{
"start": 12.616,
"duration": 1.751,
"text": "and that's cool"
},
{
"start": 14.421,
"duration": 1.312,
"text": "(baaaaaaaaaaahhh!!)"
},
{
"start": 16.881,
"duration": 2,
"text": "and that's pretty much all there is to say"
}
]
}Who it's for
- Developers building on transcripts
- RAG and search pipelines that need timestamps per chunk
- Data work in Python, JavaScript or jq
Other formats
Need this for many videos?
Pull a playlist's transcripts with the playlist tool, or get the same data from code with the transcript API and MCP server.
YouTube to JSON: questions
Is this the same JSON the API returns?
It carries the same data: metadata, the full transcript and timed segments. From code, the REST API returns it directly, with no browser step.
How do I get JSON for many videos?
Use the REST API or the Python and Node.js SDKs, one request per video, or ask an AI assistant through the MCP server.
What if a video has no captions?
The tool can only export captions YouTube already has, creator-written or auto-generated. Videos with captions turned off have nothing to export, and the tool tells you so.
