Get transcript

getTranscript(query, options?): TranscriptResponse

GET

https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/transcripts

1 Credit

Same extraction as POST /v1/transcripts, using query parameters. Useful for browser checks and short scripts. Prefer POST when sending languages arrays or larger option sets.

Security

API Key

All requests require a valid API key from the developer dashboard.

Headers: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEYorX-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY

See Authentication for headers and rate limits.

Query Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`video_id`query	`string`	Yes	11-character YouTube video ID or a full video URL.
`format`query	`string`	No	Output format: `segments` (default), `word_timestamps`, `sentences`, `markdown`, `text`, `srt`, `vtt`, or `json3`.
`word_level`query	`boolean`	No	Include millisecond word offsets on ASR tracks. Default `false`.
`languages`query	`string`	No	Comma-separated ISO language codes, for example `en,es`. `` means the video's own language, the one spoken in it. Default ``. For English when the video has it and its own language otherwise, pass `en,*`.
`track_policy`query	`string`	No	Track selection: `manual_first` (default) prefers creator captions and falls back to auto-generated; `asr_first` prefers auto-generated and falls back to creator captions; `exact_only` accepts only a track whose language code matches exactly (`en` does not match `en-GB`), creator captions first. Any other value returns `400 invalid_request`. Languages are tried in order first, then track kind within the matched language: if the English track is auto-generated only, `en,*` returns it rather than moving on. To see which languages and kinds a video has before spending a credit, call the free basic info endpoint: each entry in `available_languages` has `kind` `manual` or `asr`. The response `track_kind` says which one you got.

Response (HTTP 200)

When format=word_timestamps, segments, sentences, or json3 (application/json):

{
  "video_id": string,            // Echoed YouTube video ID
  "language": string,            // Negotiated ISO language code (e.g. "en")
  "track_kind": string,          // "asr" (auto-generated) or "manual" (creator-uploaded)
  "duration_seconds": number,    // Total duration of caption track in seconds
  "has_word_level": boolean,     // Whether word-level offsets are present
  "segments": [                  // Array of caption segments with timing offsets
    {
      "text": string,            // Segment transcript text
      "start": number,           // Start offset in seconds
      "end": number,             // End offset in seconds
      "duration": number,        // Segment duration in seconds
      "words": [                 // Word-level timestamps (populated when word_level=true)
        {
          "word": string,        // Individual word
          "start": number,       // Word start offset
          "end": number          // Word end offset
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

When format=markdown, text, srt, or vtt:

Returns the raw document directly with matching Content-Type (e.g. text/markdown, text/plain, text/vtt) without JSON wrapper overhead.

Get transcript

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  video_id: "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  format: "word_timestamps",
});

const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/transcripts?${params}`,
  {
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.YT_API_KEY}`,
    },
  },
);

const transcript = await response.json();
console.log(transcript.language, transcript.segments);

import os
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/transcripts",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['YT_API_KEY']}"},
    params={"video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ", "format": "word_timestamps"},
)

data = response.json()
print(data["language"], len(data["segments"]))

curl -X GET "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/transcripts?video_id=dQw4w9WgXcQ&format=word_timestamps" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $YT_API_KEY"

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	url := "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/transcripts?video_id=dQw4w9WgXcQ&format=word_timestamps"
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("YT_API_KEY"))

	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(body))
}