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youtube-transcript

youtube-transcript

github.com/connoradsProductivity1871 installsUpdated today
Repository

About youtube-transcript

YouTube Transcript is a script-based skill for retrieving available captions from a YouTube video using youtube-transcript-api. It accepts video URLs or IDs and can output plain text or timestamped segments.

Key features

  1. 01Fetch available video captions
  2. 02Accept YouTube URLs or video IDs
  3. 03Output plain text captions
  4. 04Optionally include timestamps

Use cases

  1. 01Retrieve captions for a video
  2. 02Create a timestamped transcript
  3. 03Save transcript text to a file

Install

Copy the command and run it in a terminal.

$npx skills add https://github.com/connorads/dotfiles --skill youtube-transcript

After installing, type/youtube-transcriptin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.

Bundled filesscripts/get_transcript.py

Details

From the project README

YouTube Transcript

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos using the youtube-transcript-api.

Usage

Run the script with a YouTube URL or video ID:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID"

With timestamps:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID" --timestamps

Defaults

  • Without timestamps (default): Plain text, one line per caption segment
  • With timestamps: [MM:SS] text format (or [HH:MM:SS] for longer videos)

Supported URL Formats

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
  • Raw video ID (11 characters)

Output

  • CRITICAL: YOU MUST NEVER MODIFY THE RETURNED TRANSCRIPT
  • If the transcript is without timestamps, you SHOULD clean it up so that it is arranged by complete paragraphs and the lines don't cut in the middle of sentences.
  • If you were asked to save the transcript to a specific file, save it to the requested file.
  • If no output file was specified, use the YouTube video ID with a -transcript.txt suffix.

Notes

  • Fetches auto-generated or manually added captions (whichever is available)
  • Requires the video to have captions enabled
  • Falls back to auto-generated captions if manual ones aren't available

Comments

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