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Associated Press APIYouTube transcript
Last updated October 29, 2026.
What YouTube transcript means
A YouTube transcript is a video's caption track read as text. Each caption line has a start time and a duration, so the transcript can be read straight through or used to jump to the moment something was said.
Captions come from two places. The uploader can add their own, which are usually accurate and punctuated. Otherwise YouTube often generates automatic captions by speech recognition, which miss punctuation and misspell names and technical terms. A video can have tracks in several languages, from either source.
Clair's YouTube Transcript API returns one caption track of a public video as JSON: the full text, and segments with start_ms and duration_ms. kind says whether the track is the uploader's (manual) or YouTube's (auto).
How to get the transcript of a YouTube video
- On youtube.com: open the video, expand the description, and choose Show transcript. The transcript opens beside the video with a timestamp on every line, and you can copy it from there.
- With YouTube's own API: the YouTube Data API downloads a caption track only for a video the signed-in user can edit, so it works for your own channel, not for other people's videos.
- With a transcript API: an API such as Clair's reads the caption track any viewer can see and returns it as text and timed segments, for any public video, from a link or an id.
How it appears in a response
GET /v1/youtube/transcript?video_id=jNQXAC9IVRw · transcript.segments
[
{
"start_ms": 1200,
"duration_ms": 2160,
"text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants"
},
{
"start_ms": 5318,
"duration_ms": 2656,
"text": "the cool thing about these guys is that they have really..."
},
{
"start_ms": 7974,
"duration_ms": 4642,
"text": "really really long trunks"
},
{
"start_ms": 12616,
"duration_ms": 1751,
"text": "and that's cool"
},
{
"start_ms": 14421,
"duration_ms": 1312,
"text": "(baaaaaaaaaaahhh!!)"
},
{
"start_ms": 16881,
"duration_ms": 2000,
"text": "and that's pretty much all there is to say"
}
]Common questions
Does every YouTube video have a transcript?
No. A video has one only if it has captions: the uploader's, or automatic ones YouTube generated. Videos with neither, and many music videos, have none.
Are automatic captions accurate?
They are usable for search and summaries but contain errors, especially with names, jargon, accents, and overlapping speech. Use the uploader's captions when the video has them.
Can I get a transcript in another language?
Yes, when the video has a caption track in that language. Clair's language parameter picks the track and lists the available languages when the one you ask for is missing.
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