Researching a creator, building a dataset or feeding a channel into an LLM means hundreds of transcripts. Give the channel handle or a playlist link and get one row per video, newest first.
channels: @handle, channel URL or playlist link; maxVideosPerChannel sets how many.onlyNewVideos: true remembers what was delivered, so a daily schedule returns only new uploads.from apify_client import ApifyClient # pip install apify-client
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("fguiraud/youtube-transcript-scraper").call(run_input={
"channels": [
"@TED"
],
"maxVideosPerChannel": 20,
"languages": [
"en"
],
"outputs": [
"text"
]
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
print(item["title"], "-", item.get("wordCount"), "words")
No Python? Open the Actor page, paste your input in the form and press Start; results export to JSON, CSV or Excel.
Fields from a real run on 2026-09-26 (long values shortened):
{
"videoId": "QT3e6x5CZC8",
"status": "ok",
"title": "What if AI wasn’t a shortcut, but a learning partner? #TEDTalks",
"channel": "TED",
"language": "en",
"wordCount": 185,
"text": "A lot of the narrative, we saw that in the headlines, has been it's going to do the writing for kids, kids are not going to learn to write. But we are showing that there's ways that the AI doesn't write for you, it write..."
}
$0.003 per transcript. 100 videos cost $0.30.
How many videos can I get?
As many as the channel lists; set maxVideosPerChannel.
Does it include Shorts and live streams?
Shorts with captions, yes. Live streams have no transcript until they end.
Can an AI agent use it?
Yes. It is an MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fguiraud/youtube-transcript-scraper (listed in the official MCP registry), and there is an agent skill for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Field-name guesses such as url or urls are accepted.