Use Case

Transcribe YouTube Podcasts Automatically

The Problem

Millions of podcasts are hosted on YouTube but lack searchable transcripts. Podcast listeners cannot search for specific topics discussed in episodes, and podcast creators miss SEO opportunities from text content. Manual transcription services are expensive and slow.

The Solution

YouTubeTranscripts.co transcribes any YouTube podcast automatically. For episodes with existing captions, we extract them instantly. For episodes without captions, our Whisper-powered AI transcribes the audio accurately. Get full episode transcripts that you can search, index, and repurpose.

Implementation Example

import httpx

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"

# Transcribe a podcast episode
response = httpx.get(
    "https://api.youtubetranscripts.co/v1/transcript",
    params={
        "url": "https://youtube.com/watch?v=PODCAST_EPISODE_ID",
        "format": "text",
    },
    headers={"x-api-key": API_KEY},
)
data = response.json()

print(f"Episode: {data['title']}")
print(f"Duration: {data['duration'] // 60} minutes")
print(f"\nFull Transcript:\n{data['text']}")

# Save as a text file
with open(f"{data['title']}.txt", "w") as f:
    f.write(data["text"])

Why Developers Choose YouTubeTranscripts.co

Transcribe podcast episodes of any length

AI fallback for episodes without captions

Full text output for blog posts and show notes

Timed segments for creating chapter markers

Batch API for transcribing entire podcast series

SRT output for adding subtitles to podcast videos

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