YouTube Transcript Download

Overview

Download transcripts (subtitles/captions) from YouTube videos. Supports auto-generated and manual captions in multiple languages.

Usage

/youtube-transcript <youtube_url> [options]

Options

• •--lang <code>: Language code (default: ko, en)
• •--format <type>: Output format - text, srt, json (default: text)
• •--output <path>: Save to file instead of displaying

Workflow

1. •

   Extract Video ID

   • •Parse the YouTube URL to extract the video ID
   • •Supports formats: youtube.com/watch?v=ID, youtu.be/ID, youtube.com/shorts/ID
2. •

   Fetch Transcript

   • •Use yt-dlp to download subtitles:
   bash

   yt-dlp --write-auto-sub --sub-lang ko,en --skip-download --sub-format srt -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "<url>"
   

   • •Or use Python youtube-transcript-api:
   python

   from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
   transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id, languages=['ko', 'en'])
   

3. •

   Format Output

   • •text: Plain text with timestamps removed
   • •srt: Standard subtitle format with timing
   • •json: Raw transcript data with start time and duration
4. •

   Save or Display

   • •Display in terminal if no output path specified
   • •Save to file if --output is provided

Examples

# Basic usage - get Korean/English transcript
/youtube-transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

# Get Japanese transcript
/youtube-transcript https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ --lang ja

# Save as SRT file
/youtube-transcript https://youtube.com/watch?v=xyz --format srt --output transcript.srt

# Get raw JSON data
/youtube-transcript https://youtube.com/watch?v=xyz --format json

Dependencies

Install one of these tools:

# Option 1: yt-dlp (recommended)
pip install yt-dlp

# Option 2: youtube-transcript-api (Python only, faster)
pip install youtube-transcript-api

Implementation

When executing this skill, Claude should:

1. •Parse the YouTube URL and extract video ID
2. •Check if required tools are installed
3. •Attempt to fetch transcript using available tool
4. •Format and display/save the result
5. •Handle errors gracefully (no captions available, video not found, etc.)

Python Script Template

import sys
import re
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
from youtube_transcript_api.formatters import TextFormatter, SRTFormatter, JSONFormatter

def extract_video_id(url):
    patterns = [
        r'(?:v=|/v/|youtu\.be/|/embed/|/shorts/)([^&?/]+)',
    ]
    for pattern in patterns:
        match = re.search(pattern, url)
        if match:
            return match.group(1)
    return None

def get_transcript(video_id, languages=['ko', 'en'], format='text'):
    transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id, languages=languages)

    if format == 'text':
        return TextFormatter().format_transcript(transcript)
    elif format == 'srt':
        return SRTFormatter().format_transcript(transcript)
    elif format == 'json':
        return JSONFormatter().format_transcript(transcript)

    return '\n'.join([item['text'] for item in transcript])

if __name__ == '__main__':
    url = sys.argv[1]
    video_id = extract_video_id(url)
    print(get_transcript(video_id))

Error Handling

• •No transcript available: Some videos don't have captions
• •Language not available: Fall back to available languages
• •Video not found: Invalid URL or private video
• •Rate limiting: Add delays between requests if processing multiple videos