Have you ever wanted to extract the transcript from a YouTube video for note-taking, analysis, or content creation? In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through building a simple yet powerful Python script that does exactly that.

What We’re Building

Our script will:

  • Accept any YouTube URL as input
  • Extract the video transcript automatically
  • Display the transcript in the console
  • Optionally save it to a text file

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have:

  • Python 3.6 or higher installed
  • Basic understanding of Python syntax
  • pip (Python package manager)

Installation

First, we need to install the required library:

pip install youtube-transcript-api

This library handles all the heavy lifting of communicating with YouTube’s API to fetch transcripts.

The Complete Code

Here’s the full script we’ll be building:

"""
YouTube Transcript Extractor
Extracts and saves transcripts from YouTube videos in plain text format.
"""

import re
import sys

# Import the YouTube Transcript API
try:
    from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
    print("✓ YouTubeTranscriptApi imported successfully")
except ImportError as e:
    print(f"ERROR: Cannot import YouTubeTranscriptApi: {e}")
    print("\nPlease install: pip install youtube-transcript-api")
    sys.exit(1)

try:
    from youtube_transcript_api._errors import TranscriptsDisabled, NoTranscriptFound
    print("✓ Error classes imported successfully")
except ImportError:
    print("⚠ Warning: Could not import error classes (older version?)")
    class TranscriptsDisabled(Exception):
        pass
    class NoTranscriptFound(Exception):
        pass


def extract_video_id(url):
    """Extract video ID from various YouTube URL formats."""
    patterns = [
        r'(?:youtube\.com\/watch\?v=|youtu\.be\/)([^&\n?#]+)',
        r'youtube\.com\/embed\/([^&\n?#]+)',
        r'youtube\.com\/v\/([^&\n?#]+)'
    ]
    
    for pattern in patterns:
        match = re.search(pattern, url)
        if match:
            return match.group(1)
    
    return None


def get_transcript(video_url):
    """Fetch transcript for a YouTube video."""
    video_id = extract_video_id(video_url)
    
    if not video_id:
        print("Error: Invalid YouTube URL")
        return None
    
    print(f"✓ Extracted video ID: {video_id}")
    
    try:
        print("→ Fetching transcript...")
        
        # Create an instance and fetch transcript
        api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
        transcript_list = api.fetch(video_id)
        
        print(f"✓ Found {len(transcript_list)} transcript segments")
        
        # Combine all text segments
        transcript_text = ' '.join([entry.text for entry in transcript_list])
        
        return transcript_text
    
    except TranscriptsDisabled:
        print(f"✗ Error: Transcripts are disabled for this video (ID: {video_id})")
        return None
    
    except NoTranscriptFound:
        print(f"✗ Error: No transcript found for this video (ID: {video_id})")
        print("   This video may not have captions available.")
        return None
    
    except AttributeError as e:
        print(f"✗ Error: API method not found - {str(e)}")
        print(f"   Available methods: {dir(YouTubeTranscriptApi)}")
        return None
    
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"✗ Error: {type(e).__name__}: {str(e)}")
        return None


def save_transcript(transcript, filename="transcript.txt"):
    """Save transcript to a text file."""
    try:
        with open(filename, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
            f.write(transcript)
        print(f"\n✓ Transcript saved to: {filename}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"✗ Error saving file: {str(e)}")


def main():
    print("\n" + "="*50)
    print("YouTube Transcript Extractor")
    print("="*50 + "\n")
    
    # Get URL from user
    if len(sys.argv) > 1:
        video_url = sys.argv[1]
    else:
        video_url = input("Enter YouTube URL: ").strip()
    
    if not video_url:
        print("✗ Error: No URL provided")
        return
    
    print(f"\nProcessing: {video_url}\n")
    
    # Get transcript
    transcript = get_transcript(video_url)
    
    if transcript:
        print("\n" + "="*50)
        print("TRANSCRIPT")
        print("="*50 + "\n")
        print(transcript)
        print("\n" + "="*50)
        
        # Ask if user wants to save
        save_choice = input("\nSave transcript to file? (y/n): ").strip().lower()
        if save_choice == 'y':
            filename = input("Enter filename (default: transcript.txt): ").strip()
            if not filename:
                filename = "transcript.txt"
            if not filename.endswith('.txt'):
                filename += '.txt'
            save_transcript(transcript, filename)
    else:
        print("\n✗ Failed to retrieve transcript")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Code Breakdown

Let’s break down each component to understand how it works.

1. Importing Required Libraries

import re
import sys
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
from youtube_transcript_api._errors import TranscriptsDisabled, NoTranscriptFound
  • re: Regular expressions module for pattern matching (used to extract video IDs)
  • sys: System-specific parameters (used for command-line arguments and exit codes)
  • YouTubeTranscriptApi: The main class for fetching transcripts
  • Error classes: Specific exceptions for handling transcript-related errors

2. Extracting the Video ID

def extract_video_id(url):
    """Extract video ID from various YouTube URL formats."""
    patterns = [
        r'(?:youtube\.com\/watch\?v=|youtu\.be\/)([^&\n?#]+)',
        r'youtube\.com\/embed\/([^&\n?#]+)',
        r'youtube\.com\/v\/([^&\n?#]+)'
    ]
    
    for pattern in patterns:
        match = re.search(pattern, url)
        if match:
            return match.group(1)
    
    return None

This function handles different YouTube URL formats:

  • Standard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
  • Short: https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
  • Embed: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID

The regex patterns extract the 11-character video ID from these URLs.

3. Fetching the Transcript

def get_transcript(video_url):
    video_id = extract_video_id(video_url)
    
    if not video_id:
        print("Error: Invalid YouTube URL")
        return None
    
    try:
        api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
        transcript_list = api.fetch(video_id)
        transcript_text = ' '.join([entry.text for entry in transcript_list])
        return transcript_text
    except TranscriptsDisabled:
        print("Error: Transcripts are disabled for this video")
        return None
    except NoTranscriptFound:
        print("Error: No transcript found for this video")
        return None

Key steps:

  1. Extract the video ID from the URL
  2. Create an instance of the API
  3. Fetch the transcript segments
  4. Join all text segments into a single string
  5. Handle common errors gracefully

The transcript_list contains multiple segments (each with text and timestamp). We use a list comprehension to extract just the text: [entry.text for entry in transcript_list]

4. Saving to a File

def save_transcript(transcript, filename="transcript.txt"):
    """Save transcript to a text file."""
    try:
        with open(filename, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
            f.write(transcript)
        print(f"\n✓ Transcript saved to: {filename}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"✗ Error saving file: {str(e)}")

This function uses Python’s context manager (with statement) to safely write the transcript to a file. The encoding='utf-8' ensures proper handling of special characters.

5. The Main Function

def main():
    # Get URL from command line or user input
    if len(sys.argv) > 1:
        video_url = sys.argv[1]
    else:
        video_url = input("Enter YouTube URL: ").strip()
    
    # Fetch and display transcript
    transcript = get_transcript(video_url)
    
    if transcript:
        print(transcript)
        
        # Offer to save
        save_choice = input("\nSave transcript to file? (y/n): ").strip().lower()
        if save_choice == 'y':
            filename = input("Enter filename (default: transcript.txt): ").strip()
            if not filename:
                filename = "transcript.txt"
            save_transcript(transcript, filename)

The main function orchestrates everything:

  1. Gets the YouTube URL (from command line or user input)
  2. Fetches the transcript
  3. Displays it in the console
  4. Offers to save it to a file

Usage Examples

Interactive Mode

Simply run the script and enter the URL when prompted:

python transcript_generator.py

Command-Line Mode

Pass the URL as an argument:

python transcript_generator.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Example Output

==================================================
YouTube Transcript Extractor
==================================================

✓ Extracted video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
→ Fetching transcript...
✓ Found 1254 transcript segments

==================================================
TRANSCRIPT
==================================================

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...

==================================================

Save transcript to file? (y/n): y
Enter filename (default: transcript.txt): my_transcript.txt

✓ Transcript saved to: my_transcript.txt

Limitations and Considerations

Important notes:

  • This only works for videos with transcripts enabled (auto-generated or manual captions)
  • Some videos have transcripts disabled by their creators
  • Private or age-restricted videos may not be accessible
  • The transcript doesn’t include timestamps (but you can modify the code to include them)

Possible Enhancements

Want to take this project further? Here are some ideas:

  1. Add timestamp support: Include timestamps alongside the text
  2. Multiple languages: Fetch transcripts in different languages
  3. Batch processing: Process multiple videos at once
  4. GUI interface: Create a simple graphical interface using tkinter
  5. Format options: Export to PDF, DOCX, or JSON formats
  6. Search functionality: Search for specific words or phrases in the transcript

Conclusion

You’ve now built a functional YouTube transcript extractor! This script demonstrates several important programming concepts:

  • API interaction
  • Regular expressions
  • Error handling
  • File I/O operations
  • Command-line argument processing

Feel free to modify and extend this script for your own needs. Happy coding!

Source code: The complete code is available as a single Python file that you can copy and use immediately.

Questions or improvements? Leave a comment below or reach out. I’d love to hear how you’re using this script!