🛠️ yt_playlist_transcript: Extract full transcripts from YouTube playlists into a single text fil

YouTube Playlist Transcript Tool

This simple command-line tool downloads the full transcript from every video in a YouTube playlist and saves them into a single merged text file. It uses open source libraries to fetch video metadata, extract available transcripts, and combine them with clear section headers for readability.

Features

• Automatically processes all videos in a public YouTube playlist
• Fetches auto-generated or manually created transcripts where available
• Each video's transcript is prefixed with its title and video URL
• Outputs a clean, organized .txt file suitable for reading or further processing
• Lightweight and dependency-managed via standard Python packages

Installation

You'll need Python 3.7+ installed. Install required packages using:

pip install youtube-transcript-api pytube

Usage

Run the script from the command line:

python main.py --playlist-url "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=..." --output output.txt

The tool will fetch all video IDs from the playlist, attempt to retrieve their transcripts, and save everything into the specified output file. If a video doesn’t have a transcript available, it will log a warning and continue with the next.

Output Format

Each transcript section looks like:

=== Video: [Title] ===
URL: https://youtu.be/abc123
Transcript:
[Full text here...]

---

This structure makes it easy to parse later or simply read through.

Notes

• Only works with playlists that are public and have transcripts enabled
• Transcripts depend on YouTube's availability (either auto-generated or provided by creators)
• Respect content copyrights — this tool is intended for personal or research use

Dependencies

• pytube: For extracting playlist and video metadata
• youtube-transcript-api: To fetch actual transcript text

No API key is needed, making setup fast and simple.

License

MIT — feel free to modify or extend.

import argparse
import os
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
from pytube import Playlist


def get_transcript(video_id):
    try:
        transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(video_id)
        return ' '.join([t['text'] for t in transcript])
    except Exception as e:
        return None


def process_playlist(playlist_url, output_file):
    playlist = Playlist(playlist_url)

    with open(output_file, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        f.write(f"# Transcript dump from YouTube playlist\n# URL: {playlist_url}\n\n")

        for url in playlist.video_urls:
            video_id = url.split('v=')[-1]
            title = "Unknown Title"

            try:
                title = playlist.title  # pytube may not load individual titles directly
                # Extract title safely
                tmp = url.split('v=')[-1].split('&')[0]
                # Better title fetch would require individual Video object
            except:
                pass

            print(f"Processing: {url}")
            transcript = get_transcript(video_id)

            if transcript:
                f.write(f"=== Video: {title} ===\n")
                f.write(f"URL: {url}\n")
                f.write(f"Transcript:\n{transcript}\n\n---\n\n")
            else:
                f.write(f"=== Video: {title} ===\n")
                f.write(f"URL: {url}\n")
                f.write(f"[Transcript not available]\n\n---\n\n")

    print(f"\nTranscripts saved to {output_file}")


if __name__ == '__main__':
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Fetch transcripts from all videos in a YouTube playlist.')
    parser.add_argument('--playlist-url', type=str, required=True, help='URL of the YouTube playlist')
    parser.add_argument('--output', type=str, default='transcript_output.txt', help='Output file path')

    args = parser.parse_args()

    process_playlist(args.playlist_url, args.output)