DEV Community

Walnut Serv
Walnut Serv

Posted on

How to Fetch YouTube Transcripts for AI Summarization and RAG

#ai #python #webdev #api

If you're building AI apps that summarize YouTube videos, power RAG over video content, or generate subtitles, you need reliable transcript text — not browser scraping that breaks every other week.

This guide shows a simple REST approach that returns JSON with timestamps, plain text, or raw timed cues.

Why transcripts matter for AI

  • Summarization — feed transcript text to GPT/Claude instead of sending video
  • RAG — chunk timed cues into a vector database for semantic search
  • Accessibility — build caption tools without manual SRT editing
  • Content indexing — search across a channel's spoken content

Quick start with curl 

curl "https://get-youtube-transcript.p.rapidapi.com/transcript?video_id=jNQXAC9IVRw&format=json" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Host: get-youtube-transcript.p.rapidapi.com"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Replace YOUR_KEY with a key from the YouTube Transcript API on RapidAPI. The Basic plan includes 100 free requests/month.

Python example 

import requests

API_URL = "https://get-youtube-transcript.p.rapidapi.com/transcript"
headers = {
    "X-RapidAPI-Key": "YOUR_KEY",
    "X-RapidAPI-Host": "get-youtube-transcript.p.rapidapi.com",
}
params = {"video_id": "jNQXAC9IVRw", "format": "json"}

data = requests.get(API_URL, headers=headers, params=params, timeout=60).json()

for cue in data["transcript"]:
    print(f"[{cue['start']:.1f}s] {cue['text']}")
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Response formats

format Use case
json LLM pipelines, metadata + timestamps
text Simple summarization
raw Subtitle/SRT workflows

Parameters

  • video_id — 11-char YouTube ID or pass url with full YouTube link
  • languages — comma-separated codes, e.g. en,pt

Production tip

For batch jobs (indexing hundreds of videos), upgrade to the Ultra plan on RapidAPI — 100k requests/month at $9. Test in the playground first with any public video ID.

Disclosure: I built this API. Feedback welcome — especially on languages, latency, and batch endpoints.

Try it: https://rapidapi.com/wrt/api/get-youtube-transcript

Top comments (0)