YouTube · free lookup

Get a YouTube transcript

Paste a public YouTube video link and get the spoken transcript, language, word count and timed segment count. Free with a Sourcevine account.

Public URLs only 2 credits a run Read time shown

2 credits per run, from your own balance. Sourcevine account required, no YouTube login. No account? Get 100 free credits, once →

How it works

From URL to result

Paste a public YouTube URL

Use a normal video link, Shorts link or watch URL. Channel URLs are refused before any lookup runs.
Read the transcript

The page returns the joined public transcript, language, word count and segment count.
Show timestamps

Turn on Show timestamps to list every timed segment, and Copy takes them with the text. Use the API to run the same read from your own code.

Recorded example

What a real one looked like

recorded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wq3VHsL_bE

Language: en
Timed segments: 3,817
Words: 19,460

A real response from /v1/youtube/transcript, kept so this page can show something true without spending anyone’s credits. Run the tool above for a live read of your own link.

Why Sourcevine

What to know about this lookup

No page scraping

Use one public video URL instead of parsing a moving YouTube page in your own browser.

Text and timestamps

Read the joined text, or show every timed segment and copy it with its timings. The API returns the same segments as structured data.

No-contact-data boundary

Transcript text is scrubbed with the same privacy boundary as the rest of Sourcevine.

Use cases

Where this lookup fits

Editors

Pull spoken words from a public video before writing clips, summaries or captions.
Researchers

Capture public statements as text with language and timing metadata available through the API.
Agent workflows

Give an agent a narrow transcript API instead of letting it scrape arbitrary YouTube HTML.

Boundaries

What this tool will not return

Public data only
Private accounts and restricted content are not accessed. Deleted resources return an availability status.
No contact fields
Bios, emails, phone numbers, addresses and messenger handles are outside this product boundary.
No AI rewrite
The free tool extracts the public transcript. Summaries, translations and rewriting are separate jobs.

Questions

Before you run it

Does it include timestamps?

Yes. Show timestamps lists every timed segment, and Copy then copies the transcript with them, one line per segment. The API returns the same segments with text, start and duration.

Does every video have a transcript?

No. If YouTube does not publish subtitles for the video, the tool returns an availability status instead of inventing text.

What does this not show me?

Private or restricted content, bios and contact details are not returned. A platform may show a sign-in prompt for public content; the scope is public data, not whether the platform presents a login screen. If an account is private, the tool says so.

Do I need an account?

Yes, a free Sourcevine account; you never log in to the platform itself. Signing up gives you 100 credits once, no card, and they do not renew. A lookup spends one or two of them, and you can see every run in your dashboard. When they are gone, a prepaid pack tops the balance up and never expires.

API

Need YouTube transcripts in your own workflow?

The API returns the same public transcript data with timed segments, response headers and fetch timestamps.

/v1/youtube/transcript

Full text and timed cues
Charged per call, failures free
Typed unavailable states

Get an API key See the API