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yt-transcript-ts

yt-transcript-ts is a TypeScript library for fetching and working with YouTube video transcripts. It allows you to retrieve transcripts in various languages, list available transcripts for a video, and fetch video details. This is a TypeScript port of the Rust library yt-transcript-rs.

npm version TypeScript MIT License

🚀 Version 0.2.0 - Now with InnerTube API!
This version includes a complete rewrite to use YouTube's InnerTube API, making transcript fetching reliable and future-proof. No code changes required for existing users!

This project is heavily inspired by the Python module youtube-transcript-api originally developed by Jonas Depoix and the Rust port yt-transcript-rs by Alexis Kinsella.

Table of Contents

Features

  • 🔥 InnerTube API Integration: Uses YouTube's internal API for reliable transcript fetching
  • 🚀 Future-Proof: No more broken transcripts due to YouTube changes
  • Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos in various languages
  • List all available transcripts for a video
  • Retrieve translations of transcripts
  • Get detailed information about YouTube videos
  • Access video microformat data including available countries and embed information
  • Retrieve streaming formats and quality options for videos
  • Fetch all video information in a single request for optimal performance
  • Support for custom HTTP client configuration and cookie authentication
  • Customizable HTML processing with configurable link formatting
  • Robust HTML entity handling and whitespace preservation
  • Enhanced error handling with specific error types including PO Token requirements
  • Full TypeScript support with comprehensive type definitions

Installation

Install yt-transcript-ts using npm:

npm install yt-transcript-ts

Or using yarn:

yarn add yt-transcript-ts

Usage

Fetch a transcript

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

/**
 * This example demonstrates how to fetch a transcript from a YouTube video.
 *
 * It shows:
 * 1. Creating a YouTubeTranscriptApi instance
 * 2. Fetching a transcript for a video in a specific language
 * 3. Displaying the transcript content
 */
async function main() {
  try {
    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID
    const videoId = '5MuIMqhT8DM';

    // Language preference (English)
    const languages = ['en'];

    // Fetch the transcript
    console.log(`Fetching transcript for video ID: ${videoId}`);

    const transcript = await api.fetchTranscript(videoId, languages);

    console.log('Successfully fetched transcript!');
    console.log(`Video ID: ${transcript.videoId}`);
    console.log(`Language: ${transcript.language} (${transcript.languageCode})`);
    console.log(`Is auto-generated: ${transcript.isGenerated}`);
    console.log(`Number of snippets: ${transcript.snippets.length}`);
    console.log('\nTranscript content:');

    // Display the first 5 snippets
    transcript.snippets.slice(0, 5).forEach((snippet, i) => {
      console.log(
        `[${snippet.start.toFixed(1)}-${(snippet.start + snippet.duration).toFixed(1)}s] ${snippet.text}`
      );
    });

    console.log('... (truncated)');
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch transcript:', error);
  }
}

main();

List available transcripts

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

/**
 * This example demonstrates how to list all available transcripts for a YouTube video.
 *
 * It shows:
 * 1. Creating a YouTubeTranscriptApi instance
 * 2. Listing all available transcripts
 * 3. Displaying information about each transcript, including whether it's translatable
 */
async function main() {
  try {
    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID (known to have multiple language transcripts)
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    // List available transcripts
    console.log(`Listing available transcripts for video ID: ${videoId}`);

    const transcriptList = await api.listTranscripts(videoId);

    console.log('Successfully retrieved transcript list!');
    console.log(`Video ID: ${transcriptList.videoId}`);

    // Get different types of transcripts
    const allTranscripts = transcriptList.transcripts();
    const manualTranscripts = transcriptList.manuallyCreated();
    const generatedTranscripts = transcriptList.generated();
    const translatableTranscripts = transcriptList.translatable();

    console.log('\nAvailable transcripts:');
    allTranscripts.forEach((transcript, index) => {
      const translatable = transcript.isTranslatable ? '[translatable]' : '';
      const type = transcript.isGenerated ? '[auto-generated]' : '[manual]';
      
      console.log(
        `${index + 1}: ${transcript.language} (${transcript.languageCode}) ${type} ${translatable}`
      );

      // If this transcript is translatable, show available translation languages
      if (transcript.isTranslatable && index === 0) {
        console.log('  Available translations:');
        transcript.translationLanguages?.slice(0, 5).forEach((lang, i) => {
          console.log(`    ${i + 1}: ${lang.languageName} (${lang.languageCode})`);
        });

        if (transcript.translationLanguages && transcript.translationLanguages.length > 5) {
          console.log(`    ... and ${transcript.translationLanguages.length - 5} more`);
        }
      }
    });

    console.log(`\nTotal transcripts: ${allTranscripts.length}`);
    console.log(`Manual transcripts: ${manualTranscripts.length}`);
    console.log(`Auto-generated transcripts: ${generatedTranscripts.length}`);
    console.log(`Translatable transcripts: ${translatableTranscripts.length}`);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to list transcripts:', error);
  }
}

main();

Fetch video details

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

/**
 * This example demonstrates how to fetch video details using the YouTube Transcript API.
 *
 * It shows:
 * 1. Creating a YouTubeTranscriptApi instance
 * 2. Fetching video details for a given video ID
 * 3. Displaying the video information including title, author, view count, etc.
 */
async function main() {
  try {
    console.log('YouTube Video Details Example');
    console.log('------------------------------');

    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    console.log(`Fetching video details for: ${videoId}`);

    const details = await api.fetchVideoDetails(videoId);

    console.log('\nVideo Details:');
    console.log('-------------');
    console.log(`Video ID: ${details.videoId}`);
    console.log(`Title: ${details.title}`);
    console.log(`Author: ${details.author}`);
    console.log(`Channel ID: ${details.channelId}`);
    console.log(`View Count: ${details.viewCount}`);
    console.log(`Length: ${details.lengthSeconds} seconds`);
    console.log(`Is Live Content: ${details.isLiveContent}`);

    // Print keywords if available
    if (details.keywords && details.keywords.length > 0) {
      console.log('\nKeywords:');
      details.keywords.slice(0, 10).forEach((keyword, i) => {
        console.log(`  ${i + 1}: ${keyword}`);
      });

      if (details.keywords.length > 10) {
        console.log(`  ... and ${details.keywords.length - 10} more`);
      }
    }

    // Print thumbnail information
    console.log(`\nThumbnails: ${details.thumbnails.length} available`);
    details.thumbnails.forEach((thumb, i) => {
      console.log(`  ${i + 1}: ${thumb.width}x${thumb.height} - ${thumb.url}`);
    });

    // Print a truncated description
    console.log('\nDescription:');
    const description = details.shortDescription.length > 300
      ? `${details.shortDescription.substring(0, 300)}...`
      : details.shortDescription;
    console.log(description);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch video details:', error);
  }
}

main();

Fetch microformat data

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    console.log(`Fetching microformat data for: ${videoId}`);

    const videoInfos = await api.fetchVideoInfos(videoId);
    const microformat = videoInfos.microformat;

    console.log('\nMicroformat Data:');
    console.log('-----------------');

    // Print video title and channel info
    if (microformat.title) {
      console.log(`Title: ${microformat.title}`);
    }
    if (microformat.ownerChannelName) {
      console.log(`Channel: ${microformat.ownerChannelName}`);
    }

    // Print video stats
    if (microformat.viewCount) {
      console.log(`View Count: ${microformat.viewCount}`);
    }

    // Print video status and category
    if (microformat.category) {
      console.log(`Category: ${microformat.category}`);
    }
    if (microformat.isUnlisted !== undefined) {
      console.log(`Is Unlisted: ${microformat.isUnlisted}`);
    }
    if (microformat.isFamilySafe !== undefined) {
      console.log(`Is Family Safe: ${microformat.isFamilySafe}`);
    }

    // Print countries where video is available
    if (microformat.availableCountries) {
      console.log(`Available in ${microformat.availableCountries.length} countries`);
    }

    // Print embed information
    if (microformat.embed?.iframeUrl) {
      console.log(`Embed URL: ${microformat.embed.iframeUrl}`);
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch microformat data:', error);
  }
}

main();

Fetch streaming data

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    console.log('YouTube Streaming Data Example');
    console.log('------------------------------');

    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    console.log(`Fetching streaming data for: ${videoId}`);

    const videoInfos = await api.fetchVideoInfos(videoId);
    const streamingData = videoInfos.streamingData;

    console.log('\nStreaming Data:');
    console.log('--------------');
    console.log(`Expires in: ${streamingData.expiresInSeconds} seconds`);
    
    // Display basic format counts
    console.log(`\nCombined Formats (video+audio): ${streamingData.formats?.length || 0}`);
    console.log(`Adaptive Formats: ${streamingData.adaptiveFormats?.length || 0}`);
    
    // Example of accessing video format information
    if (streamingData.formats && streamingData.formats.length > 0) {
      const format = streamingData.formats[0];
      console.log('\nSample format information:');
      console.log(`  ITAG: ${format.itag}`);
      if (format.width && format.height) {
        console.log(`  Resolution: ${format.width}x${format.height}`);
      }
      console.log(`  Bitrate: ${format.bitrate} bps`);
      console.log(`  MIME type: ${format.mimeType}`);
    }
    
    // Count video and audio format types
    if (streamingData.adaptiveFormats) {
      const videoCount = streamingData.adaptiveFormats
        .filter(f => f.mimeType.startsWith('video/'))
        .length;
        
      const audioCount = streamingData.adaptiveFormats
        .filter(f => f.mimeType.startsWith('audio/'))
        .length;
        
      console.log('\nAdaptive format breakdown:');
      console.log(`  Video formats: ${videoCount}`);
      console.log(`  Audio formats: ${audioCount}`);
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch streaming data:', error);
  }
}

main();

Fetch all video information at once

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    console.log('YouTube Video Infos (All-in-One) Example');
    console.log('----------------------------------------');

    // Initialize the YouTubeTranscriptApi
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();

    // Ted Talk video ID
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    console.log('Fetching all video information in a single request...');

    const infos = await api.fetchVideoInfos(videoId);

    // Access video details
    console.log('\nVideo Details:');
    console.log(`Title: ${infos.videoDetails.title}`);
    console.log(`Author: ${infos.videoDetails.author}`);
    console.log(`Length: ${infos.videoDetails.lengthSeconds} seconds`);
    
    // Access microformat data
    if (infos.microformat.category) {
      console.log(`Category: ${infos.microformat.category}`);
    }
    
    if (infos.microformat.availableCountries) {
      console.log(`Available in ${infos.microformat.availableCountries.length} countries`);
    }
    
    // Access streaming data
    console.log('\nStreaming Options:');
    console.log(`Video formats: ${infos.streamingData.formats?.length || 0}`);
    console.log(`Adaptive formats: ${infos.streamingData.adaptiveFormats?.length || 0}`);
    
    // Find highest resolution
    const highestRes = infos.streamingData.adaptiveFormats
      ?.map(f => f.height)
      .filter(h => h !== undefined)
      .reduce((max, current) => Math.max(max || 0, current || 0), 0) || 0;
    console.log(`Highest resolution: ${highestRes}p`);
    
    // Access transcript information
    const transcriptCount = infos.transcriptList.transcripts().length;
    console.log(`\nAvailable transcripts: ${transcriptCount}`);
    
    console.log('\nAll data retrieved in a single network request!');
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to fetch video information:', error);
  }
}

main();

Customize transcript formatting

import { TranscriptParser } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    // Create a transcript parser with default settings (plain text, standard link format)
    const defaultParser = new TranscriptParser(false);
    
    // Create a parser that preserves HTML formatting tags
    const formattedParser = new TranscriptParser(true);
    
    // Create a parser with custom link format (Markdown style)
    const markdownParser = TranscriptParser.withConfig(false, '[{text}]({url})');
    
    // Create a parser with custom link format (HTML style)
    const htmlParser = TranscriptParser.withConfig(false, '<a href="{url}">{text}</a>');
    
    // Sample XML content with a link (typical YouTube transcript format)
    const xmlContent = `
      <transcript>
        <text start="0.0" dur="3.0">Check out <a href="https://example.com">this link</a> for more info.</text>
      </transcript>
    `;
    
    // Process the XML with different parsers
    const defaultSnippets = defaultParser.parse(xmlContent);
    const formattedSnippets = formattedParser.parse(xmlContent);
    const markdownSnippets = markdownParser.parse(xmlContent);
    const htmlSnippets = htmlParser.parse(xmlContent);
    
    console.log('Default format:', defaultSnippets[0].text);
    console.log('Preserved HTML:', formattedSnippets[0].text);
    console.log('Markdown links:', markdownSnippets[0].text);
    console.log('HTML links:', htmlSnippets[0].text);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error processing transcript:', error);
  }
}

main();

This feature is particularly useful when you need to:

  • Format transcript links according to specific output needs
  • Create transcripts for different display contexts (web, terminal, documents)
  • Preserve certain HTML tags for styling while removing others
  • Ensure proper entity decoding for symbols like apostrophes and quotes

Requirements

  • Node.js 14 or higher
  • TypeScript 4.5 or higher (for development)

Advanced Usage

Using Custom HTTP Clients

You can configure the API to use a custom HTTP client with specific settings:

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';
import axios from 'axios';

async function main() {
  try {
    // Create a custom HTTP client with specific configuration
    const customClient = axios.create({
      timeout: 30000,
      headers: {
        'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'
      },
      // Add proxy configuration if needed
      // proxy: {
      //   host: 'proxy-server.com',
      //   port: 8080,
      //   auth: {
      //     username: 'username',
      //     password: 'password'
      //   }
      // }
    });

    // Initialize the API with custom HTTP client
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi({
      httpClient: customClient,
      timeout: 30000,
      userAgent: 'Custom YouTube Transcript Fetcher 1.0'
    });
    
    // Use the API as normal
    const videoId = '5MuIMqhT8DM';
    const transcript = await api.fetchTranscript(videoId, ['en']);
    
    console.log('Fetched transcript with custom HTTP client!');
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error:', error);
  }
}

main();

Using Cookie Authentication

For videos that require authentication, you can provide cookies:

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    // Note: Cookie file support is planned for future versions
    // For now, you can manually set cookies in the HTTP client
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi({
      cookiePath: '/path/to/cookies.txt' // This will show a warning as it's not yet implemented
    });
    
    // Fetch transcript for a video that requires authentication
    const videoId = 'private_video_id';
    const transcript = await api.fetchTranscript(videoId, ['en']);
    
    console.log('Successfully authenticated and fetched transcript!');
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Authentication failed:', error);
  }
}

main();

Working with Translations

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  try {
    const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();
    const videoId = 'arj7oStGLkU';

    // List transcripts to find translatable ones
    const transcriptList = await api.listTranscripts(videoId);
    const translatableTranscripts = transcriptList.translatable();

    if (translatableTranscripts.length > 0) {
      const baseTranscript = translatableTranscripts[0];
      
      // Translate to Spanish
      const spanishTranscript = await baseTranscript.translate('es');
      
      console.log(`Original: ${baseTranscript.language}`);
      console.log(`Translated: ${spanishTranscript.language}`);
      
      // Compare first snippets
      const originalSnippets = await baseTranscript.fetch();
      console.log(`Original text: "${originalSnippets.snippets[0].text}"`);
      console.log(`Spanish text: "${spanishTranscript.snippets[0].text}"`);
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Translation failed:', error);
  }
}

main();

Error Handling

The library provides specific error types for handling different failure scenarios:

import { YouTubeTranscriptApi, CouldNotRetrieveTranscript, CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason } from 'yt-transcript-ts';

async function main() {
  const api = new YouTubeTranscriptApi();
  const videoId = '5MuIMqhT8DM';
  
  try {
    const transcript = await api.fetchTranscript(videoId, ['en']);
    console.log(`Successfully fetched transcript with ${transcript.snippets.length} snippets`);
  } catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof CouldNotRetrieveTranscript) {
      switch (error.reason) {
        case CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason.NoTranscriptFound:
          console.log('No transcript found for this video');
          break;
        case CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason.TranslationLanguageUnavailable:
          console.log('The requested translation language is not available');
          break;
        case CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason.VideoUnavailable:
          console.log('The video is unavailable or does not exist');
          break;
        case CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason.TranscriptsDisabled:
          console.log('Transcripts are disabled for this video');
          break;
        case CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason.IpBlocked:
          console.log('Your IP has been blocked by YouTube');
          break;
        default:
          console.log('Other error:', error.message);
      }
    } else {
      console.error('Unexpected error:', error);
    }
  }
}

main();

Examples

The library comes with comprehensive examples demonstrating various use cases:

# Run individual examples
npx ts-node examples/yt-transcript-basic.ts
npx ts-node examples/yt-transcript-list.ts
npx ts-node examples/yt-transcript-advanced.ts
npx ts-node examples/youtube-video-details.ts
npx ts-node examples/tr-transcript-translation.ts
npx ts-node examples/transcript-parser-demo.ts

# Use the examples runner
npx ts-node examples/index.ts                    # Show available examples
npx ts-node examples/index.ts basic              # Run basic example
npx ts-node examples/index.ts all                # Run all examples
npx ts-node examples/index.ts basic advanced     # Run specific examples

See the examples directory for complete example code and the examples README for detailed documentation.

API Reference

YouTubeTranscriptApi

The main class for interacting with YouTube transcripts.

Constructor

new YouTubeTranscriptApi(config?: YouTubeTranscriptApiConfig)

Methods

  • fetchTranscript(videoId: string, languages: string[]): Promise<FetchedTranscript>
  • listTranscripts(videoId: string): Promise<TranscriptList>
  • fetchVideoDetails(videoId: string): Promise<VideoDetails>
  • fetchVideoInfos(videoId: string): Promise<VideoInfos>

Static Methods

  • isValidVideoId(videoId: string): boolean
  • extractVideoId(url: string): string | null

TranscriptParser

Class for parsing YouTube transcript XML with customizable formatting.

Constructor

new TranscriptParser(preserveFormatting: boolean = false, linkFormat: string = '{text} ({url})')

Static Methods

  • withConfig(preserveFormatting: boolean, linkFormat: string): TranscriptParser

Methods

  • parse(rawData: string): FetchedTranscriptSnippet[]

Error Types

  • CouldNotRetrieveTranscript: Main error class for transcript retrieval failures
  • CouldNotRetrieveTranscriptReason: Enum of specific error reasons
  • CookieError: Error related to cookie handling
  • YouTubeTranscriptApiError: Base error class

For complete API documentation, see the TypeScript definitions in the source code.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can contribute:

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
  3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
  4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
  5. Open a Pull Request

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/akinsella/yt-transcript-ts.git
cd yt-transcript-ts

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Run linting
npm run lint

# Format code
npm run format

# Run examples
npm run examples

Code Quality

This project maintains high code quality standards:

  • TypeScript: Full type safety with strict TypeScript configuration
  • ESLint: Code linting with TypeScript-specific rules
  • Prettier: Consistent code formatting
  • Jest: Comprehensive test coverage
  • Examples: Working examples for all major features

Acknowledgments

About

🎬️ A TypeScript library for accessing YouTube Video Infos & Transcripts

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