Youtube Transcripts

YouTube transcripts via BulkTranscripts

Base URL: https://bulktranscripts.co

All endpoints are plain GET returning JSON. Keyless calls draw from a free allowance (30 transcript additions limited by device and public IP). If BULKTRANSCRIPTS_API_KEY is set, send it on every request:

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/..." \
  ${BULKTRANSCRIPTS_API_KEY:+-H "Authorization: Bearer $BULKTRANSCRIPTS_API_KEY"}

Costs (check billing.remaining in every response)

• Transcript: 1 credit when first added to this account's library — repeat reads are FREE
• Search / channel videos / playlist videos: 1 credit each
• channel/latest and account: always free
• Failures (no captions, video unreachable) are auto-refunded, never charged

When a call returns HTTP 402 out_of_credits, tell the user their free allowance/credits are used up and link them to https://bulktranscripts.co/#pricing (one-time packs; the license key from checkout is the API key).

Endpoints

Get one transcript

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/transcript?video=VIDEO_URL_OR_ID"

Params: video (watch URL, youtu.be, Shorts, bare 11-char id, or TikTok video URL) · language (default en) · segments=0 to omit timestamps (smaller) · format=txt|md|srt|vtt|csv|ai to get a rendered file instead of JSON · fresh=1 to force re-extraction.

Response fields: title, channel, duration, upload_date, language, source (manual_caption|auto_caption), cached, word_count, text, paragraphs[] (silence-grouped — best for reading/chunking), segments[] ({text, start, duration}), billing.

Long videos produce long text. For summarization, prefer segments=0 and read paragraphs.

Search YouTube (1 credit)

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/search?q=QUERY&limit=10"

Add type=channel or type=playlist to search for channels/playlists instead of videos.

Search inside one channel (1 credit)

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/channel/search?channel=@HANDLE&q=TOPIC&limit=10"

Finds a creator's videos about a topic without listing the whole archive.

List a channel's videos (1 credit, up to 1000)

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/channel/videos?channel=@HANDLE&limit=100"

channel accepts @handle, channel URL, or UC… id.

List a playlist in order (1 credit)

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/playlist/videos?playlist=PLAYLIST_ID_OR_URL"

Newest uploads — FREE, use for monitoring

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/channel/latest?channel=@HANDLE"

Returns up to 15 recent videos. Poll this freely; only spend credits on videos that are actually new. Diff on video id, not on published: when YouTube's feed is unavailable the response says "source": "listing" and published can be null.

Balance

curl -s "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/account"

Playbooks

• "Summarize this video" → transcript with segments=0, then summarize from paragraphs; cite the title and url.
• Whole channel/playlist → list videos first, show the user the count (each new library transcript = 1 credit), then fetch transcripts one by one, skipping failures (they are reported per video and refunded).
• "What did X post this week?" → channel/latest (free), compare video ids against what you have seen (use published when present), fetch transcripts only for the relevant new videos.
• Deep research on a creator → channel/search for the topic (or list all videos), pick candidates by title, fetch only those transcripts.

Errors come as {"error": {"code", "message"}}. The codes you will actually hit, and what to do about each:

• no_transcript (404) — the video has no captions. Not charged. Skip it and carry on; in a batch this is normal, not a failure.
• resolution_failed (400) — a well-formed id or URL that could not be resolved (nonexistent, private, removed, or region-blocked). Handle it alongside no_transcript: skip the video and carry on.
• playlist_private (400) — YouTube says the playlist does not exist, which is also what it says about a private playlist. Playlist ids come in several lengths (13, 18, 26, 34) and all work, so do not second-guess the id: tell the user to open the playlist on YouTube → Edit → Visibility → Unlisted, then retry. Not charged.
• invalid_input (400) — the video / channel / playlist parameter is missing, not a YouTube/TikTok reference, or otherwise malformed. A caller bug, not a video problem.
• out_of_credits (402) — allowance exhausted. Tell the user and link https://bulktranscripts.co/#pricing.
• rate_limited (429) — respect the Retry-After header before retrying. Limits are per public IP: 120 requests/min overall, 30/min under /api/v1/ (cache hits and /account count too), so pace bulk fetches at under 30/min.

Full reference: https://bulktranscripts.co/docs