YouTube Transcript MCP
by kimtaeyoon83
Fetch YouTube video transcripts and captions for AI analysis
api Node.js Beginner Self-hostable No API key
⭐ 300 stars 📅 Updated: 1mo ago
Description
MCP server that extracts transcripts and subtitles from YouTube videos. Pass any YouTube URL and get the full text content of the video, ready for AI analysis, summarization, or translation. Supports multiple languages and auto-generated captions. No API key required — works by extracting publicly available caption data. Ideal for content research, video summarization, creating study notes from lectures, or analyzing video content at scale.
✅ Best for
Anyone who needs to extract and analyze text content from YouTube videos
⏭️ Skip if
You need to process videos without any captions or subtitles available
💡 Use cases
- Summarizing YouTube videos without watching them
- Extracting key points and insights from educational content
- Translating video content across languages using available captions
- Researching topics by analyzing transcripts from multiple videos
👍 Pros
- ✓ No API key required — extracts publicly available caption data
- ✓ Supports multiple languages and auto-generated subtitles
- ✓ Simple npx installation with zero configuration
- ✓ Fast transcript extraction for immediate AI processing
👎 Cons
- ✗ Only works with videos that have captions or auto-generated subtitles
- ✗ Auto-generated captions may contain transcription errors
- ✗ Cannot extract audio or visual content beyond text captions
🔧 Exposed tools (3 tools)
| Tool | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|
| get_transcript | extraction | Fetch the full transcript of a YouTube video |
| list_languages | query | List available caption languages for a video |
| search_transcript | search | Search within a video transcript for specific terms |
⚡ Installation
Prerequisites:
- • Node.js v18+
Check Claude Code documentation to configure this MCP server.
💡 Tips & tricks
Run via npx for instant setup. Videos with manually added subtitles will give the most accurate results. Use the list_languages tool first to check which caption languages are available before extracting a transcript.
Quick info
- Author
- kimtaeyoon83
- License
- MIT
- Runtime
- Node.js 18+
- Transport
- stdio
- Category
- api
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Self-hostable
- ✅
- Auth
- —
- Docker
- —
- Version
- latest
- Updated
- Feb 28, 2026
Client compatibility
- ✅ Claude Code
- ✅ Cursor
- ✅ VS Code Copilot
- ❓ Gemini CLI
- ❓ Windsurf
- ✅ Cline
- ❓ JetBrains AI
- ❓ Warp
Platforms
🍎 macOS 🐧 Linux 🪟 Windows