YouTube transcripts that don't break on your server.

import requests

BASE = "https://api.youtubetotext.com"

resp = requests.get(
    f"{BASE}/full_transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    params={"lang": "en", "meta": "true"},
    timeout=30,
)
data = resp.json()  # errors are JSON too

if resp.status_code == 429:
    print("Rate limited — wait a minute, then retry")
elif "error" in data:
    print(f"No captions: {data['reason']} "
          f"(AI transcription possible: {data['canTranscribeWithAI']})")
else:
    text = " ".join(seg["text"] for seg in data["transcript"])
    print(f"[{data['source_type']}/{data['language_code']}] {text[:80]}…")

const BASE = "https://api.youtubetotext.com";

const res = await fetch(`${BASE}/full_transcript/dQw4w9WgXcQ?lang=en&meta=true`);
const data = await res.json(); // errors are JSON too

if (res.status === 429) {
  console.log("Rate limited — wait a minute, then retry");
} else if (data.error) {
  console.log(`No captions: ${data.reason}`);
  console.log(`AI transcription possible: ${data.canTranscribeWithAI}`);
} else {
  const text = data.transcript.map((seg) => seg.text).join(" ");
  console.log(`[${data.source_type}] ${text.slice(0, 80)}…`);
}