Youtube Transcript Downloader
What it does
Gives any MCP-compatible agent (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT, Codex) clean YouTube transcripts as timestamped markdown, ready to use as context. No scraping, no proxies, no YouTube rate limits to manage: the server handles the fetch and caches every result.
Tools
| Tool | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|
get_transcript | Full transcript of one video (ID or URL) | 1 credit |
get_channel_transcripts | Recent videos from a channel, newest first (limit 1-50) | 1 credit per video |
get_playlist_transcripts | Videos from a playlist, in order (limit 1-50) | 1 credit per video |
polish_transcript | Cleaned auto-captions: punctuation restored, filler removed, faithful to what was said | ~3 credits per 1,000 words (min 5) |
All tools are read-only. Videos without captions fail free. Rate limit: 5 requests per 10 seconds.
Setup
Get a free API key (25 free credits, no card) at youtubetranscriptdownload.com/account, then add the server:
{
"mcpServers": {
"ytd": {
"url": "https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/api/mcp",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ytd_sk_YOUR_KEY" }
}
}
}
Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ytd_sk_YOUR_KEY" \
ytd https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/api/mcp
Example output
get_transcript returns the video title, source link, timestamped text, and a credit footer:
How Transformers Work
Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=...
[00:00:12] The transformer architecture was introduced in the 2017 paper
Attention Is All You Need by Vaswani et al.
...
---
1 credit used · 42 remaining
get_channel_transcripts and get_playlist_transcripts return one section per video,
separated by dividers; videos without captions are noted and cost nothing:
Lex Fridman Podcast · 3 videos
[transcript of video 1]
---
[transcript of video 2]
---
abc123xyz: No transcript available (skipped, not charged)
---
2 credits used · 40 remaining
polish_transcript turns raw auto-captions into clean text, faithful to what was said:
Before: so um the transformer architecture was introduced uh in the
attention is all you need paper in in 2017
After: The transformer architecture was introduced in the Attention
Is All You Need paper in 2017.
Links
- Setup guide for all clients: https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/mcp
- REST API docs (same backend): https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/youtube-transcript-api
- Pricing: https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/pricing
Server Config
{
"mcpServers": {
"ytd": {
"url": "https://youtubetranscriptdownload.com/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ytd_sk_YOUR_KEY"
}
}
}
}