Youtube Transcript MCP Server

YouTube Transcript MCP Server

Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code and any MCP client the ability to read YouTube transcripts. Hosted, nothing to install. Free API key: 10 requests a day.

A hosted Model Context Protocol server that exposes one tool, get_youtube_transcript, backed by youtube-transcript.ai. Paste a YouTube link mid-conversation and your AI reads the full transcript on demand.

Connector URL:

https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp?key=YOUR_KEY

Replace YOUR_KEY with your API key. Create a free key with a Google sign-in; it takes about a minute.

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Why

• Free to start. A free key covers 10 transcripts a day. Pro is 1,000 a day for $120 a year, on the same key.
• Reliable. A hardened fetch pipeline with proxy fallback returns transcripts even on videos that block typical scrapers.
• Any language. Pick a caption track by language code (en, zh-CN, es, ja, …) or let it choose the default.
• Built for agents. One tool, plain-text output with title and metadata. Multi-hour videos come back in parts, so nothing gets cut off.

Authentication

Tool calls need an API key. There is no OAuth. Send the key in one of two ways:

The URL form is for clients that only accept a connector URL.

Quick start

Claude (web / desktop)

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector

Then ask: “Summarize this video: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ”

ChatGPT

In the custom connector / MCP server setup, add an MCP server with URL https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp?key=YOUR_KEY (transport: Streamable HTTP), enable it for your chat, then paste a YouTube link.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user youtube-transcript \
  https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, or to .cursor/mcp.json inside one project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "url": "https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Codex

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.youtube-transcript]
url = "https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp"
http_headers = { "Authorization" = "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }

Clients that only launch local servers

For clients that start MCP servers from a config file and cannot take a remote URL, bridge with mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp?key=YOUR_KEY"]
    }
  }
}

Let your agent do it

Paste https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp.md into a coding agent. It is a plain-text version of these instructions, written for an AI to follow.

Tool reference

get_youtube_transcript

Fetch the full text transcript of a YouTube video.

Returns plain text: the transcript with title, duration, and a list of available languages. Transcripts over 120,000 characters come back in parts; each part ends with a note giving the offset for the next call.

Example prompts

• “Summarize the key points of <link> in 5 bullets.”
• “Pull the transcript of this video and translate it to Spanish.”
• “What does the speaker say about pricing in <link>? Quote the exact lines.”

Programmatic use

The server speaks standard MCP over Streamable HTTP (JSON-RPC). A zero-dependency example is in examples/quickstart.mjs:

YT_TRANSCRIPT_KEY=YOUR_KEY node examples/quickstart.mjs https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Calling from your own code without MCP? There is a plain HTTP endpoint too: see the YouTube Transcript API.

Limits

• Free: 10 requests a day. Pro: 1,000 a day for $120 a year. Upgrade from the key page.
• Every tool call counts as one request, including each part of a long transcript. The count resets at 00:00 UTC.
• The video needs captions, either written by the uploader or auto-generated by YouTube.

Notes

• Not affiliated with YouTube or Google. Transcripts are fetched from publicly available captions.
• Listed in the official MCP Registry as ai.youtube-transcript/youtube-transcript.

Links

• Web tool (no AI client needed): https://youtube-transcript.ai
• Connector landing page: https://youtube-transcript.ai/mcp
• HTTP API: https://youtube-transcript.ai/api

License

MIT