YouTube Transcript Extractor
This n8n template demonstrates how to extract transcripts from YouTube videos using two different approaches: automated Google Sheets monitoring and direct webhook API calls.
Use cases: Content creation, research, accessibility, meeting notes, content repurposing, SEO analysis, or building transcript databases for analysis.
How it works
- Google Sheets Integration: Monitor a sheet for new YouTube URLs and automatically extract transcripts
- Direct API Access: Send YouTube URLs via webhook and get instant transcript responses
- Smart Parsing: Extracts video ID from various YouTube URL formats (youtube.com, youtu.be, embed)
- Rich Metadata: Returns video title, channel, publish date, duration, and category alongside transcript
- Fallback Handling: Gracefully handles videos without available transcripts
Two Workflow Paths
- Automated Sheet Processing: Add URLs to Google Sheet → Auto-extract → Save results to sheet
- Webhook API: Send POST request with video URL → Get instant transcript response
How to set up
- Replace "Dummy YouTube Transcript API" credentials with your YouTube Transcript API key
- Create your own Google Sheet with columns: "url" (input sheet) and "video title", "transcript" (results sheet)
- Update Google Sheets credentials to connect your sheets
- Test each workflow path separately
- Customize the webhook path and authentication as needed
Requirements
- YouTube Transcript API access (youtube-transcript.io or similar)
- Google Sheets API credentials (for automated workflow)
- n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
- YouTube videos
How to customize
- Modify transcript processing in the Code nodes
- Add additional metadata extraction
- Connect to other storage solutions (databases, CMS)
- Add text analysis or summarization steps
- Set up notifications for new transcripts