Skip to main content
Glama
enesjakozh

mcp-youtube-transcript

by sinco-lab
OverviewInspectNewSchemaRelated ServersScore
TypeScript
Remote
MIT License
170
29
  • Linux
  • Apple

MCP YouTube Transcript Server

smithery badge

A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video transcripts through a simple interface, making it ideal for content analysis and processing.

Table of Contents

Features

✨ Key capabilities:

  • Extract transcripts from YouTube videos

  • Support for multiple languages

  • Format text with continuous or paragraph mode

  • Retrieve video titles and metadata

  • Automatic paragraph segmentation

  • Text normalization and HTML entity decoding

  • Robust error handling

  • Timestamp and overlap detection

Getting Started

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 18 or higher

Installation

We provide two installation methods:

Option 1: Manual Configuration (Recommended for Production)

  1. Create or edit the Claude Desktop configuration file:

    • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

    • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

  2. Add the following configuration:

{ "mcpServers": { "youtube-transcript": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "-y", "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript" ] } } }

Quick setup script for macOS:

# Create directory if it doesn't exist mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude # Create or update config file cat > ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json << 'EOL' { "mcpServers": { "youtube-transcript": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "-y", "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript" ] } } } EOL

Option 2: Via Smithery (Development Only)

npx -y @smithery/cli install @sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript --client claude

⚠️ Note: This method is not recommended for production use as it relies on Smithery's proxy services.

Usage

Basic Configuration

To use with Claude Desktop / Cursor / cline, ensure your configuration matches:

{ "mcpServers": { "youtube-transcript": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript"] } } }

Testing

With Claude App

  1. Restart the Claude app after installation

  2. Test with a simple command:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpK3YTTKZ4 Summarize this video

Example output: Demo

With MCP Inspector

# Clone and setup git clone https://github.com/sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript.git cd mcp-youtube-transcript npm install npm run build # Launch inspector npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node "dist/index.js" # Access http://localhost:6274 and try these commands: # 1. List Tools: clink `List Tools` # 2. Test get_transcripts with: # url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpK3YTTKZ4" # lang: "en" (optional) # enableParagraphs: false (optional)

Troubleshooting and Maintenance

Checking Claude Logs

To monitor Claude's logs, you can use the following command:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

This will display the last 20 lines of the log file and continue to show new entries as they are added.

Note: Claude app automatically prefixes MCP server log files with mcp-server-. For example, our server's logs will be written to mcp-server-youtube-transcript.log.

Cleaning the npx Cache

If you encounter issues related to the npx cache, you can manually clean it using:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx

This will remove the cached packages and allow you to start fresh.

API Reference

get_transcripts

Fetches transcripts from YouTube videos.

Parameters:

  • url (string, required): YouTube video URL or ID

  • lang (string, optional): Language code (default: "en")

  • enableParagraphs (boolean, optional): Enable paragraph mode (default: false)

Response Format:

{ "content": [{ "type": "text", "text": "Video title and transcript content", "metadata": { "videoId": "video_id", "title": "video_title", "language": "transcript_language", "timestamp": "processing_time", "charCount": "character_count", "transcriptCount": "number_of_transcripts", "totalDuration": "total_duration", "paragraphsEnabled": "paragraph_mode_status" } }] }

Development

Project Structure

├── src/ │ ├── index.ts # Server entry point │ ├── youtube.ts # YouTube transcript fetching logic ├── dist/ # Compiled output └── package.json

Key Components

  • YouTubeTranscriptFetcher: Core transcript fetching functionality

  • YouTubeUtils: Text processing and utilities

Features and Capabilities

  • Error Handling:

    • Invalid URLs/IDs

    • Unavailable transcripts

    • Language availability

    • Network errors

    • Rate limiting

  • Text Processing:

    • HTML entity decoding

    • Punctuation normalization

    • Space normalization

    • Smart paragraph detection

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Related Projects

Deploy Server
A
security – no known vulnerabilities
A
license - permissive license
A
quality - confirmed to work

How are these scores calculated?

Related Resources

Tools

Related MCP Servers

  • mcp-server-youtube-transcript

    kimtaeyoon83
    A
    security
    A
    license
    A
    quality
    A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video captions and subtitles through a simple interface.
    Last updated -
    1
    221
    344
    MIT License

  • YouTube Transcript Server

    williamvd4
    A
    security
    A
    license
    A
    quality
    A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos with language-specific support.
    Last updated -
    1
    221
    1
    MIT License

  • YouTube Transcript Extractor MCP

    MalikElate
    A
    security
    F
    license
    A
    quality
    A Model Context Protocol server that enables AI assistants to extract transcripts from YouTube videos, allowing AI to analyze and work with video content directly.
    Last updated -
    1
    5
    2

  • YouTube Translate MCP

    brianshin22
    A
    security
    A
    license
    A
    quality
    A Model Context Protocol server that enables access to YouTube video content through transcripts, translations, summaries, and subtitle generation in various languages.
    Last updated -
    5
    3
    MIT License

View all related MCP servers

Appeared in Searches

New MCP Servers

MCP directory API

We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.

curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript'

If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server