The MCP YouTube Transcript Server allows you to extract and process transcripts from YouTube videos for content analysis and processing.
Key features:
Extract transcripts from YouTube videos using their URL or ID
Support for multiple languages
Format text with continuous or paragraph mode
Retrieve video metadata including title, ID, language, and duration
Automatic paragraph segmentation
Text normalization and HTML entity decoding
Robust error handling
Enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos with support for multiple languages, formatting options, and metadata extraction including video titles, timestamps, and automatic paragraph segmentation.
MCP YouTube Transcript Server
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)
Create or edit the Claude Desktop configuration file:
macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Add the following configuration:
Quick setup script for macOS:
Option 2: Via Smithery (Development Only)
⚠️ 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:
Testing
With Claude App
Restart the Claude app after installation
Test with a simple command:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpK3YTTKZ4 Summarize this video
Example output:
With MCP Inspector
Troubleshooting and Maintenance
Checking Claude Logs
To monitor Claude's logs, you can use the following command:
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 tomcp-server-youtube-transcript.log
.
Cleaning the npx
Cache
If you encounter issues related to the npx
cache, you can manually clean it using:
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 IDlang
(string, optional): Language code (default: "en")enableParagraphs
(boolean, optional): Enable paragraph mode (default: false)
Response Format:
Development
Project Structure
Key Components
YouTubeTranscriptFetcher
: Core transcript fetching functionalityYouTubeUtils
: 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
remote-capable server
The server can be hosted and run remotely because it primarily relies on remote services or has no dependency on the local environment.
Tools
A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video transcripts and subtitles through a simple interface, making it ideal for content analysis and processing.
- Table of Contents
- Features
- Getting Started
- Usage
- API Reference
- Development
- Contributing
- License
- Related Projects
Related Resources
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