🎬 claude-youtube-transcript

Paste a YouTube URL into Claude Desktop and get the complete transcript of the video.

A minimal MCP server that gives Claude a tool —get_transcript— to read the subtitles of any YouTube video that has them. No API keys, no Google account, no downloading the video: just the text track, in a continuous block ready for the model to summarize, translate, or cite.

✨ What it does

• Accepts any URL format — watch?v=, youtu.be/, /shorts/, /embed/, /live/, or a bare 11-character ID.

• Prioritizes Spanish, falls back to English, and if there is no human track, uses the auto-generated subtitles.

• Works with youtube-transcript-api 0.6 and 1.x — tries the classic API, the instance API, and the track listing, in that order.

• Returns continuous plain text, without timestamps or [Music] markers, so it doesn't waste extra context.

Related MCP server: YouTube Transcript MCP Server

📋 Requirements

• Claude Desktop (macOS, Windows, or Linux).

• Python 3.10 or higher in PATH.

• Nothing else: no API keys, no Google account, no ffmpeg.

🚀 Quick installation

macOS / Linux

git clone https://github.com/Magiprr/claude-youtube-transcript.git && cd claude-youtube-transcript && ./install.sh

Windows

In PowerShell:

git clone https://github.com/Magiprr/claude-youtube-transcript.git; cd claude-youtube-transcript; powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1

The -ExecutionPolicy Bypass is necessary because Windows blocks unsigned scripts by default. It only applies to that execution, not to the system-wide policy.

The installer (on both systems):

1. 📦 Installs the dependencies with pip --break-system-packages.

2. 🔍 Detects the absolute path of server.py and the python3 binary.

3. 💾 Backs up your claude_desktop_config.json before touching it.

4. 🤝 Merges the youtube-transcript block without overwriting any MCP servers you already have.

5. 🔄 Tells you to restart Claude Desktop (Cmd + Q, not just close the window).

Manual installation

If you prefer to do it by hand, add this to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/python3",
      "args": ["/ruta/absoluta/a/claude-youtube-transcript/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Both paths must be absolute. For Python, get it with which python3 (or where python on Windows).

The file location depends on the system:

On Windows, paths inside the JSON use double backslashes (C:\\Users\\your-user\\...) or a forward slash. The installer writes it correctly on its own.

🔎 What Claude receives

The tool returns a clean block, without timestamps or sound markers:

Transcripcion de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Hoy vamos a ver como funciona el protocolo MCP y por que cambia la forma
en que las aplicaciones le dan herramientas a un modelo de lenguaje...

That way the model spends its context on the content rather than metadata.

💬 Example prompts

Once Claude Desktop has been restarted:

Resúmeme este video en 10 bullets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Extrae de este video todas las cifras que menciona, con el contexto de cada una:
https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Traduce al español la transcripción de https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Compara qué dicen estos dos videos sobre el mismo tema:
<url 1>
<url 2>

De este video, dame solo las partes donde habla de precios, citadas textual:
<url>

🩺 Troubleshooting

Close the app completely and reopen it. On macOS that's Cmd + Q; on Windows, closing the X isn't enough — right-click the system tray icon and choose Quit. In both cases, closing the window doesn't kill the process. Then verify that the block was written correctly:

python3 -m json.tool ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

That's Homebrew's Python protecting itself. The installer already uses --break-system-packages; if you run it manually:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt --break-system-packages

If you'd rather not touch the system Python, use a venv and point the command in the configto /path/to/venv/bin/python`.

Claude Desktop is using a different Python than the one that installed the dependencies. Check which one ended up in the config and that that same one has the package:

/opt/homebrew/bin/python3 -c "import mcp, youtube_transcript_api; print('ok')"

Not all videos have subtitles: the author may have disabled them, or the video may be private, age-restricted, or a live stream still in progress. Make sure the CC button exists on YouTube.

YouTube limits requests by IP. This often happens on shared networks or VPNs. Wait a few minutes, or try from another connection.

This is PowerShell's execution policy. Run it like this:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1

If Windows also flagged the file as downloaded from the internet:

Unblock-File .\install.ps1

That's the stub alias that ships with Windows. Install real Python from python.org and check "Add python.exe to PATH". The installer already ignores that stub when it looks for the interpreter.

# macOS
tail -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-youtube-transcript.log

# Windows
Get-Content -Wait "$env:APPDATA\Claude\Logs\mcp-server-youtube-transcript.log"

🛠️ Development

You can run the server manually to verify it starts:

python3 server.py

It stays waiting on stdio (that's how Claude Desktop talks to it): if it prints nothing, that's a good sign.

📄 License

MIT © 2026

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.