YouTube Transcript MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides YouTube transcript fetching functionality. This server allows AI assistants to retrieve transcripts from YouTube videos.

Features

• Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos using video ID

• Support for multiple languages with configurable preferences

• Simple MCP tool interface for easy integration

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or higher

• uv package manager (recommended) or pip

Install with uv (recommended)

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/arrrggghhh/youtube-transcript-mcp.git
cd youtube-transcript-mcp

# Install dependencies
uv sync

Configuration

Environment Variables

• YOUTUBE_TRANSCRIPT_FETCHER_LANGS: Comma-separated list of language codes for transcript preferences (default: "ko,en")

  • Example: YOUTUBE_TRANSCRIPT_FETCHER_LANGS=en,es,fr,de

  • The server will attempt to fetch transcripts in the order specified

Adding to Claude Desktop

To use this MCP server with Claude Desktop, you need to add it to your configuration:

1. Locate your Claude Desktop configuration file

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

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

• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Edit the configuration file

Add the YouTube Transcript MCP server to the mcpServers section:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript-mcp": {
        "command": "/path/to/uv",
        "args": [
            "run",
            "--directory",
            "/path/to/cloned/directory",
            "--with",
            "mcp[cli]",
            "--with",
            "youtube_transcript_api",
            "mcp",
            "run",
            "/path/to/youtube-transcript-mcp.py"
        ]
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /path/to/uv with the actual path to your uv executable, and /path/to/youtube-transcript-mcp.py with the actual path to the youtube-transcript-mcp.py file in your cloned repository.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

After saving the configuration file, restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect.

Usage

Once the MCP server is added, you can use it in Claude Desktop by asking Claude to analyze YouTube videos:

"Summarize the YouTube video dQw4w9WgXcQ"
"What are the key points from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
"Give me a brief overview of the content in video ID dQw4w9WgXcQ"

The server will automatically extract the video ID, fetch the transcript in the configured languages, and Claude will analyze and summarize the content.

Development

Project Structure

youtube-transcript-mcp/
├── youtube-transcript-mcp.py  # Main MCP server
├── transcript_fetcher.py      # Core transcript fetching logic
├── pyproject.toml            # Project configuration
├── uv.lock                   # Dependency lock file
└── README.md                 # This file