An unofficial lightweight Python wrapper for extracting video metadata and transcripts from YouTube videos.
pip install simple-yt-api
from simple_yt_api import YouTubeAPI
# Initialize
yt = YouTubeAPI()
url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
# Get video metadata
metadata = yt.data(url=url)
print(metadata["title"])
# Get video transcript
transcript = yt.get_transcript(
url=url,
language_code="tr",
as_dict=True
) # Get Turkish transcript. Defaults to "en".
print(transcript)
# Get both metadata and transcript at once
data, transcript = yt.get_video_data_and_transcript(
url=url,
language_code="es",
as_dict=False # Return transcript as plain text
)
YouTubeAPI()Initializes the API client.
data(url: str) -> dictReturns video metadata dictionary containing:
video_id: YouTube video IDtitle: Video titleimg_url: Thumbnail URLshort_description: Video descriptionget_transcript(url: str, language_code: str = "en", as_dict: bool = True) -> list[dict] | strGet video transcript in the specified languages.
url (str): The URL of the YouTube video.language_code (str, optional): The language code for the desired transcript. Defaults to "en".as_dict (bool, optional): If True, returns the transcript as a list of dictionaries; otherwise, returns the transcript as a string. Defaults to True.get_video_data_and_transcript(url: str, language_code: str = "en", as_dict: bool = True) -> tupleReturns both video metadata and transcript. If there is an error, that spot in the tuple will have None instead of a value.
url (str): The URL of the YouTube video.language_code (str, optional): The language code for the desired transcript. Defaults to "en".as_dict (bool, optional): If True, returns the transcript as a list of dictionaries; otherwise, returns the transcript as a string. Defaults to True.The library includes custom exceptions:
NoVideoFound: When a video is not accessible or doesn't exist.NoMetadataFound: When no metadata is found for the video.TranscriptsDisabled: When transcripts are not available for the video.NoTranscriptFound: When no transcript is available for the video.Sending too many requests in a short period might lead to your IP address being temporarily blocked by YouTube. Use responsibly.
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
FAQs
A simple and easy-to-use unofficial YouTube API Wrapper.
We found that simple-yt-api demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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