TranscriptYT
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Free YouTube tool

YouTube Transcript for ChatGPT and Claude

Paste a YouTube link to get the transcript as clean text, ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and ask anything about the video. Free, no sign-up.

How to give ChatGPT or Claude a YouTube video

  1. 1

    Copy the video link

    Any YouTube video, Short, or finished livestream.

  2. 2

    Paste it above and copy the text

    The transcript loads as clean text without timestamps. Click Copy to put it on your clipboard.

  3. 3

    Paste it into your AI chat

    Add your question: summarize it, pull out the key points, write a blog post, or check a claim.

Ask a video anything

Once the transcript is in the chat you can ask for a summary, a list of claims, quotes on a topic, questions for a quiz, or a rewrite as an article. Or skip the copy and paste and use Chat with a YouTube video here.

Let your AI fetch transcripts

With the TranscriptYT MCP server, Claude and ChatGPT can search YouTube and read transcripts on their own. Setup takes a minute; see the MCP guide.

Need more?

Need transcripts at scale? Use the API

The same transcripts are available through the YouTube Transcript API: timestamped JSON, text, SRT, VTT, CSV, or Markdown, 150+ languages, and AI transcription for videos without captions. Or connect the YouTube MCP server to Claude, Cursor, or Codex and just paste links in chat.

curl "https://transcript-yt.com/v1/transcript?url=5f3Pn-N6yLc&format=text" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ts_live_..."
Get a free API key See the API

Common questions

Can ChatGPT watch YouTube videos?

Not reliably. ChatGPT and Claude often can't open a YouTube link, or only see the title and description. Pasting the transcript gives them everything that was said.

Is a long transcript too much for ChatGPT?

A one-hour video is around 10,000 words, which fits in ChatGPT and Claude. For several-hour videos, use the Summary tab here first or paste the transcript in parts.

Can Claude or ChatGPT fetch transcripts by themselves?

Yes. Connect the TranscriptYT MCP server and Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other AI apps can get any video's transcript when you paste a link.

Why remove timestamps?

Timestamps use extra tokens and add noise. Keep them only if you want the AI to cite times.

What if the video has no captions?

The free tool reads the captions YouTube already has, creator-uploaded or auto-generated, and most videos with speech have them. For a video with no captions at all, click Transcribe the audio with AI: it's on paid plans and credit packs, at 1 credit per minute.