YouTube Transcript Search icon

YouTube Transcript Search

by Andre Bradshaw

v1.16 Updated Jul 3, 2023 48.05KiB
CWS
2K
Users
★ 3.46
37 reviews
#3107
of 49.1K
workflow
#818 of 6.1K
⚠️Not updated in over 2 years

Description

Version 1.16 update (1 July 2023) 1) Fixed issue with downloading videos and livestream transcripts 2) Added donation link Version 1.15 update (4 Nov 2022) 1) Added ability to download/search from within live videos tab or a specific playlist. Version 1.14 update (29 Oct 2022) 1) Fixed issue with video extraction caused by the recent change to the user interface on YouTube. Current version bypasses the need for scrolling within a channel's videos page, but not within search results. Version 1.13 update 1) fixed some minor duplication issue. 2) fixed issue where uploaded files were not cleared out upon new uploads and the duplication of the search button. Version 1.12 Update 1) fixed issue where the initial transcript download did not keep the full list in memory if it exceeded 300mb. This issue made it so users had to reupload the transcripts which is mentioned at 8:58 in the demo video. 2) cleaned up the UI a bit. Removed some non-functional components. 3) added the ability to loop through search results and search those transcripts. This tool allows a user to search YouTube transcripts at scale. Running the tool on a channel's video tab will loop through the videos and extract the transcripts. Once the transcripts are loaded, a user can search through the transcripts to identify the timestamp associated with the match. Transcripts are downloaded as JSON files for later use. The max file size is about 300MB, so it may download multiple files and you will need to allow YouTube to allow multiple files. Previously downloaded transcripts can be uploaded to save time for future searches. Due to the size of files, the tool may hang up if you are uploading multiple transcript files. Just wait for the page to finish what it is doing. Do not click around as it will only cause more delays. The search can look for words near other words by using the tilde symbol, e.g., word~other stuff Double quotes create a word boundary. The default searches within 29 characters. You can adjust that by adding a custom number variance, e.g., word~245 other stuff No quotes assumes a wildcard on either side of the word. OR statements are allowed, e.g., (this OR that OR the other thing). Spaces are converted to 0-3 of any character, so "web store" would match "webstore" or "webed store". If you search for something really simple like, "the," you are going to have a bad time. Once the search is complete, you can download the results as a TSV (tab separated values) file which can be opened in google sheets or excel. To open in Excel, you will need to open a blank workbook and then open the file from the file menu. Be sure to change the file format to "all files" and select "tab separated."
YouTube Transcript Search screenshot 1YouTube Transcript Search screenshot 2YouTube Transcript Search screenshot 3

Reviews (15 cached)

★☆☆☆☆2023-06-28
Eric

Nothing happens? I don't get any option to activate the extension... it's added but there's no way to start it...

★☆☆☆☆2023-06-13
Sam Biswas

I've waited over 20 min just for this one to change from "Initiate Program" to "Run Search" and still nothing happen, is there something I've missed?

★☆☆☆☆2023-01-29
DT 0997

It was a good extension, but now it doesn't work.

★☆☆☆☆2023-01-11
Anon ymous

Idk. Seemed really promising but doesn't seem to work. The video posted on this listing no longer matches what is shown in the extension when you enable it. My guess is some kind of update to YouTube came along and the developer needs to update the listing. Hopefully this can be fixed. Currently the program will not pull any transcripts, and therefore cannot perform any searches.

★★☆☆☆2025-07-19
Kevin Le (Breatan)

Can no longer download transcripts. Was good before.

★★☆☆☆2023-12-30
Luke Kenworthy

Doesn't let you change the date range. Only the ~30 latest videos can be searched.

★★☆☆☆2023-12-10
Christopher de Vidal

Ran it against a channel with hundreds of videos (@DavidCanterbury), but it only searched about a dozen videos. So I reloaded the page and scrolled to the bottom of the channel (which took a while), and ran it again; On the second time, it still only searched about a dozen, but this time it produced a blank file as the output. I'm not sure what's going on with it. Two stars because the first time searching, it did work a little bit.

★★☆☆☆2023-07-24
Cody Conyers (StellarAvenger)

It's close, but select date range doesn't work. It only downloads the transcripts for the most recent vids.

★★☆☆☆2023-03-03
redacted

deserves 1 start since it doesn't work. it works when you are on home tab of a channel but not the videos tab (where it should and what video tutorial guides). i give it 2 star and will update to 5 start when it actually works as it was intended.

★★☆☆☆2022-12-05
Bob Bobby

worked well for a while but now it bugs out on the videos page and wont download any transcripts at all

★★★☆☆2025-07-05
Justine

I've used this for years and it's for sure a 5star, super useful... but it recently stopped working entirely! :'( Please fix!

★★★☆☆2025-06-16
BruH

It was great but it stopped working, it needs an update

★★★☆☆2025-05-18
Mat Rix

Hey please check, transcript doesnt load , been happening from past 2 days

★★★☆☆2023-11-22
Khurrum Mahmood

It just shows as grayed out on the Videos tab, or any tab.

★★★☆☆2023-09-14
ZAPPELFRY

It does what it should. The only thing what makes a problem for me is that there seems to be a limit of 30 results at a time. mabe i do something wrong i don't know. i would pay for an option without a limit. when i search a youtube channel with 400 videos i want to do it in one click. is there a way to do it?

Details

Version 1.16
Updated Jul 3, 2023
Size 48.05KiB
First Seen Mar 21, 2026