📌Overview

Purpose: The MCP server allows users to retrieve transcripts for specified YouTube video URLs easily.

Overview: The YouTube Transcript MCP server provides a straightforward tool for fetching video transcripts from YouTube, offering functionality tailored to various environments such as CLI and desktop applications.

Key Features:

• get_transcript: A core function that retrieves the transcript of a specified YouTube video by requiring the video's URL. Users can optionally specify the desired language for the transcript, defaulting to English if not provided.

• Compatibility with Various Platforms: Supports integration with different environments such as Goose CLI, Goose Desktop, and Claude Desktop, allowing users to configure and install the server seamlessly based on their preferences.

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YouTube Transcript MCP Server

This MCP server retrieves transcripts for given YouTube video URLs.

Tools

This MCP server provides the following tools:

get_transcript

Fetches the transcript of a specified YouTube video.

Parameters

• url (string): The full URL of the YouTube video. Required.
• lang (string, optional): The desired language for the transcript. Defaults to en if not specified.

Installation

For Goose CLI

To enable the YouTube Transcript extension in Goose CLI, edit the configuration file ~/.config/goose/config.yaml to include:

extensions:
  youtube-transcript:
    name: Youtube Transcript
    cmd: uvx
    args: [--from, git+https://github.com/jkawamoto/mcp-youtube-transcript, mcp-youtube-transcript]
    enabled: true
    type: stdio

For Goose Desktop

Add a new extension with the following settings:

• Type: Standard IO
• ID: youtube-transcript
• Name: Youtube Transcript
• Description: Retrieve transcripts of YouTube videos
• Command: uvx --from git+https://github.com/jkawamoto/mcp-youtube-transcript mcp-youtube-transcript

For more details on configuring MCP servers in Goose Desktop, refer to the documentation:
Using Extensions - MCP Servers: https://block.github.io/goose/docs/getting-started/using-extensions#mcp-servers

For Claude Desktop

Edit the claude_desktop_config.json file with the following entry under mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/jkawamoto/mcp-youtube-transcript",
        "mcp-youtube-transcript"
      ]
    }
  }
}

After editing, restart the application.

More information:
For Claude Desktop Users - Model Context Protocol: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/user

Installing via Smithery

To install Youtube Transcript for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @jkawamoto/mcp-youtube-transcript --client claude

Using Proxy Servers

In environments where access to YouTube is restricted, you can use proxy servers.

• When using Webshare, set the username and password for the Residential Proxy using environment variables WEBSHARE_PROXY_USERNAME and WEBSHARE_PROXY_PASSWORD, or via command line arguments --webshare-proxy-username and --webshare-proxy-password.
• When using other proxy servers, set the proxy server URL using environment variables HTTP_PROXY or HTTPS_PROXY, or command line arguments --http-proxy or --https-proxy.

For more details, visit:
Working around IP bans - YouTube Transcript API: https://github.com/jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api?tab=readme-ov-file#working-around-ip-bans-requestblocked-or-ipblocked-exception

License

This application is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.