YouTube Transcript MCP 🔌 MCP server Open source

What it is

YouTube Transcript MCP is a community Model Context Protocol server by kimtaeyoon83 that pulls captions from YouTube videos so an assistant can summarise, quote or repurpose them. It is a small TypeScript project that runs locally with Node.js.

Key features

• get_transcript with language selection
• Optional timestamps in the output
• Filters sponsor segments and ads by default
• Accepts standard, short-link and Shorts URLs
• Optional analyze_video tool using a TwelveLabs API key for visual understanding

How to install

The README installs it with npx -y @smithery/cli install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript --client claude, or you can add the npm package to your client config manually. Node.js 18+ is required. Transcripts work without any key; add a TwelveLabs key only for video analysis.

Pricing and rights

Free and MIT-licensed. It only works on videos that have captions, and it relies on YouTube's caption endpoints, which can change without notice. Transcripts belong to the video's creator: summarising for research is common, but republishing someone else's transcript needs permission.

Who it is for

Creators who repurpose their own videos into posts and newsletters, and researchers who summarise talks and tutorials. Podcasters and video creators can turn their own episodes into show notes, blog posts and social threads, since captions come back as plain text the assistant can restructure.

Verdict

Handy and free for turning videos into text inside an assistant. As a community project that depends on YouTube's unofficial caption access, it can break, and you must respect creators' rights when reusing transcripts.