SkillHub

youtube-transcriber

v1.0.0

One-command YouTube video transcription. Automatically downloads audio and transcribes using OpenAI Whisper API — works even when YouTube subtitles are disabled. Use when asked to "transcribe this video", "get transcript", "what does this video say", or when YouTube captions are unavailable.

Sourced from ClawHub, Authored by EdisonChenAI

Installation

Please help me install the skill `youtube-transcriber` from SkillHub official store. npx skills add EdisonChenAI/youtube-transcriber

YouTube Transcriber

One-command transcription for any YouTube video — even when subtitles are disabled.

How it works: 1. Tries to fetch existing YouTube subtitles first (free, instant) 2. If subtitles are disabled/unavailable → downloads audio → transcribes via OpenAI Whisper API

Prerequisites

  • yt-dlp — brew install yt-dlp or pip install yt-dlp
  • ffmpeg — brew install ffmpeg
  • OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable set

Usage

# Basic — auto-detect best method
{baseDir}/scripts/transcribe.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# Specify language (improves accuracy for non-English)
{baseDir}/scripts/transcribe.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --lang zh

# Custom output path
{baseDir}/scripts/transcribe.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --out /tmp/transcript.txt

# Force Whisper (skip subtitle check)
{baseDir}/scripts/transcribe.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --force-whisper

# Keep downloaded audio file
{baseDir}/scripts/transcribe.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --keep-audio

Options

Option Description Default
--lang <code> Language hint (ISO 639-1: en, zh, ja, ko, etc.) auto-detect
--out <path> Output transcript file path /tmp/yt_transcript_<VIDEO_ID>.txt
--force-whisper Skip subtitle check, always use Whisper API off
--keep-audio Keep the downloaded audio file after transcription off (deletes audio)
--audio-bitrate <kbps> Audio compression bitrate 64

How It Works

YouTube URL
    │
    ├─► Try yt-dlp subtitles (free, instant)
    │       │
    │       ├─ Found → Clean & output transcript ✓
    │       │
    │       └─ Not found / disabled
    │               │
    │               ▼
    └─► Download audio (yt-dlp + ffmpeg)
            │
            ├─ Compress to mono, low bitrate (fit 25MB API limit)
            │
            ▼
        OpenAI Whisper API → transcript ✓

Cost

  • With subtitles available: Free (uses existing captions)
  • Whisper API: ~$0.006/minute of audio → 23-min video ≈ $0.14

Supported

  • Any YouTube video URL (full URL, youtu.be short link, or video ID)
  • All languages supported by Whisper (99+ languages)
  • Videos up to ~4 hours (audio compressed to fit 25MB API limit)

Troubleshooting

  • 403 from YouTube: Update yt-dlp (pip install -U yt-dlp)
  • File too large for Whisper: Lower bitrate with --audio-bitrate 32
  • Missing API key: Set OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable