Send YouTube Transcripts to OpenAI API
Get any YouTube transcript ready for GPT-4 in seconds
Or just change youtube.com to 2outube.com in your browser
To send a YouTube transcript to the OpenAI API, change 'youtube.com' to '2outube.com' in the video URL. The full transcript loads instantly — copy it and pass it as a message in your API call. No signup, no scraping, completely free.
The Trick
youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
2outube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
Just change 'y' to '2'
Works with any YouTube video that has captions
Using Transcripts with OpenAI API
Grab the YouTube video URL
Copy the URL of any YouTube video you want to analyze. Works with lectures, interviews, tutorials, podcasts — any video with auto-generated or manual captions.
Swap the domain to 2outube.com
Change 'youtube.com' to '2outube.com' in the URL and hit enter. The page loads the full plain-text transcript immediately — no login, no extension, no API key needed for this step.
Copy the transcript text
Select all and copy the transcript. It's clean plain text — no timestamps unless you want them — ready to drop directly into an OpenAI API messages array as a user or system message.
Pass it to the OpenAI API
Include the transcript in your API request body as part of the messages array. Set it as a 'user' role message alongside your instruction prompt — e.g., 'Summarize this transcript:' followed by the full text. Use gpt-4o or gpt-4-turbo for long transcripts thanks to their 128K context window.
Quick Start
Get the transcript
Navigate to any YouTube video with captions. Copy the full URL from the browser address bar.
Change youtube to 2outube
In the URL, replace 'youtube.com' with '2outube.com'. The page instantly displays the full video transcript as plain text.
Paste into your OpenAI API call
Copy the transcript and insert it into your OpenAI API request as a message. Combine it with a system or user prompt to summarize, extract, translate, or analyze the content using GPT-4o or any model you choose.
Ready-Made Template
import openai
client = openai.OpenAI(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")
# Paste your 2outube transcript here
transcript = """
[PASTE TRANSCRIPT FROM 2OUTUBE HERE]
"""
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4o",
messages=[
{
"role": "system",
"content": "You are a helpful assistant that analyzes YouTube video transcripts."
},
{
"role": "user",
"content": f"Please summarize the following YouTube transcript and extract the 5 most important insights:\n\n{transcript}"
}
],
max_tokens=1000
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)Questions
Does this work with any YouTube video?
Yes, any video with captions — including auto-generated captions that YouTube creates for most English-language videos.
Is it really free?
Completely free. No account, no limits, no API key required to get the transcript. You only need your own OpenAI API key to run the API calls on your end.
Which OpenAI models work best with YouTube transcripts?
GPT-4o and GPT-4-turbo are ideal — both have 128K token context windows, which handles even hour-long transcripts. For shorter videos (under 30 minutes), GPT-3.5-turbo works well and is more cost-effective.
How long can the transcript be before hitting OpenAI's token limit?
A one-hour video typically produces 8,000–15,000 words, which is roughly 10,000–20,000 tokens. GPT-4o's 128K context window comfortably handles even 3–4 hour videos. If you hit limits, split the transcript into chunks and process each separately.
Can I automate this with the OpenAI API programmatically?
Yes. You can build a script that fetches the transcript from 2outube.com using a standard HTTP request, parses the text, then passes it directly to the OpenAI API — no manual copy-paste needed. Use Python's requests library to GET the 2outube page and extract the transcript text.
What can I do with a YouTube transcript in the OpenAI API?
Common use cases include: summarization, key point extraction, Q&A generation, translation, sentiment analysis, creating blog posts or show notes, extracting action items, and building searchable transcript indexes. The OpenAI API can handle all of these with the right system prompt.
Does 2outube include timestamps in the transcript?
The default transcript view is clean text without timestamps, which is optimal for feeding into GPT. If you need timestamped segments for more precise referencing, the raw caption data is also available on the page.
How is this different from using the YouTube Data API to get transcripts?
The YouTube Data API doesn't provide captions/transcripts without OAuth and special access. 2outube requires no API key, no authentication, and no quota management. Just change the URL and copy the text — it's the fastest path to getting transcript content into your OpenAI workflow.
Try it now — paste any YouTube URL
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