YouTube Transcript Downloader and Translator

A Python program to download YouTube video transcripts and translate them to English.

Features

• Extract YouTube video ID from various URL formats
• Download video transcripts in multiple languages
• Save transcripts to text files
• Support for timestamped output
• Automatic translation to English using Google Translate
• Language detection to determine if translation is needed

Installation

1. Install the required dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Or install directly:

pip install youtube-transcript-api deep-translator

Usage

Command Line

python youtube_transcript_downloader.py <youtube_url>

Interactive Mode

If no URL is provided, the program will prompt you to enter one:

python youtube_transcript_downloader.py

Examples

# Using a standard YouTube URL
python youtube_transcript_downloader.py https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

# Using a shortened youtu.be URL
python youtube_transcript_downloader.py https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Output

The program will:

1. Display the transcript in the terminal
2. Save the transcript to a file named transcript_<video_id>.txt
3. If translation is needed, prompt the user to translate to English
4. Save both original and translated transcripts to separate files

Notes

• The video must have captions/subtitles available for transcript extraction
• The program first tries to fetch English transcripts
• If no English transcript is available, it will try to get the original language
• The program automatically detects if translation is needed and prompts to translate to English
• For videos without English captions, the program will prompt you to translate the transcript

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• youtube-transcript-api
• deep-translator