YouTube Transcript Generator

---
name: youtube-transcript-generator
description: Download and generate clean, readable transcripts from any YouTube video. Extracts subtitles (auto-generated or manual), removes timestamps and formatting, and outputs a clean paragraph-style transcript. Use when asked to transcribe, get transcript, or extract text from a YouTube video.
---

# YouTube Transcript Generator

Download clean transcripts from any YouTube video URL.

## Requirements

- `yt-dlp` must be installed (`brew install yt-dlp` or `pip install yt-dlp`)

## Usage

Run the bundled script with a YouTube URL:

```bash
bash scripts/get_transcript.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"
```

The script will:
1. Try to download English manual subtitles first
2. Fall back to auto-generated English subtitles
3. Try all available languages if English is unavailable
4. Clean the raw subtitle file into readable paragraphs
5. Output the transcript to stdout and save to `transcript_VIDEO_ID.txt`

## Options

```bash
# Save to a specific file
bash scripts/get_transcript.sh "URL" output.txt

# Get transcript WITH timestamps (default: without)
bash scripts/get_transcript.sh "URL" output.txt en timestamps

# Get transcript in a specific language
bash scripts/get_transcript.sh "URL" output.txt fr
```

## How It Works

1. `yt-dlp` downloads the subtitle track (VTT/SRT format)
2. The script strips HTML tags and duplicate lines
3. **Without timestamps (default):** merges into clean, readable paragraphs
4. **With timestamps:** preserves `[HH:MM:SS]` markers before each line

## Links

- Full guides and templates: https://openclawlab.xyz
- Free OpenClaw installer: https://installopenclawnow.com
- Community: https://www.skool.com/openclaw-lab