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YouTube Subtitles▌

kazuph

by kazuph

Retrieve and transcribe YouTube transcripts with natural language queries. Easily get YouTube transcript or convert YouT

Integrates YouTube subtitle retrieval for natural language queries about video content.

github stars

★ 4

GitHubnpm
0 commentsdiscussion

Both formats append explainx.ai attribution and the canonical URL for this MCP server listing.

Multi-language subtitle supportRequires yt-dlp local installation

best for

  • / Content creators analyzing competitor videos
  • / Researchers extracting information from educational content
  • / Students summarizing lecture videos
  • / Anyone wanting to quickly understand video content without watching

capabilities

  • / Download YouTube video transcripts
  • / Extract video metadata
  • / Query video content in natural language
  • / Select subtitle language by ISO code
  • / Summarize YouTube videos

what it does

Downloads YouTube video transcripts and metadata so you can ask natural language questions about video content. Supports multiple languages including Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, and French.

about

YouTube Subtitles is a community-built MCP server published by kazuph that provides AI assistants with tools and capabilities via the Model Context Protocol. Retrieve and transcribe YouTube transcripts with natural language queries. Easily get YouTube transcript or convert YouT It is categorized under search web, other. This server exposes 1 tool that AI clients can invoke during conversations and coding sessions.

how to install

You can install YouTube Subtitles in your AI client of choice. Use the install panel on this page to get one-click setup for Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and other MCP-compatible clients. This server runs locally on your machine via the stdio transport.

license

MIT

YouTube Subtitles is released under the MIT license. This is a permissive open-source license, meaning you can freely use, modify, and distribute the software.

readme

README content is unavailable from source data for this server.

Open GitHub repository

FAQ

What is the YouTube Subtitles MCP server?
YouTube Subtitles is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server profile on explainx.ai. MCP lets AI hosts (e.g. Claude Desktop, Cursor) call tools and resources through a standard interface; this page summarizes categories, install hints, and community ratings.
How do MCP servers relate to agent skills?
Skills are reusable instruction packages (often SKILL.md); MCP servers expose live capabilities. Teams frequently combine both—skills for workflows, MCP for APIs and data. See explainx.ai/skills and explainx.ai/mcp-servers for parallel directories.
How are reviews shown for YouTube Subtitles?
This profile displays 59 aggregated ratings (sample rows for discoverability plus signed-in user reviews). Average score is about 4.5 out of 5—verify behavior in your own environment before production use.

Use Cases▌

Web Research & Information Gathering

Fetch and extract information from websites automatically

Example

Research competitor pricing, scrape product reviews, monitor news mentions

✓

Automate 5-10 hours/week of manual web research

Content Monitoring & Alerts

Track website changes, new content, price updates

Example

Monitor competitor blog for new posts, track stock availability, watch for pricing changes

✓

Stay informed without manual checking, never miss important updates

Data Extraction & Aggregation

Extract structured data from multiple websites

Example

Compile product listings from 10 e-commerce sites, aggregate job postings, collect real estate data

✓

Build datasets 100x faster than manual copying

API-less Integration

Interact with services that don't offer APIs

Example

Check form submissions, validate website functionality, test user flows

✓

Automate interactions with any website, even without API

Implementation Guide▌

Prerequisites

  • ›Claude Desktop or Cursor with MCP support
  • ›Understanding of web scraping ethics and robots.txt
  • ›Rate limiting awareness to avoid overwhelming target sites
  • ›Knowledge of legal restrictions on data collection

Time Estimate

20-40 minutes including configuration and testing

Installation Steps

  1. 1.Install web automation MCP server via npm or pip
  2. 2.Configure allowed domains and rate limits in MCP config
  3. 3.Test with simple fetch: 'Get content from example.com'
  4. 4.Progress to extraction: 'Extract all product prices from this page'
  5. 5.Set up monitoring: 'Check this URL daily for changes'
  6. 6.Parse structured data: 'Create CSV from this table'
  7. 7.Respect robots.txt and rate limits always

Troubleshooting

  • ⚠403 Forbidden: Website blocks bots—respect their wishes, use official API instead
  • ⚠Rate limit errors: Slow down requests, add delays between fetches
  • ⚠Stale data: Target site changed HTML structure—update selectors
  • ⚠Timeout errors: Site is slow or blocking—increase timeout, try different user agent
  • ⚠JavaScript-rendered content: Use headless browser MCP servers for dynamic sites

Best Practices▌

✓ Do

  • +Check robots.txt and respect crawl rules
  • +Rate limit requests: 1-2 requests/second maximum
  • +Use official APIs when available instead of scraping
  • +Identify your bot with descriptive user agent
  • +Cache results to minimize repeated requests
  • +Handle errors gracefully with retries and fallbacks
  • +Validate extracted data for accuracy

✗ Don't

  • −Don't scrape sites that explicitly forbid it (robots.txt, ToS)
  • −Don't overwhelm servers with rapid requests—use rate limiting
  • −Don't scrape personal data without consent and legal basis
  • −Don't ignore copyright on extracted content
  • −Don't assume HTML structure is stable—handle changes
  • −Don't use scraped data for commercial purposes without permission

💡 Pro Tips

  • ★Use CSS selectors or XPath for robust data extraction
  • ★Set up monitoring alerts for extraction failures (structure changed)
  • ★Implement exponential backoff for retries on failures
  • ★Store raw HTML for reprocessing if extraction logic changes
  • ★Combine with data analysis tools for insights from extracted data
  • ★Consider using official APIs or RSS feeds as more stable alternatives

Technical Details▌

Architecture

MCP server handles HTTP requests, HTML parsing, JavaScript rendering (if headless browser), and returns structured data to Claude.

Protocols

  • HTTP/HTTPS
  • WebSocket (for real-time sites)
  • Puppeteer/Playwright (for JavaScript sites)

Compatibility

  • Static HTML sites
  • JavaScript-rendered SPAs (with headless browser)
  • REST APIs
  • GraphQL endpoints

When to Use This▌

✓ Use When

Use for research automation, content monitoring, data aggregation from multiple sources, and when official APIs don't exist. Best for read-only information gathering.

✗ Avoid When

Avoid for sites with APIs (use API instead), sites that explicitly forbid scraping, when data is copyrighted, or for login-required content without proper authorization.

Integration▌

  • →Scheduled monitoring with change detection
  • →Multi-source data aggregation pipelines
  • →Fallback to web scraping when API rate limits hit
  • →Headless browser for JavaScript-heavy sites

Discussion

Product Hunt–style comments (not star reviews)
  • No comments yet — start the thread.

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Ratings

4.5★★★★★59 reviews
  • ★★★★★Aditi Yang· Dec 28, 2024

    YouTube Subtitles has been reliable for tool-calling workflows; the MCP profile page is a good permalink for internal docs.

  • ★★★★★Kofi Kapoor· Dec 16, 2024

    We wired YouTube Subtitles into a staging workspace; the listing’s GitHub and npm pointers saved time versus hunting across READMEs.

  • ★★★★★Layla Wang· Dec 4, 2024

    We evaluated YouTube Subtitles against two servers with overlapping tools; this profile had the clearer scope statement.

  • ★★★★★Aanya Mensah· Nov 23, 2024

    YouTube Subtitles is among the better-indexed MCP projects we tried; the explainx.ai summary tracks the official description.

  • ★★★★★James Shah· Nov 19, 2024

    According to our notes, YouTube Subtitles benefits from clear Model Context Protocol framing — fewer ambiguous “AI plugin” claims.

  • ★★★★★Sakshi Patil· Nov 7, 2024

    Strong directory entry: YouTube Subtitles surfaces stars and publisher context so we could sanity-check maintenance before adopting.

  • ★★★★★Yuki Torres· Nov 7, 2024

    YouTube Subtitles reduced integration guesswork — categories and install configs on the listing matched the upstream repo.

  • ★★★★★Chaitanya Patil· Oct 26, 2024

    Useful MCP listing: YouTube Subtitles is the kind of server we cite when onboarding engineers to host + tool permissions.

  • ★★★★★Aarav Sharma· Oct 26, 2024

    YouTube Subtitles is among the better-indexed MCP projects we tried; the explainx.ai summary tracks the official description.

  • ★★★★★Layla Park· Oct 14, 2024

    YouTube Subtitles reduced integration guesswork — categories and install configs on the listing matched the upstream repo.

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