youtube-transcript-enhanced

About This Enhanced Version

This is an enhanced version of the youtube-transcript package that adds video metadata extraction and maintains a fallback system for improved reliability. The original package used only HTML scraping, which sometimes fails or returns empty results. This version automatically falls back to YouTube's InnerTube API when needed.

⚠️ Note: The InnerTube API fallback works best in client-side and local server environments.

What's New

• Video metadata extraction: Get title, description, thumbnail, duration, and view count
• Dual extraction methods: HTML scraping + InnerTube API fallback
• YouTube Shorts support: Enhanced URL regex for /shorts/ URLs
• Better error handling: New YoutubeTranscriptEmptyError class
• Improved reliability: Automatic fallback increases success rate
• Enhanced return format: Returns both transcript and video metadata

Installation

$ npm i youtube-transcript-enhanced

or

$ yarn add youtube-transcript-enhanced

Usage

import { YoutubeTranscript } from 'youtube-transcript-enhanced';

// Basic usage - returns transcript and video metadata
const result = await YoutubeTranscript.fetchTranscript('videoId or URL');

console.log('Transcript:', result.transcript);
console.log('Video Title:', result.videoMetadata?.title);
console.log('Video Description:', result.videoMetadata?.description);
console.log('Video Duration:', result.videoMetadata?.lengthSeconds);
console.log('View Count:', result.videoMetadata?.viewCount);
console.log('Thumbnail:', result.videoMetadata?.thumbnail);

Return Format

The fetchTranscript method now returns a VideoTranscriptResponse object:

interface VideoTranscriptResponse {
  transcript: TranscriptResponse[];
  videoMetadata?: VideoMetadata;
}

interface TranscriptResponse {
  text: string;
  duration: number;  
  offset: number;
  lang?: string;
}

interface VideoMetadata {
  title?: string;
  description?: string;
  thumbnail?: any;
  lengthSeconds?: string;
  viewCount?: string;
}

Language Support

// Get transcript in specific language
const result = await YoutubeTranscript.fetchTranscript('videoId', { lang: 'en' });

Supported URL Formats

• Standard videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• Short URLs: https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• YouTube Shorts: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
• Embedded videos: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• Direct video IDs: VIDEO_ID

Methods

• fetchTranscript(videoId: string [,options: TranscriptConfig]): Promise<VideoTranscriptResponse>

Environment Compatibility

| Method | Client-Side | Local Server | Production Server | | ------------- | ----------- | ------------ | ---------------------- | | HTML Scraping | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | InnerTube API | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ May have limitations |

The package automatically uses the best available method for your environment.

Error Handling

• YoutubeTranscriptTooManyRequestError: Rate limiting detected
• YoutubeTranscriptVideoUnavailableError: Video not accessible
• YoutubeTranscriptDisabledError: Transcripts disabled for video
• YoutubeTranscriptNotAvailableError: No transcripts available
• YoutubeTranscriptNotAvailableLanguageError: Requested language not available
• YoutubeTranscriptEmptyError: Empty response (triggers fallback method)

License

MIT Licensed