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YouTube Transcript MCP Server

MCP server that enables Claude to fetch and analyze YouTube video transcripts.

Installation

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

Configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "index01d-ytrnscrpt-mcp-server": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/ytrnscrpt-mcp-server/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

This MCP server lets Claude fetch and analyze YouTube video transcripts, enabling you to extract exact transcripts and perform analysis on them within your Claude workflow. It is useful for researching video content, summarizing talks, or extracting quoted material from YouTube videos.

How to use

You connect this MCP server to your MCP client and then issue natural language requests to Claude like: “Get me the transcript for this YouTube URL” or “Analyze the transcript for key topics.” The server runs locally or remotely and handles fetching the transcript data so Claude can focus on processing and analysis.

Typical workflow: after you have the MCP server running, configure your client to point to the server. Then you can ask for transcripts by URL or by identifying video metadata. Claude will query the server, receive the transcript, and return the text along with any requested analyses such as topic extraction, sentiment cues, or keyword frequency.

If you want to verify the server is available, start your client and request a transcript using a YouTube URL. The server responds with the transcript text and any requested metadata, and you can reuse this data for summaries, quotes, or deeper analysis.

How to install

Prerequisites: ensure you have Node.js and npm installed on your system.

Step 1: install dependencies and build the MCP server.

npm install
npm run build

Step 2: configure Claude Desktop to use the MCP server. Add the following to your Claude Desktop configuration file under mcpServers.youtube-transcript. Replace the absolute path with the actual location of your built server.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/ytrnscrpt-mcp-server/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Additional notes

If you need to restart the client after configuration changes, close and reopen Claude Desktop, then issue a transcript request for a YouTube URL.

Available tools

fetchTranscript

Fetches the raw transcript text for a given YouTube video URL.

analyzeTranscript

Performs analysis on the transcript, such as topic extraction, keyword frequency, and sentiment cues.