YouTube Transcripts MCP server

The YouTube Transcript Server is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation that allows you to retrieve transcripts from YouTube videos. It provides a straightforward way to access video captions and subtitles for various applications.

Installation Options

Using Smithery

Install the YouTube Transcript Server with a single command:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript --client claude

Using MCP-Get

You can also install using the mcp-get tool:

npx @michaellatman/mcp-get@latest install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript

Manual Configuration

To manually configure the server with Claude Desktop, add this configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"]
    }
  }
}

Usage

The YouTube Transcript Server provides the get_transcript tool that extracts transcripts from YouTube videos.

Parameters

• url (string, required): YouTube video URL or video ID
• lang (string, optional, default: "en"): Language code for transcript (e.g., 'ko', 'en')

Example Usage

Get transcript by video URL:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "en"
});

Get transcript by video ID:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "ko"
});

Using in Claude Desktop

To extract YouTube subtitles in the Claude Desktop app, you can use:

chat: https://youtu.be/ODaHJzOyVCQ?si=aXkJgso96Deri0aB Extract subtitles

Features

The server supports:

• Multiple video URL formats
• Language-specific transcript retrieval
• Detailed metadata in responses
• Robust error handling including:
  • Invalid video URLs or IDs
  • Unavailable transcripts
  • Language availability issues
  • Network errors

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "youtube-transcript" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "youtube-transcript": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "youtube-transcript": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect