Download YT transcripts and search through all at once to find timestamps
Version 1.16 update (1 July 2023)
1) Fixed issue with downloading videos and livestream transcripts
2) Added donation link
Version 1.15 update (4 Nov 2022)
1) Added ability to download/search from within live videos tab or a specific playlist.
Version 1.14 update (29 Oct 2022)
1) Fixed issue with video extraction caused by the recent change to the user interface on YouTube. Current version bypasses the need for scrolling within a channel's videos page, but not within search results.
Version 1.13 update
1) fixed some minor duplication issue.
2) fixed issue where uploaded files were not cleared out upon new uploads and the duplication of the search button.
Version 1.12 Update
1) fixed issue where the initial transcript download did not keep the full list in memory if it exceeded 300mb. This issue made it so users had to reupload the transcripts which is mentioned at 8:58 in the demo video.
2) cleaned up the UI a bit. Removed some non-functional components.
3) added the ability to loop through search results and search those transcripts.
This tool allows a user to search YouTube transcripts at scale. Running the tool on a channel's video tab will loop through the videos and extract the transcripts. Once the transcripts are loaded, a user can search through the transcripts to identify the timestamp associated with the match.
Transcripts are downloaded as JSON files for later use. The max file size is about 300MB, so it may download multiple files and you will need to allow YouTube to allow multiple files.
Previously downloaded transcripts can be uploaded to save time for future searches.
Due to the size of files, the tool may hang up if you are uploading multiple transcript files. Just wait for the page to finish what it is doing. Do not click around as it will only cause more delays.
The search can look for words near other words by using the tilde symbol, e.g., word~other stuff
Double quotes create a word boundary. The default searches within 29 characters. You can adjust that by adding a custom number variance, e.g., word~245 other stuff
No quotes assumes a wildcard on either side of the word. OR statements are allowed, e.g., (this OR that OR the other thing).
Spaces are converted to 0-3 of any character, so "web store" would match "webstore" or "webed store".
If you search for something really simple like, "the," you are going to have a bad time.
Once the search is complete, you can download the results as a TSV (tab separated values) file which can be opened in google sheets or excel. To open in Excel, you will need to open a blank workbook and then open the file from the file menu. Be sure to change the file format to "all files" and select "tab separated."
Latest reviews
- (2023-11-05) Christoph Hollmann: So I remembered one very good joke from a Pitch Meetings episode "So is this an homage or a ripoff? Well with which one we dont get sued? Hommage. Sure that one then. Its a mirage." I googled and googled and went crazy because I could not find the episode. It didn't really matter - I did not need it for anything. I just wanted to know what episode it was from. And not knowing drove me crazy. 1 minute with this extension I have piece of mind again. Thank you so much!
- (2023-11-02) Eric Neal: I love the concept and potential of this app. It's a game changer for commentary and investigation users, but it needs some fine tuning. For me, it only seems to work if I put in a date range and it seems to exclude a lot of videos. That being said, I still really like it.
- (2023-09-26) Kevin D: It's broken. Hopefully you have time to take a look. Cheers
- (2023-09-14) ZAPPELFRY: It does what it should. The only thing what makes a problem for me is that there seems to be a limit of 30 results at a time. mabe i do something wrong i don't know. i would pay for an option without a limit. when i search a youtube channel with 400 videos i want to do it in one click. is there a way to do it?
- (2023-08-22) Riley Jones: Worked like a charm
- (2023-08-15) Joseph La Mere: Great extension, when it works. It's a bit buggy in selecting anything other than the start date. Very often, clicking anywhere within the extension selects start date, even if the mouse is no where near the start date. If that can be fixed, it's an automatic 5 stars.
- (2023-07-24) Cody Conyers (StellarAvenger): It's close, but select date range doesn't work. It only downloads the transcripts for the most recent vids.
- (2023-06-28) Eric: Nothing happens? I don't get any option to activate the extension... it's added but there's no way to start it...
- (2023-06-13) Sam Biswas: I've waited over 20 min just for this one to change from "Initiate Program" to "Run Search" and still nothing happen, is there something I've missed?
- (2023-05-29) Jesse Gardner: It still works so relax. Like others said it doesn't work when a video is pull up on your tab, although I havent confirmed that as I only know it works. Try to only use it on youtube home page or a channel home page and not on a video page.
- (2023-05-05) matthewarnold1776: I love it, but doesnt seem to be working at the moment.
- (2023-03-10) Abel Schutte: It was the crème de la crème... Until YouTube changed something. Now it does not work anymore :/
- (2023-03-03) redacted: deserves 1 start since it doesn't work. it works when you are on home tab of a channel but not the videos tab (where it should and what video tutorial guides). i give it 2 star and will update to 5 start when it actually works as it was intended.
- (2023-01-29) DT 0997: It was a good extension, but now it doesn't work.
- (2023-01-11) Anon ymous: Idk. Seemed really promising but doesn't seem to work. The video posted on this listing no longer matches what is shown in the extension when you enable it. My guess is some kind of update to YouTube came along and the developer needs to update the listing. Hopefully this can be fixed. Currently the program will not pull any transcripts, and therefore cannot perform any searches.
- (2022-12-05) Bob Bobby: worked well for a while but now it bugs out on the videos page and wont download any transcripts at all
- (2022-12-04) Kate H. Miller: Really cool feature. I think YouTube's new formatting thing for /videos pages (Recently Uploaded vs. Popular tabs) may have messed up the extension a bit (or I'm doing it wrong, which is definitely possible) because I can't search time periods on entire channels, only in playlists, but it still worked for my purposes.
- (2022-10-31) Michelle Agnew: Great extension and video for showing how to use it. Thank you!
- (2022-10-13) ai: Wow this is amazing chrome extension. I hope you will add srt, xlsx options. 👍
Statistics
Installs
2,000
history
Category
Rating
3.6667 (30 votes)
Last update / version
2023-07-03 / 1.16
Listing languages
en-US