Scrape YouTube Captions into Clear-Text on Debian/Ubuntu

adzaps.net

Prerequisites#

# Make sure your package list is fresh
sudo apt update

# (Optional but recommended) ffmpeg lets yt-dlp negotiate the best formats
sudo apt install ffmpeg jq

---

1 Install yt-dlp system-wide#

sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp \
  -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp && sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

A single binary is dropped into /usr/local/bin/; version upgrades are as simple as running the same command again in the future.

---

2 Download the auto-generated captions as SRT#

Pick any video ID—here we’ll use knAGgxzYqw8 (Chase Hughes on What is Money?).

VIDEO="knAGgxzYqw8"  # change this to your target ID

yt-dlp --skip-download \
       --write-auto-sub \
       --sub-lang en \
       --sub-format srt \
       -o "${VIDEO}.%(ext)s" \
       "https://youtu.be/${VIDEO}"
# Result: knAGgxzYqw8.en.srt

Flags explained

Flag	Purpose
--skip-download	ignore the actual video, we only want captions
--write-auto-sub	fall back to YouTube’s auto-generated subtitles
--sub-lang en	grab English only (adjust if you need another language)
--sub-format srt	SRT is the simplest to strip; VTT also works
-o	sets a predictable filename: <id>.en.srt

---

3 Strip index numbers and timecodes#

grep -vE '^[0-9]+$|^[0-9]{2}:' "${VIDEO}.en.srt" \
  | sed '/^[[:space:]]*$/d' \
  > "${VIDEO}.txt"

Breakdown

1. grep -vE '^[0-9]+$|^[0-9]{2}:'

   • Removes the line counters (3911) and any line that begins with a timestamp (02:33:40,800 --> …).

2. sed '/^[[:space:]]*$/d'

   • Deletes leftover blank lines.

3. Output is redirected to <ID>.txt—in our example: knAGgxzYqw8.txt.

---

4 (Option-al) Extra polish#

Remove bracketed stage cues such as [Music] or [Applause] and collapse back-to-back duplicates:

grep -v '^\[.*\]$' "${VIDEO}.txt" \
  | awk 'prev != $0 {print} {prev=$0}' \
  > "${VIDEO}_clean.txt"
mv "${VIDEO}_clean.txt" "${VIDEO}.txt"

---

5 Enjoy your transcript#

less "${VIDEO}.txt"          # page through
grep -i "keyword" "${VIDEO}.txt"   # quick search

You now have a plain-text file ready for note-taking, quoting, or feeding into your favorite AI summarizer—no browser or third-party web services required.

---

TL;DR (copy-paste cheat sheet)#

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg jq -y
sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp \
  -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp && sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

VIDEO="knAGgxzYqw8"                                      # video ID
yt-dlp --skip-download --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en \
       --sub-format srt -o "${VIDEO}.%(ext)s" \
       "https://youtu.be/${VIDEO}"

grep -vE '^[0-9]+$|^[0-9]{2}:' "${VIDEO}.en.srt" \
  | sed '/^[[:space:]]*$/d' \
  | grep -v '^\[.*\]$' \
  | awk 'prev != $0 {print} {prev=$0}' \
  > "${VIDEO}.txt"

less "${VIDEO}.txt"

Happy transcribing!

Adam Malin

adammalin.com

npub15jnttpymeytm80hatjqcvhhqhzrhx6gxp8pq0wn93rhnu8s9h9dsha32lx

You can view and write comments on this or any other post by using the Satcom browser extention.

value4value Did you find any value from this article? Click here to send me a tip!