How to get a YouTube transcript via SageTube
· Updated · by SageTube Team · chrome-extension, transcripts, how-to, product
To get a YouTube transcript via SageTube, install the SageTube Chrome extension and click the Transcribe button it adds to the video’s action bar. When the transcript is ready it opens inline, right below the button, with a Copy Transcript action (src/content/inline-summary.ts:131). If the video has YouTube captions, SageTube fetches them — that costs $0.01 per minute of video. If it doesn’t, SageTube extracts the audio and transcribes it via API for $0.05 per minute (config/subscription.php:87–88).
This post covers the Transcribe button and what happens behind it. For the extension’s other features — summaries, sidebar chat, adding videos to Experts — see the complete usage guide.
Where is the Transcribe button?
Open any YouTube video with the extension installed (current version 1.38.6, rag_chrome_extension-master/manifest.json:4) and SageTube injects a YouTube-native styled button group into the action bar, alongside Like and Share. It holds three actions — Summarize, Transcribe, and Chat (src/content/action-button-group.ts:32–39).
Click Transcribe and the button switches to Transcribing… while the request runs. Three details worth knowing (src/content/features/transcribe.ts:25–57):
- Click again while it’s processing and the SageTube sidebar opens, so you can watch progress there. The sidebar is always reachable via
Ctrl+Shift+G(rag_chrome_extension-master/manifest.json:71–74). - Once the button shows Transcribe ✓, clicking it toggles the saved transcript open and closed below the button — you’re not charged again for a video that’s already transcribed.
- The open transcript panel has a Copy Transcript button that puts the full text on your clipboard, ready to paste into notes, a document, or another tool.
How does SageTube actually get the transcript?
Two-tier pipeline, cheapest path first.
Tier 1: captions. When you request a transcript, SageTube first tries to fetch the video’s existing YouTube captions — the fast path, typically around five seconds (app/Jobs/ProcessTranscript.php:37, 80–92).
Tier 2: audio transcription. If no captions are available, SageTube automatically dispatches an audio-extraction job instead (packages/youtube-source/src/Services/TranscriptManager.php:203–220): the video’s audio is extracted and sent to a speech-to-text API. AssemblyAI is the primary provider, with OpenAI (gpt-4o-mini-transcribe) as the fallback (app/Services/TranscribeService.php:52–53, app/Client/OpenAITranscriptionClient.php:18). If AssemblyAI hits a quota or outage, a circuit breaker trips and requests flow to the fallback until the primary recovers (app/Services/TranscribeService.php:336–346, 364–385) — you don’t have to care which provider produced your transcript, and the price is the same.
The same pipeline feeds everything else in SageTube: summaries, Expert indexing, and chat answers all start from this transcript (config/faq.php:23–24).
How much does a transcript cost?
The rate depends on which tier your video takes (config/subscription.php:87–88):
| Path | Rate |
|---|---|
| YouTube captions exist | $0.01 / minute of video |
| Audio extraction + API transcription | $0.05 / minute of video |
You can’t always tell in advance which path a video needs, but the odds are in your favor: about 64% of videos processed through SageTube have usable captions, which is why our public pricing quotes a blended $0.025 per minute (config/subscription.php:105–109). A one-hour captioned lecture costs $0.60 to transcribe; the same hour without captions costs $3.00.
Costs come out of your wallet balance. The free Starter tier starts with a $5 balance (config/subscription.php:64), which covers over eight hours of captioned video — enough to transcribe a small lecture series before paying anything.
Can I transcribe a video without opening it?
Yes. On YouTube’s homepage, search results, and channel pages, the extension adds Transcribe with SageTube to the native three-dot menu on every video card (src/content/context-menu-injector.ts:223). Pick it and the transcription runs in the background; the card’s result panel tells you when it’s finished (src/content/features/transcribe-outcome.ts:124). It’s the same background-triage flow as card summaries — queue transcripts from a results page without opening a single video.
When can’t SageTube produce a transcript?
Honest limits:
- Guest sessions only get the caption path. Paid audio transcription requires an account, because it spends wallet balance; a caption-less video in a guest session stops with “transcript not available” instead (
packages/youtube-source/src/Services/TranscriptManager.php:613–617). - Private and age-restricted videos can’t be fetched at all — SageTube ingests only public YouTube content (
config/faq.php:40). - Videos with no retrievable duration (broken uploads, live streams that never finalized) are marked unavailable rather than transcribed blind (
packages/youtube-source/src/Services/TranscriptManager.php:622–624).
If a public, ordinary video fails anyway, the button’s Retry state re-runs the request — transient YouTube errors are retried with backoff on our side too (app/Jobs/ProcessTranscript.php:59–64).
Frequently asked questions
- How do I get a transcript of a YouTube video?
- Install the SageTube Chrome extension and open the video. The extension adds a Transcribe button to the video's action bar, next to YouTube's own buttons. Click it once; when the transcript is ready it opens inline below the button, with a Copy Transcript action.
- How much does a YouTube transcript cost on SageTube?
- $0.01 per minute of video when YouTube captions exist, $0.05 per minute when SageTube has to extract and transcribe the audio. About 64% of videos processed have usable captions. Costs are paid from your wallet balance — the free Starter tier starts with $5.
- What happens if a YouTube video has no captions?
- SageTube falls back automatically: the audio is extracted and sent to a transcription API — AssemblyAI first, with an OpenAI fallback if AssemblyAI is unavailable. You get the same transcript either way; it costs $0.05 per minute instead of $0.01 and takes longer than the roughly-five-second caption path.
- Can I get a transcript without opening the video?
- Yes. On YouTube's homepage, search results, and channel pages, open any video card's three-dot menu and pick Transcribe with SageTube. The transcription runs in the background and notifies you when it's done.