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Youtube MCP

by format37

Transcribes YouTube videos with yt-dlp and OpenAI Whisper, returning full transcripts in chunks for long videos.

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Install Youtube MCP

Pick your client, then add it in one click or paste the config.

No confirmed install command yet

We only publish a config when the install details come from the project itself — its README, its docs, or a verified owner. We haven’t found those for format37/youtube_mcp, and we’d rather show nothing than a guess you’d paste into your client.

Open setup steps on GitHub

Overview

format37/youtube_mcp MCP server accepts a YouTube URL, downloads the video's audio with yt-dlp, and uses OpenAI Whisper-1 to produce a transcript. It returns the transcript in chunks so longer videos can be processed and consumed more easily. Reach for it when YouTube captions are unavailable or insufficient and you need an MCP-accessible transcription workflow. Running it requires an OpenAI API key and YouTube cookies.

Use cases

  • Transcribe YouTube videos into text
  • Extract transcripts from long videos in chunks
  • Replace incomplete YouTube captions with Whisper output

Key features

  • YouTube URL transcription
  • yt-dlp audio downloading
  • OpenAI Whisper-1 transcription
  • Chunked long-video transcripts
  • MCP SSE endpoint

Security & health

What it can reach and how reliably it runs — from our own checks, not the maintainer’s claims.

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Scanned 8/16/2026 via OSV.dev

Adoption & maintenance

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GitHub stars32Stargazers on the source repository.
Last commit1y agoMost recent push to the default branch.
Directory activity2 viewsConfig copies, upvotes, and views on AllMCPs.

How Youtube MCP works

What format37/youtube_mcp MCP server does

format37/youtube_mcp MCP server turns YouTube video audio into text for MCP clients. The workflow starts with a YouTube URL, downloads the audio through yt-dlp, and sends it to OpenAI's Whisper-1 model for transcription. The result is a full transcript divided into chunks, which is useful for longer videos that may not fit in one response.

This server is focused on transcription rather than general YouTube management.

How it works

The server runs as a containerized service and exposes an HTTP endpoint using server-sent events at /sse. An MCP client connects to that endpoint through mcp-remote, then makes the transcription capability available to the assistant. The client supplies a YouTube URL when requesting a transcript.

Audio retrieval depends on yt-dlp and the provided YouTube cookies. After the audio is downloaded, the server uses the configured OpenAI API key to call Whisper-1. Long results are split into multiple transcript chunks instead of being returned as one large block.

Setup and configuration

To install format37/youtube_mcp MCP server, clone the repository and create its environment file. The documented configuration includes these values:

  • CONTAINER_NAME: container name, shown as youtube_mcp_main in the example.
  • PORT: service port, shown as 7001 in the example.
  • MCP_KEY: access key generated with token_generator.py.
  • OPENAI_API_KEY: credential for OpenAI Whisper-1.

You must also extract YouTube cookies and place the resulting cookies.txt file in the repository's mcp/ directory. The README points to cookies.md for the extraction procedure. Before starting the service, make the provided compose.sh, logs.sh, and update.sh scripts executable, then run compose.sh. The configured port must accept incoming connections.

For Claude Desktop, add an mcp-remote entry targeting http://localhost:7001/sse and pass the MCP authorization header. Restart the client after saving its configuration.

Tools and capabilities

  • Accepts a YouTube URL for transcription.
  • Downloads YouTube audio with yt-dlp.
  • Uses OpenAI Whisper-1 for transcription.
  • Returns full transcripts in chunks for long videos.
  • Exposes the service through an MCP SSE endpoint.

Limitations and notes

format37/youtube_mcp MCP server requires both an OpenAI API key and YouTube cookies. Transcription quality and availability depend on successful audio retrieval and access to the OpenAI API. Its documented client setup uses Claude Desktop with mcp-remote; other client configurations are not described.

Read the full README View source on GitHub

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Frequently Asked Questions about Youtube MCP

format37/youtube_mcp is an MCP server that connects YouTube video URLs to yt-dlp and OpenAI Whisper-1. Its main capability accepts a URL, downloads the video's audio, transcribes it, and returns the full text in chunks for longer videos. It requires YouTube cookies and an OpenAI API key.

Install it by cloning the repository, configuring the documented environment variables, placing cookies.txt in the mcp/ directory, making the shell scripts executable, and running compose.sh. Generate MCP_KEY with token_generator.py before starting the service.

Configure Claude Desktop with mcp-remote pointed at the server's /sse endpoint and pass the MCP authorization header. The example uses http://localhost:7001/sse, the generated MCP key, and the --allow-http option; restart Claude Desktop afterward.

It requires an OpenAI API key and YouTube cookies. Set OPENAI_API_KEY and MCP_KEY in the environment file, and place the extracted cookies.txt file in the mcp/ directory so yt-dlp can access the video.

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