Importly MCP Server

Give your AI agent the ability to download, transcribe, and inspect any video or audio URL — YouTube, TikTok, X, podcasts, and 1000+ other sites.

Importly runs yt-dlp, rotating residential proxies, ffmpeg, and speech-to-text server-side, so your agent (and you) never deal with IP bans, 429s, cookie rot, or extractor breakage.

Tools

Tool	What it does
`import_media` / `check_import`	Download media to hosted storage, get a direct link (optionally with a transcript)
`transcribe_media` / `check_transcription`	Speech-to-text with timestamped segments
`get_metadata` / `check_metadata`	Full metadata: formats, uploader, thumbnails, stats
`get_basic_metadata` / `check_basic_metadata`	Fast title/duration/thumbnail lookup
`check_balance`	Remaining credit balance

Jobs are async: submit tools return a jobId, check tools poll it. Responses tell the agent exactly what to do next.

Setup

Get an API key at importly.io — $3.00 in free credits, no card required.
Add the server to your MCP client:

Claude Code

Terminal

claude mcp add importly -e IMPORTLY_API_KEY=your_key -- npx -y importly-mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor / Cline / Windsurf

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "importly": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "importly-mcp"],
      "env": { "IMPORTLY_API_KEY": "your_key" }
    }
  }
}

(Claude Desktop: claude_desktop_config.json · Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json · Cline: MCP settings UI · Windsurf: ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json)

Example prompts

"Transcribe this talk and summarize the key points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…"
"Download the audio of this podcast episode and give me a link"
"How long is this video and who uploaded it?"

Pricing

Usage-based credits (downloads ~$0.01/MB, transcription per media minute) — see pricing. New accounts get $3.00 free.

Docs & support

MIT licensed. The server is a thin wrapper over the Importly API.