YouTube MCP Server

Name: YouTube MCP Server
Author: community

How to install the YouTube MCP server

Add this to your Claude Desktop MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "youtube-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Add this to your Claude Code MCP configuration:

npx -y youtube-mcp

Add this to your Cursor MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "youtube-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The YouTube MCP server lets Claude search YouTube, pull transcripts, and reason over video content as if it were text. For anyone using YouTube as a research source, this turns hours of watching into prompts and summaries.

The setup is simple and the payoff is immediate. Most knowledge workers under-use YouTube as a research tool because watching takes time. The MCP server collapses that.

Why use it

YouTube has the highest density of long-form expert content of any platform. The friction has always been time. A 90-minute interview with a domain expert may have one paragraph that’s relevant to your current question, but you still have to sit through the whole thing.

The MCP server flips this. Claude pulls the transcript, finds the relevant section, summarises it, and points you back at the timestamp. The full video is still there if you want to watch the source, but you get the takeaway in seconds.

What it actually does

Search videos by keyword with filters (channel, duration, upload date). Fetch video metadata: title, description, channel, view count, publication date. Pull auto-generated or manual transcripts (English and most major languages). List videos in a channel or playlist. Some servers also expose comment fetching, which is useful for sentiment analysis.

Practical patterns:

“Find videos from the last month about Cloudflare Workers AI and summarise their main points.”
“Pull the transcript of this Lex Fridman interview and find the section about RLHF.”
“List the most-viewed videos on this channel and tell me what topics they cover.”

Gotchas

API quota is real. The YouTube Data API gives you 10,000 units per day by default, and search calls cost 100 units each. Heavy querying can burn through the daily quota fast. Cache results when you can or apply for higher quota.

Transcripts may be missing. Not every video has captions. Live streams, very short videos, and some non-English content lack transcripts entirely. The server returns an error in this case; Claude should fall back gracefully but it’s worth knowing.

Pair with ContextBolt for video research workflows: bookmark videos as you find them, query later via Claude. The combination is genuinely powerful for content workflows where you collect inspiration over time.

For audio rather than video, ElevenLabs handles text-to-speech in the other direction. Combined, you can summarise a long YouTube interview into a 2-minute audio snippet for your own listening queue.

MCP servers related to YouTube

All in Design & Media →

YouTube MCP server: FAQs

Is the YouTube server official?

No. YouTube hasn't shipped a first-party MCP server. The community implementations wrap the YouTube Data API plus various transcript-extraction libraries.

What does it need to authenticate?

A YouTube Data API key for search and metadata calls. Some servers also need OAuth if you want to access private playlists or your account-specific data. For most use cases, an API key is enough.

Are the transcripts accurate?

Auto-generated transcripts from YouTube vary in quality. They're usually good enough for summary work. For high-stakes use cases (legal, medical), don't trust the transcript without listening to the original.

Can it work with restricted or age-gated videos?

Public videos work. Age-gated or private videos require user authentication and the relevant scopes. Most servers handle the public case only.

How does this compare to the dedicated YouTube Transcript server?

The full YouTube server covers search, channel metadata, and transcripts. The [YouTube Transcript server](/tools/mcp-server-directory/?category=design-media) is transcript-only. If you only need transcripts, the dedicated server is simpler. If you also want to search, list channel videos, or fetch metadata, install the full server.

Back to all MCP servers

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