Download All Transcripts

Why? Manually downloading transcripts folder-by-folder is tedious and error-prone. This skill automates overnight batch processing across all channels and collections with built-in rate limiting and resumability.

Quick Start

# Run the unified CLI command
ytscriber download-all

That's it. The command finds all folders with videos.csv, downloads pending transcripts, and resumes safely if interrupted.

Workflow

1. Verify Prerequisites

Before running, ensure:

• You have at least one folder with a videos.csv file
• The ytscriber CLI is installed (pip install -e .)

# Check for valid data folders
ls ~/Documents/YTScriber/*/videos.csv

[!TIP] If no videos.csv files exist, first run extract-videos or sync-all-channels to populate them.

2. Execute Batch Download

ytscriber download-all

The command will:

1. Find all folders containing videos.csv
2. Process each folder sequentially
3. Download transcripts to <folder>/transcripts/
4. Wait 60 seconds between videos to avoid YouTube rate limiting
5. Update CSV with download status

[!CAUTION] This is a long-running operation. For a channel with 500 videos, expect 8+ hours. Run overnight or in a tmux/screen session.

3. Monitor Progress

The command outputs real-time progress:

YTScriber - Download All Transcripts
=======================================
Started at: Thu Dec 26 09:00:00 PST 2024
Delay between videos: 60s

Found 12 folders with videos.csv

────────────────────────────────────────
[1/12] Processing: lex-fridman
  CSV: ~/Documents/YTScriber/lex-fridman/videos.csv
  Output: ~/Documents/YTScriber/lex-fridman/transcripts

4. Handle Completion or Interruption

On successful completion:

All transcripts downloaded!
Finished at: Thu Dec 26 17:30:00 PST 2024

Summary of folders processed:
  - lex-fridman: 342 transcripts
  - huberman-lab: 156 transcripts
  ...

On interruption or IP block: Simply run the command again. It automatically skips videos where transcript_downloaded=success in the CSV.

Output Structure

Transcripts are saved as markdown with YAML frontmatter:

~/Documents/YTScriber/huberman-lab/
├── videos.csv
└── transcripts/
    ├── 2024-01-15-abc123XYZ00.md
    ├── 2024-01-20-def456ABC11.md
    └── ...

Each transcript file contains:

---
video_id: abc123XYZ00
video_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123XYZ00
title: "Sleep Optimization Toolkit"
author: Huberman Lab
published_date: 2024-01-15
length_minutes: 135.5
views: 1234567
description: "..."
is_generated: True
---

[Transcript text as continuous paragraph]

Troubleshooting

Common Mistakes

1. Running without checking disk space - Transcripts are small (~50KB each), but 10,000 videos = ~500MB. Verify space before overnight runs.

2. Interrupting during a download - Safe to Ctrl+C between videos. If you interrupt mid-download, that video's transcript may be incomplete. The CSV won't mark it as downloaded, so it will retry.

3. Running multiple instances - Don't run the command twice simultaneously. The 60s delay assumes single-threaded operation to respect rate limits.

4. Expecting instant results - The 60s delay is intentional. Faster rates trigger IP blocks. Plan for overnight runs.

Quality Checklist

Before considering batch download complete:

• All folders show transcript counts in summary output
• No IP blocked errors (or resolved by VPN switch)
• Spot-check 2-3 random .md files have valid content
• CSV transcript_downloaded column reflects actual downloads

When to Use This vs. download-transcripts

Technical Details

• Rate limiting: 60 second delay between videos
• Resumability: Based on transcript_downloaded column in each CSV
• Dependencies: Requires ytscriber CLI (pip install -e .)