transcribee 🐝
Open source macOS YouTube video transcriber that evolves a self-organizing knowledge base.
transcribee "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
Over time, your ~/Documents/transcripts/ folder naturally evolves into a personal library:
transcripts/
├── AI-Research/
│ ├── ilya-sutskever-agi-2024/
│ └── anthropic-constitutional-ai/
├── Startups/
│ ├── ycombinator-how-to-get-users/
│ └── pmarca-founder-mode/
└── Health/
└── huberman-sleep-optimization/
Each transcript is speaker-labeled and ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any LLM.
Why 🍯
I watch a lot of YouTube — podcasts, technical talks, interviews. I wanted to:
- Ask questions about videos in LLMs
- Have all that knowledge searchable and organized
- Not do any manual work to m…
transcribee 🐝
Open source macOS YouTube video transcriber that evolves a self-organizing knowledge base.
transcribee "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
Over time, your ~/Documents/transcripts/ folder naturally evolves into a personal library:
transcripts/
├── AI-Research/
│ ├── ilya-sutskever-agi-2024/
│ └── anthropic-constitutional-ai/
├── Startups/
│ ├── ycombinator-how-to-get-users/
│ └── pmarca-founder-mode/
└── Health/
└── huberman-sleep-optimization/
Each transcript is speaker-labeled and ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any LLM.
Why 🍯
I watch a lot of YouTube — podcasts, technical talks, interviews. I wanted to:
- Ask questions about videos in LLMs
- Have all that knowledge searchable and organized
- Not do any manual work to maintain it
transcribee does exactly that. Transcribe once, knowledge stays forever.
Features 🪻
- Transcribes YouTube videos and local audio/video files
- Speaker diarization — identifies different speakers
- Auto-categorizes transcripts using Claude based on content
- Builds a knowledge library that organizes itself over time
Use with Clawdbot 🤖
transcribee is available as a Clawdbot skill. Just ask your agent to transcribe any YouTube video:
"Transcribe this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
Install the skill
# Install from ClawdHub (recommended)
clawdhub install transcribee
# Or clone manually
git clone https://github.com/itsfabioroma/transcribee.git ~/.clawdbot/skills/transcribee
Make sure you have the dependencies installed (brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg) and API keys configured.
Quick Start 🪺
# Install dependencies (macOS)
brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg
pnpm install
# Configure API keys
cp .env.example .env
# Add your ElevenLabs + Anthropic API keys to .env
# Transcribe anything
transcribee "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
transcribee ~/Downloads/podcast.mp3
transcribee ~/Videos/interview.mp4
Shell alias (recommended)
Add to ~/.zshrc:
alias transcribee="noglob /path/to/transcribee/transcribe.sh"
Output 🍯
Each transcript saves to ~/Documents/transcripts/{category}/{title}/:
| File | What it’s for |
|---|---|
transcription.txt | Speaker-labeled transcript — paste this into your LLM |
transcription-raw.txt | Plain text without speaker labels |
transcription-raw.json | Word-level timings for precise references |
metadata.json | Video info, language, auto-detected theme |
How it works 🐝
- Downloads audio from YouTube (yt-dlp) or extracts from local video (ffmpeg)
- Transcribes with ElevenLabs (
scribe_v1_experimentalwith speaker diarization) - Claude analyzes content and existing library structure
- Auto-categorizes into the right folder
- Saves transcript files with metadata
Requirements
- macOS (tested on Sonoma)
- Node.js 18+
- yt-dlp —
brew install yt-dlp - ffmpeg —
brew install ffmpeg - ElevenLabs API key — for transcription
- Anthropic API key — for auto-categorization
Supported formats
| Type | Formats |
|---|---|
| Audio | mp3, m4a, wav, ogg, flac |
| Video | mp4, mkv, webm, mov, avi |
| URLs | youtube.com, youtu.be |
bzz bzz 🐝