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How to

# How to get TikTok transcripts with an API

TikTok has no official transcript API. Here is a working one you can call from your code in one request.

**Short answer**

Call the **TikTok Transcript Scraper** through Apify's run-sync endpoint. You POST the video URLs, the request waits for the run, and the response is the transcripts as JSON. No TikTok keys, no proxies to manage.

## A real use case

A content tool lets users paste a TikTok link and get a blog draft. The backend sends the link to this API, gets the transcript in a few seconds, and passes it to an LLM.

## Step by step

1. **Get an Apify API token** (free account).
2. **POST the input JSON** to the run-sync endpoint above.
3. **Read the response**: one object per video.
4. **Check `status`** before using `transcript`.

### Input (paste into the JSON tab)

```
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktok/video/7106594312292453675"
  ],
  "speechToText": "fallback",
  "includeSegments": false
}
```

### Call it from code

```
import requests

TOKEN = "your-apify-token"
url = ("https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrape-lads~tiktok-transcript-scraper"
       "/run-sync-get-dataset-items")
body = {"urls": ["https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktok/video/7106594312292453675"]}

rows = requests.post(url, params={"token": TOKEN}, json=body, timeout=300).json()
for r in rows:
    print(r["status"], r.get("transcript", "")[:200])
```

### What you get back

```
{
  "status": "ok",
  "platform": "tiktok",
  "transcript": "Three habits that made my pottery sell out...",
  "transcriptSource": "subtitles",
  "language": "en",
  "wordCount": 214
}
```

Trimmed example. Names and numbers are illustrative; your run returns real data with more fields.

## Tips

- Run-sync waits up to 5 minutes. For big batches, start an async run and fetch the dataset when it finishes.
- The same call works for Instagram, YouTube and X with the [Video Transcript API](/video-transcript-api/).

## What it costs

$0.90 per 1,000 transcripts from captions; speech-to-text costs more (see the listing).

Plus a small per-run start fee. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit, enough to test. Check the listing for current pricing.

## FAQ

**Is there an official TikTok transcript API?**

No. TikTok's research and display APIs do not return caption text for arbitrary videos.

**What languages are supported?**

Any caption language TikTok has. Speech-to-text auto-detects the spoken language.

## Related

- [**TikTok Transcript Scraper**](https://apify.com/scrape-lads/tiktok-transcript-scraper?utm_source=scrapelads&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=how-to-get-tiktok-transcripts-with-an-api&utm_content=tiktok-transcript-scraper) Transcripts for any TikTok video or a creator's latest videos. $0.90 / 1,000 from captions.
- [How to get the transcript of a TikTok video](/how-to/get-tiktok-video-transcript/)
- [How to transcribe Instagram Reels to text](/how-to/transcribe-instagram-reels/)
- [How to download YouTube transcripts in bulk](/how-to/download-youtube-transcripts-in-bulk/)
- [How to transcribe a Twitter (X) video](/how-to/transcribe-twitter-x-video/)
- [How to get a recipe from a TikTok video](/how-to/get-recipe-from-tiktok-video/)
- [All How To guides](/how-to/)

## Try it on your own data

Paste the input above, run it, and see your results in a couple of minutes.
[Open TikTok Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/scrape-lads/tiktok-transcript-scraper?utm_source=scrapelads&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=how-to-get-tiktok-transcripts-with-an-api&utm_content=tiktok-transcript-scraper)