How to Get Facebook Video and Reel Transcripts (Even When There Are No Captions)
Description and use
Retrieve Facebook video and Reel transcripts, even when no captions exist, via an Apify actor, a Python script, or a DIY script that reads Facebook’s caption file and audio track without login.
Problem
Facebook videos and Reels often lack accessible transcripts, especially when the user does not own the video and no captions are present.
Outcome
In a test run on 27 Oct 2026 with 13 videos, the actor returned captions for 6 videos, transcribed 6 videos with Whisper AI, and reported one deleted video as not_available. The whole run took 61 seconds.
Workflow
- 1. Open the Apify actor page and click "Try for free".
- 2. Paste Facebook video or Reel links, or a page name for latest videos.
- 3. Choose transcript source: auto, captions only, or AI.
- 4. Start the actor and export results as CSV, JSON, or Excel, optionally adding SRT/VTT subtitles.
- 5. (Optional) Use the provided Python script to run the actor programmatically, specifying video URLs, page URLs, max videos per page, transcript source, and output format.
- 6. (Optional) Schedule daily runs to track competitor page content and search transcripts for keywords.
Evidence
Facebook plays captions on many videos and Reels, but if you don't own the video there's no button to export them, and there's no public API for transcripts of other pages' videos.
On 27 Oct 2026 I ran a test on Apify's cloud with 7 links I picked (NASA, Gordon Ramsay, MrBeast Gaming, Tasty, BBC News, plus one deleted video) and the 4 latest videos from the CNN and Gordon Ramsay pages.
6 had a Facebook caption track, which came back as is. One of them was a 12-minute MrBeast Gaming video (2,613 words). 6 had no caption track and were transcribed with Whisper AI, including all four CNN videos.
The whole run took 61 seconds.
- Record date: 2026-10-27T02:26:09.871Z