transcribe

YouTube transcription CLI using Parakeet V3 on Apple Silicon.

Features

• Fast local transcription - ~1 min for 1 hour of audio on M4
• Multilingual - Parakeet V3 supports 25 languages with auto-detection
• Auto-paragraphing - Groups text by natural speech pauses (>1.5s gaps)
• Optional timestamps - [MM:SS] markers with -t flag
• Smart filenames - Uses video title, or kebab-case with -k
• Markdown output - Includes video title, source URL, duration, date

Installation

Dependencies:

# yt-dlp (via brew, nix, or pipx)
brew install yt-dlp

# parakeet-mlx
pipx install parakeet-mlx

Install script:

git clone https://github.com/flowerornament/transcribe.git
cd transcribe
./ship.sh  # symlinks to ~/.nix-config/scripts/transcribe

Usage

transcribe "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

Flags

Flag	Description
-t, --timestamps	Add [MM:SS] timestamp at start of each segment
-k, --kebab	Use kebab-case filename (video-title-transcript.md)
-o, --output FILE	Custom output path
-f, --force	Overwrite existing file without prompting

Output

Default filename: Video Title Transcript.md

# Transcript: Video Title

**Source:** https://youtube.com/watch?v=...
**Duration:** 5:32
**Transcribed:** 2026-01-14

---

## Transcript

First paragraph of transcribed speech, automatically
grouped by natural pauses in the audio.

Second paragraph begins after a pause of 1.5+ seconds.

With -t timestamps:

[00:00] First segment with timestamp.

[00:15] Another segment with timestamp.

Requirements

• macOS with Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4)
• Python 3
• ~2.3GB disk space for Parakeet model (downloads on first run)

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