A playlist you processed last month isn't the same playlist today — creators add new episodes, and sometimes pull old ones down. To catch up, resubmit the playlist URL to Scriptube. It re-expands the playlist and processes whatever's currently in it; anything you already have stays in your library even if it later disappears from the live playlist.
How playlist submission works
Paste a playlist URL and Scriptube expands it automatically, up to 5,000 videos per playlist. You can submit up to 10 playlists in one request, mixed with individual video or channel URLs if you want. Duplicates are removed automatically within a submission, so pasting the same playlist twice in one batch won't double it up.
What happens when you re-run a playlist
This is the part worth understanding before you click submit: every video in a batch is charged 1 credit when it's submitted, even if Scriptube already has it stored from a previous run. That's also why it's fast — videos you already have come back instantly instead of being reprocessed. But it means resubmitting an entire 40-video playlist to catch 3 new uploads charges credits for all 40, not just the 3.
Two ways to avoid that:
- Check your library first. Your transcript library is browsable by playlist, so you can see exactly which videos you've already processed and submit only the new ones by URL.
- Estimate before you resubmit the whole thing. The dashboard shows a cost estimate before you pay, and the API has a dedicated
POST /api/v1/transcripts/estimateendpoint — check the cost before deciding whether it's worth resubmitting the full playlist or hand-picking the new videos.
See how credits and estimates work for the full picture.
What happens to videos that get removed
Your Scriptube library holds everything you've processed, independent of whether it's still sitting in the live playlist. If a creator deletes a video, makes it private, or removes it from the playlist entirely, the transcript you already pulled stays exactly where it was — in your library, filterable by channel and playlist. Re-running a playlist adds what's new; it doesn't take away what you already have.
How big a playlist can get
Playlist expansion goes up to 5,000 videos per playlist, and you can include up to 10 playlists in a single request alongside individual video or channel URLs. A playlist that keeps growing is expanded in full each time you submit it (while it stays within 5,000 videos), so for large playlists checking your library for what's new before resubmitting matters even more, since the credit cost of a full resubmission scales with every video in it.
Automating the check
Scriptube doesn't run a background job that automatically re-checks a playlist for you — resubmitting is something you (or your own script) trigger. If you want this hands-off, the API makes it scriptable: call GET /api/v1/library on a schedule to see what's already stored, diff it against the playlist's current contents, and submit only the difference. Pairing that with a webhook for batch.completed means you don't have to poll for results either — see automating transcript workflows with n8n if you'd rather not write the script yourself.
A worked example
Say you track a channel's weekly upload playlist. The first time, you submit the playlist URL and get transcripts for all 20 existing videos. A month later, five new videos have been added. You open your library, filter by that playlist, see which five aren't there yet, and submit just those five URLs — five credits instead of twenty-five.
How to do it in Scriptube
From the dashboard:
- Paste the playlist URL into the batch field and check the cost estimate it shows you.
- Submit. New videos are processed; videos already stored come back instantly.
- Later, open your library and filter by that playlist to see what you have before deciding whether to resubmit the whole thing or add individual new videos.
Via the API, a playlist URL goes in the same urls array as everything else:
curl -X POST https://scriptube.me/api/v1/transcripts \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"]}'
Check cost first with the estimate endpoint using the same urls payload against /api/v1/transcripts/estimate, and once you have a batch, list what's already in your account with GET /api/v1/library.
Quick answers to common questions
Does resubmitting a playlist change the export format I used last time? No — each export is a separate action. Resubmitting processes the videos; exporting (in any format) is a separate step you can repeat as often as you like, for free, on anything already in your library.
What if the playlist itself was deleted? A deleted playlist can't be re-expanded, but videos you already processed from it remain in your library, still filterable by that playlist.
Can I submit a playlist and a handful of extra videos together when updating? Yes — see mixing videos, playlists, and channels in one batch for combining a playlist resubmission with individual new links in the same request.
Related reading
For the basics of submitting a playlist for the first time, see getting transcripts from a YouTube playlist automatically. If you're also pulling whole channels on a schedule, channel batches, limits, and costs covers the same credit logic at a larger scale.
Ready to set up a playlist you can revisit? Create a free account and submit your first one.