Uploading files

A file that isn’t at a public link takes three steps: get an upload link, upload the file, then transcribe it.

Get an upload link

curl -X POST https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/v1/uploads \
  -H "x-api-key: $VIDEO_TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY"

{
   "uploadUrl": "https://…amazonaws.com/uploads/…?X-Amz-Signature=…",
   "url": "https://…amazonaws.com/uploads/…?X-Amz-Signature=…",
   "expiresAt": "2026-11-03T10:00:00.000Z",
   "maxBytes": 2000000000
}

Upload the file

PUT the file to uploadUrl. The link is signed, so it doesn’t take an API key.

curl --fail -T recording.mp3 "<uploadUrl>"

Transcribe it

Pass url (not uploadUrl) to GET /v1/transcript, like any other link.

curl -G https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/v1/transcript \
  --data-urlencode "url=<url>" \
  -H "x-api-key: $VIDEO_TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY"

url contains & and =, so URL-encode it. With curl, use -G --data-urlencode as above.

Link lifetimes and size

Item	Limit
`uploadUrl`	Works for 1 hour.
`url`	Works for 24 hours (`expiresAt`). Then we delete the file.
File size	Up to 2 GB.

We don’t keep your files. Each one is deleted when its url expires. For a long video, upload just the audio track (mp3 or m4a). It’s much smaller and transcribes the same.

Get started

Concepts

Agents

Reference

Link lifetimes and size

​Link lifetimes and size

Link lifetimes and size