Summarize YouTube videos with AI
What Gemini, NotebookLM (now Gemini Notebook), ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Ask YouTube do with a YouTube video, the transcript method that works with any chatbot, and prompts for each kind of summary.
Guides to YouTube transcripts and subtitles
Step-by-step guides to finding, copying, downloading and summarizing YouTube transcripts and subtitles.
Best transcript generators
Nine tools that turn a YouTube video into text, tested on three videos: where the text comes from, sign-up, speed and export formats.
ChatGPT and YouTube videos
What ChatGPT does with a YouTube link, the transcript method that works on every plan, seven tested prompts and what to do with long videos.
Add a transcript to YouTube
For creators: add a transcript in YouTube Studio by uploading a caption file, auto-syncing plain text or typing it, plus the file formats YouTube accepts and what to do when timings drift.
Copy a YouTube transcript
Copy the text of a YouTube video without the 0:12-style time codes: desktop steps, what works on a phone, and how to clean text you already pasted.
Download YouTube subtitles
Four ways to save a YouTube caption track as a file: YouTube Studio for your own videos, a web tool or yt-dlp for public ones, and the transcript panel when you only need the text.
Show transcript missing
Why the transcript button disappears on YouTube: ten causes, a 30-second check for captions, and what still gets you the text when a video has none.
Get a YouTube transcript
Where the Show transcript button is on a computer, iPhone and Android, what changed in the new transcript panel, why the button can be missing and how to keep the text.
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How we write these guides
- Sources
- Facts come from official help pages of YouTube, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, and from the tools' own pages. Each article lists its sources at the end.
- Tested steps
- We rerun the steps we can test in a browser on the date shown in the article. When something could not be tested, such as a phone app, the article says so.
- Quotes
- User quotes are copied word for word from public posts, with a link to the original.
- Updates
- When YouTube or a tool changes a step, we update the article and the Updated date at its top.
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