YouTube Summary with ChatGPT

A Chrome extension that turns any YouTube video into readable text — in seconds.

Why it matters: when you don't have time to sit through a full video but still want what's inside it, this gets you the information fast. It is especially powerful for videos in a language that isn't your own.

01What it does

Converts the content of a YouTube video into text almost instantly.
Lets you read that text directly, or hand it to ChatGPT to summarise.
Lets you search keywords inside the page, which helps you pinpoint where a topic appears in a video you watched before.

02How to set it up

Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
Open a YouTube video — a "Transcript & Summary" bar appears at the top of the right sidebar.
Click it, and the video's content is displayed as text right away.

03Three ways to use the text

Just read it — the transcript is right there beside the video.
Send it to ChatGPT — ask for a summary of the whole thing.
Search inside the page — useful for retracing a topic inside a video you've already seen.

04Best use case: foreign-language videos

Open an English video, turn it into text with the extension, and then all that's left is getting it translated. Instead of running it through a translation site and summarising separately, ask ChatGPT to summarise it in your language — translation and summarisation become one step instead of two.

English video→ Transcript→ ChatGPT summary

05Things to watch out for

It is a Chrome extension, so it only works in Chrome on a desktop. Not on other browsers, not on mobile — though for many people it's convenient enough to be worth opening Chrome just for this.
The built-in ChatGPT button can send the text for you, but in most cases the text is simply too long and the transfer fails.
When it does post, it stays on GPT-3.5 — you can't select GPT-4. That's a real downside.
You also want to include your own instruction about what to do with the text, so copying and pasting the text yourself works better.

06Recommended workflow

Install the extension in desktop Chrome.
Open the video and click "Transcript & Summary".
Copy the transcript text.
Paste it into ChatGPT together with the instruction you want to apply.
Or search the transcript in-page to jump to a specific topic.

07Why it stuck

Plenty of handy ChatGPT tools and services get tried and then quietly dropped. This one has been kept in use from the very start of using ChatGPT until now.

YouTube Summary with ChatGPT — Notes