Free YouTube video summarizer

Paste a public YouTube link into the form above, choose a summary style, and submit. When usable captions are available, this free YouTube summarizer turns them into a readable YouTube summary and saves the result for this browser—no account required.

Yes. YS Summarizer is a free YouTube video summarizer: it uses available captions to generate a YouTube summary as Key Takeaways, Connected Ideas, Structured Summary, or a Detailed Article in the language of the current page.

Yes—summaries are built from available captions, subtitles, or CC (the transcript YouTube exposes). For caption / subtitle / CC wording, see the YouTube transcript / caption / subtitle summarizer page.

It does not add a separate ELI5 or explainer mode. Choose Key Takeaways for a short list of points, Connected Ideas to follow how the argument develops, or Detailed Article for a fuller write-up that clarifies the main ideas from the captions. To turn a video into an article-style writeup, see turn YouTube video into article.

You can summarize publicly accessible videos when YouTube provides usable captions. Private, unavailable, or captionless videos cannot currently be processed.

Not currently. The summary is generated from the video’s available captions, so the tool will stop and tell you when no usable captions can be found.

Yes—it is free and does not require an account. The service uses a shared daily AI allowance; after that, you can buy credits on the pricing page.

Yes. For a YouTube summary in English, switch the site language to English, paste a public link with usable captions, and submit—the summary follows the page language (same pattern for other locales). This is a translated text summary of the captions—not video dubbing, subtitle-file editing, or YouTube Studio auto-translate. See the YouTube video translator page.

Use Structured Summary for an overview, Connected Ideas for the flow of an argument, Key Takeaways for a short list, or Detailed Article when you want more of the source information preserved in a readable article. For bullet key points, see YouTube key points; for a sectional outline, see YouTube video outline; for study-guide style notes, see YouTube study notes; for general notes, see YouTube video notes; for lectures and courses, see YouTube lecture summary; for how-to / lesson step outlines, see YouTube tutorial summary; for long podcasts, see YouTube podcast summary; for documentaries, see YouTube documentary summary; to turn a video into an article-style writeup, see turn YouTube video into article. Comparing ChatGPT / Gemini / Claude / Perplexity / Copilot / DeepSeek / Grok / Eightify / NoteGPT / Notta / NotebookLM / YouLearn / Recall / Otter / summarize.tech / Mindgrasp workflows; for TED/TEDx talks see YouTube TED talk summary: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Eightify alternative, NoteGPT, Notta, NotebookLM, YouLearn, Recall, Otter, summarize.tech alternative, Mindgrasp. For note taker / to notes, see YouTube video notes; for notes PDF, see YouTube to notes PDF. For PKM paste workflows, see YouTube to Notion and YouTube to Obsidian.

The summary is generated from the available captions. Check important facts, names, and quotations against the original video.

Yes—on the result page you can copy or download Markdown, or use browser print to save a PDF of the summary (not the video). See YouTube summary to text and download YouTube notes PDF. For a longer article-style writeup first, see turn YouTube video into article. To paste into Notion or Obsidian as Markdown, see YouTube to Notion and YouTube to Obsidian.

Completed summaries are saved automatically and associated with your current browser. Clearing browser data or switching browsers may prevent you from finding the same private result again.

Common reasons include missing captions, an unavailable video, exhausted shared daily AI capacity, or a temporary network problem. Check the message shown by the form before trying again.

YS Summarizer is the free YouTube summarizer at youtubesummarizer.org—a YouTube video summarizer that turns available captions into a clear YouTube summary in several languages and styles. Learn more on the About page.