Listening to a Video Lecture
Sometimes you do not want to watch. You want the same explanation while you walk, drive, cook, or fold laundry, screen off, phone in your pocket.
Every video lecture and every video you upload has Listen instead under the player. It is the same narration, the same chapters, and the same place you left off, just audio.
It costs nothing and uses no AI Creation Credit. Nothing is re-generated; you are playing the audio the lecture already has.
Starting to Listen
Open any lecture and press Listen instead, under the player.
The page becomes an audio player:
- Chapters: the same sections as the video. Tap one to jump.
- Speed: your playback speed carries over from the video player, and back again.
- Your place: where you stopped watching is where listening starts, and the other way round.
- Transcript: still there, still scrollable, still tapping through to the right moment.
Press Watch instead to go back to the video. You will not lose your position either way.
It Keeps Playing with the Screen Locked
This is the part that matters on a phone. Once audio is playing you can lock the screen or switch apps and it keeps going, with the usual controls on your lock screen and in your car.
A video lecture stops when the screen locks. Audio does not. If you are going to be away from the screen, press Listen instead before you set the phone down.
Sending a Lecture from Your Desktop to Your Phone
You made the lecture on a laptop and want to listen to it on a walk. Next to Share on desktop, Send to my phone gives you three ways to get it there:
| Option | What happens |
|---|---|
| QR code | Point your phone's camera at the screen. The link opens the lecture ready to listen. |
| Email it to me | Sends the link to your own account's email address, nothing else. |
| Copy link | Puts the link on your clipboard for whatever you use to message yourself. |
All three open the lecture in listening mode, so there is no second tap once you are on your phone.
This sends the lecture to you. To send one to somebody else, use Share instead.
The Other Places Listen Shows Up
- Your lecture-ready email. When a lecture finishes, the email has a Listen link beside the one that opens the video. See Creation-Ready Emails.
- Home. A finished lecture's row carries a Listen link, so you can start audio without opening the lecture page first.
- Shared lectures. Someone you shared a lecture with gets Listen instead too, with no account needed.
Listening vs. a Podcast
Both end in audio, and they are not the same thing. Pick by what you want.
| Listening to a lecture | AI Podcast | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The narration of a lecture you already made | A conversation written for audio from the start |
| Voices | One narrator | A host and a guest talking it through |
| Cost | Free, nothing is generated | 1 AI Creation Credit, plus length |
| Best for | Revisiting something you already have | Material you want explained conversationally |
| Visuals | The video is still there when you want it | An optional visual companion |
If you already have the lecture, listen to it. Making a podcast from the same source gives you a genuinely different thing, not a cheaper copy.
Good to Know
- Everything is included on every plan, Free included. Listening does not need a paid plan, because it plays audio that already exists.
- Downloading the audio as an MP3 is a paid-plan feature, the same as other downloads. See Exporting Your Work.
- Captions do not apply to audio-only playback; the transcript is the text version. Captions are still on the video.
- Uploaded videos work the same way, using their transcribed audio.
- A lecture still rendering cannot be listened to yet. Listen instead appears once the lecture is finished.
Related
- Video Lectures: making one, scenes, chapters, captions, and quality.
- Lecture Languages: re-narrate a finished lecture in another language.
- Podcast Feeds and Embeds: put your lectures and podcasts in a podcast app.
- Sharing: sending a lecture to somebody else.
- Scholarly on Your Phone: what the phone experience does differently.