Summarize any YouTube video in seconds
Paste a video URL and get a clear, structured summary built straight from the transcript — key points, main ideas, and the details that matter, ready to study.
Free to start · No credit card · 70+ languages
Enter YouTube Video URL
Paste the URL of the YouTube video you want to summarize. You will be redirected to register to access the full summary.
Video transcripts are processed securely by Scholarly's AI.
From video link to summary in three steps
No editing, no scrubbing the timeline. Paste, review, and save.
Step 1: Paste URL
Provide a YouTube video URL, and let our AI analyze the transcript to create a summary.
Step 2: Review
Get a structured summary with key points, main ideas, and important details from the video.
Step 3: Save & Share
Save summaries to your Scholarly account, export as PDF, or share with classmates.
What do you get in a YouTube video summary?
Updated June 2026
Every summary is built from the video's transcript and structured like good lecture notes — not one undifferentiated wall of text.
TL;DR overview
Two or three sentences with the video's core argument, so you know instantly whether it covers what you need.
Key points with timestamps
The main ideas in the order the video makes them, with timestamps where the captions provide them — jump straight back to the moment that matters.
Terms and definitions
Technical vocabulary the video introduces, captured with the explanation actually given — not a generic dictionary definition.
What to review next
The parts worth a second pass before an exam, so an hour-long lecture turns into a focused revision plan.
More than a wall of text
Every summary is built to help you actually learn the material, not just skim it.
Transcript-grounded
Summaries are pulled straight from the video's own words, so nothing is invented or hallucinated.
Key points & takeaways
The main ideas surface first, with supporting detail underneath — structured the way you'd take notes.
70+ languages
Summarize a lecture in one language and read it in another. Great for international courses.
Save to your workspace
Keep every summary in your Scholarly library, organized into folders alongside your other sources.
Turn it into flashcards
One click turns the summary into a deck of flashcards so the video sticks in long-term memory.
Export & share
Download as PDF or share a link with classmates so the whole study group is on the same page.
Stop rewatching hour-long videos
A two-hour lecture rarely needs two hours of your attention. Most of the value lives in a handful of ideas — but finding them means scrubbing back and forth, pausing to take notes, and losing the thread.
A transcript-grounded summary changes that. You see the structure of the whole video at a glance, decide what's worth a deeper look, and jump straight to the parts that matter for your exam or assignment.
Because the summary is built from the video's actual transcript, it stays faithful to what was said. It's a study aid that respects the source — not a generic AI guess about what a video on the topic might contain.
And once the summary lives in your Scholarly workspace, it becomes a launchpad: ask follow-up questions, generate practice questions, or build flashcards — all grounded in that same video.
Can I study a whole playlist — or mix videos with readings?
Yes. Each video you summarize becomes a source in your Scholarly workspace, and it doesn't have to stay alone:
Summarize every lecture in a series and keep them together in one folder per course.
Add the course readings next to them — webpages, PDFs, and slides live in the same workspace.
Ask one question across all of it and get a cited answer that points to the exact video or page it came from.
Summarize the readings with the website summarizer, turn videos into clean notes with YouTube to Notes, or go straight from an article to a study deck with Website to Flashcards.
Summary tool vs. real study workspace
Plenty of tools spit out a summary. Scholarly turns the video into something you can study from.
Good for a quick gist. Paste a link, get a paragraph. Fine when you just want to know roughly what a video is about.
The summary lives nowhere — copy it out before you close the tab or it's gone.
No way to turn the summary into practice, flashcards, or a grounded chat.
Quality varies; many don't read the real transcript at all.
Thorough, but slow. Taking your own notes is great for retention — when you actually have the time.
An hour of video can mean an hour of pausing, rewinding, and typing.
Notes end up scattered across docs with no link back to the moments they came from.
Hard to revise quickly the night before an exam.
Summarize, then study. The summary is the start, not the end of the workflow.
Every summary saves to your library, organized into folders with your other sources.
Turn the video into flashcards, a quiz, or a grounded AI chat in one click.
Built from the real transcript and available in 70+ languages.
One video, a full study session
A summary is just the first step. From the same video you can spin up flashcards, build a practice quiz, or open a grounded AI chat that answers questions using the video itself.
Keep going with related tools
Built for video study — pick the output that fits how you revise.
YouTube to Flashcards
Turn any video into a deck of study flashcards.
YouTube to Notes
Convert any video into clean, structured notes.
AI Lecture Notes
Same idea, built for live lectures and recordings.
AI Study Guide Generator
Build a full study guide from your video notes.
AI Cheat Sheet Maker
Distill the video down to a one-page reference.
YouTube to Video Lecture
Re-teach the video as a narrated study lecture.
What does Scholarly read when you paste a video?
Only the public transcript and details of the exact video you paste. There is no browser extension, no connection to your YouTube account, and no record of what you watch — you choose every video explicitly, and saved summaries stay in your private library where you can delete them anytime.
Frequently asked questions
How does the YouTube summarizer work?
Paste a YouTube URL and Scholarly reads the video's transcript, then generates a structured summary — a short overview, the key points in order, and the terms the video introduces, with timestamps where captions provide them.
Can I summarize any YouTube video?
Yes, our tool works with most public YouTube videos. Private or restricted videos may not be accessible for summarization.
Is the YouTube summarizer free?
Yes. You can summarize videos for free after creating an account. Paid plans unlock unlimited summaries and the rest of the study tools — flashcards, quizzes, and grounded AI chat.
Does it read the actual video transcript?
Yes. Summaries are generated from the video's own transcript, so they stay faithful to what was actually said rather than guessing from the title or thumbnail.
Can I turn a summary into flashcards or a quiz?
Yes. Once a summary is in your Scholarly workspace you can convert it into flashcards, generate a practice quiz, or open a grounded AI chat — all built from the same video.
Can I get a YouTube summary with timestamps?
Yes. Because summaries are built from the timed transcript, key points keep timestamps where captions provide them — so you can jump from a bullet in the summary straight back to that moment in the video.
Does it work on long lectures — an hour or more?
Yes, long lectures are the main use case. The longer the video, the more time a transcript-grounded summary saves: a 90-minute lecture compresses into structured notes you can review in a few minutes, then selectively rewatch.
What if a video has no transcript or captions?
Most YouTube videos have automatic captions, which is enough. If a video genuinely has none, it can't be summarized from the link — but you can record or upload the audio to Scholarly instead, and it will transcribe and summarize it like a lecture recording.
Can I summarize a YouTube video in another language?
Yes. You can summarize a video in one language and read the summary in another — Scholarly supports 70+ languages, which helps with courses taught in a second language.
Can I combine YouTube videos with webpages and PDFs?
Yes. Videos, webpages, PDFs, and lecture recordings all become sources in the same workspace. Group them into a folder per course and ask questions across all of them — answers come back with citations to the exact source.
Keep exploring
More Scholarly study tools
Website Summarizer
The same workflow for webpages and articles.
Website to Flashcards
Go straight from an article to a study deck.
AI Lecture Notes
Same idea, but for live lectures.
AI Study Guide Generator
Build a study guide from your video notes.
YouTube to Flashcards
Turn any video into flashcards.
YouTube to Notes
Convert any video into structured notes.
Sign up to Scholarly to Summarize Videos
Start free, then go Ultimate for unlimited summaries, flashcards, quizzes, and grounded AI chat across all your videos.
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- 3 AI Chat messages per day
- 3 AI creations per day
- 1 file upload per day (8MB)
- 1 research report per day
- 5 quiz questions per day
- 1 exam attempt per day
- 15 voice minutes per day
- 32-page PDF to flashcards
- 500 autocomplete words per day
Use it to generate flashcards, improve a deck, make a podcast, create a video lecture, build slides, or process a recording.
Ultimate
$144 billed yearly
Everything in Free, plus:
- Unlimited normal chat & autocomplete
- Unlimited premium model messages
- Unlimited AI creations
- Unlimited file uploads (up to 300MB)
- Unlimited study sessions
- Unlimited exams & quizzes
- 1000-page PDF to flashcards
- Export to Anki
- Priority support
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Your questions, answered
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What uses my daily AI creation?
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