How Distilltube works
No magic words to learn, no settings to wrestle with. Paste a link and you get a complete briefing. Here's what happens behind that single step.
1. You paste a link
Any YouTube video that has captions or a transcript works — and most do. You can paste the full URL or just the video ID. Shorts and music videos without captions can't be summarized, and Distilltube will tell you that plainly instead of failing.
2. Distilltube reads the whole thing
It fetches the complete transcript — every word, with timestamps — so nothing important slips through. This is the same text you'd get from watching at full attention, start to finish.
3. It distills, in your style and language
From that transcript you get a short summary, a longer write-up, the key takeaways, timestamped chapters, mentioned resources, and the standout quotes. Prefer bullet points? A deep dive? Plain language? Pick a style — or save your own. Summaries come in your chosen language, while quotes stay in the speaker's original words (with an optional translation).
4. You can ask it anything
Open the chat on any video and ask follow-up questions. Because the answer is drawn from the real transcript, you get specifics — not a vague guess. You can even switch the chat to cover every video you've saved from a channel.
5. It keeps watching for you
Follow a channel and Distilltube checks for new uploads on its own, summarizes them, and marks them as new. Turn on a daily or weekly digest and the short summaries land in your inbox — so you're current without lifting a finger.
Take it with you
Every summary can be downloaded as a clean, well-structured PDF (short, medium or long) or emailed to you. Great for notes, sharing, or reading offline.