YouTube Summarizer
Summarize any YouTube video with AI — paste the link and get a short, medium or long summary as prose or key-point bullets, built from the video's own captions. Optionally keep the full transcript alongside it.
Input
Works with watch, youtu.be, Shorts, embed and live links — or a bare video ID. The video needs captions (auto-generated ones count).
Which caption track to summarize. Leave as the default to let YouTube choose, preferring human-written captions over auto-generated ones. The summary is written in the language of the track.
Output
The video will appear here.
More ways to use this tool
REST API
curl -X POST https://api.iotools.cloud/v1/tool/youtube-summarizer \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk",
"length": "medium",
"format": "bullet-points"
}'Swap in your own key from your account. The tool's fields are the body — no wrapper.
Ask an AI agent
Use the IOTools `youtube-summarizer` tool (YouTube Summarizer) on this input:
YOUR_INPUT_HEREPaste this at any agent connected to the IOTools MCP server, then add your input.
| Cost per API/MCP call | From 32 credits |
|---|---|
| Free-plan API/MCP cap^ | 480 credits/month |
| Need more credits? | View pricing |
^ The most you can spend on this tool over API/MCP per month on the free plan. Buying a credit pack removes this cap, same as Builder.
Also available with
Guides
What this tool does
Paste a YouTube link and get the video's main points in seconds. The tool reads the video's own caption track — human-written captions when the uploader added them, YouTube's auto-generated ones otherwise — and asks AI to condense it into a short, medium or long summary, either as key-point bullets or as a flowing paragraph.
It's the quickest way to decide whether a 40-minute talk, lecture or tutorial is worth your time, to pull study notes out of a lesson, or to recap a video you've already watched.
How to use it
- Sign in (each run calls a paid AI model, so the tool is available to signed-in members on every plan, including free).
- Paste a YouTube URL — watch, youtu.be, Shorts, embed and live-replay links all work, as does a bare 11-character video ID.
- Pick a summary length and format.
- Tick Also return the full transcript if you want the source text next to the summary.
- Click Summarize video.
Settings
- Summary length — Short is two or three sentences, Medium about a paragraph, Long two or three paragraphs. These are guides for the AI, not hard word caps.
- Format — Key-point bullets (the default) lists the main ideas; Paragraph reads like a written abstract.
- Caption language (under Advanced) — summarize a specific caption track when a video has several. The summary comes back in the language of that track.
Frequently asked questions
Why does it say the video has no captions?
The summary is built from the caption track, so a video with captions turned off (and no auto-generated track) can't be summarized. Music videos, very new uploads and some live streams often have none yet.
Does it work on very long videos?
Yes. If a transcript is longer than the summarizer's input limit, the summary covers the opening portion and the Length change line tells you so.
Is the summary accurate?
It's only as good as the captions. Auto-generated captions can mishear names and jargon, and AI summaries can occasionally misstate a detail — check anything important against the video itself.
What if I only want the transcript?
Use YouTube to Text — it returns the full transcript as readable paragraphs, timestamped lines, or an SRT/VTT subtitle file, with no AI involved. To summarize an article instead of a video, use the AI URL Summarizer, and for text you already have, the Text Summarizer.