Short summaries
Get the big idea without watching the whole video.
Reading the video
Read the video.
Turn a YouTube link into a short summary, key takeaways, and chapters that take you straight to the right moment. Free, no account, ready in seconds.
Key takeaways
Keep the useful ideas in a few clear, easy-to-scan points.
Timestamped chapters
Jump to the exact moment you want to watch.
How it works
Paste a YouTube link
Any watch, youtu.be, Shorts or embed link works, on any device. No sign-up, no app, no extension.
Unwatch reads the captions
The video's public caption track goes to a language model that writes the TL;DR, the key takeaways and the chapters. Most videos take under ten seconds.
Read, jump, share
Every chapter timestamp opens the video at that moment. Copy the summary as text or Markdown, or share its page with anyone.
Why Unwatch
Free, no account
Paste a link and read. There is no sign-up, no credits, no watermark and no paywall on the result.
Seconds, not minutes
A twenty-minute video is summarized in about ten seconds, and a video someone already summarized opens instantly.
Chapters that link back
Every chapter carries a timestamp that opens the video at that moment, so you can check anything against the source.
Nothing about you is stored
The server works from the video id and its public captions. It never learns who asked, and summaries are cached by video, not by visitor.
Ten languages
Summaries come out in the language of the page you are on, whatever language the video is in.
Works on your phone
Share a video from the YouTube app, paste the link here, and read the summary on the go.
Good for
Lectures and courses
Get the outline of a two-hour lecture and jump to the parts you need to revisit.
Podcasts and interviews
See what was actually said in a long conversation before deciding whether to listen.
Tutorials and how-tos
Find the step you are stuck on without scrubbing through the whole video.
Talks and keynotes
Pull the claims, numbers and announcements out of a conference talk in one read.
Reviews and comparisons
Read the verdict and the reasons, then watch only the part that matters to you.
News and commentary
Catch up on a long analysis video in the time it takes to read a page.
Questions
- Is Unwatch free?
- Yes. Unwatch is free to use, with no account, no credits and no watermark. A fair-use daily ceiling keeps it free for everyone; if it is reached, summaries resume the next day.
- Do I need an account or an app?
- No. Unwatch runs in your browser on any device. Paste a YouTube link and the summary appears on the page; there is nothing to install and no sign-up.
- How long does a summary take?
- Usually under ten seconds for a typical video and up to a minute for a multi-hour one. A video that someone has already summarized opens instantly.
- Which videos can it summarize?
- Any public YouTube video that has captions, including auto-generated ones: watch links, youtu.be links, Shorts and embeds, up to about ten hours long. Private and members-only videos cannot be read.
- Can it summarize a YouTube video that a chat assistant will not open?
- Yes. Chat assistants usually cannot open a YouTube link, so they ask for a transcript or guess from the title. Unwatch reads the video's public captions directly: paste the link and get the TL;DR, the takeaways and the chapters in seconds, with no account. To ask an assistant questions about the video, copy the summary and paste it into the chat.
- What if the video has no captions?
- Unwatch cannot summarize a video without a caption track. If YouTube shows a transcript, you can paste it into the box that appears and get the same summary.
- What does a summary contain?
- A one or two sentence TL;DR, three to seven key takeaways, and timestamped chapters with a few points each. Every chapter timestamp links to that moment in the video.
- How accurate are the summaries?
- They are written by a language model from the captions, which are often auto-generated, so they can miss nuance or get a detail wrong. Use the chapter timestamps to check anything that matters against the video.
- Which languages are supported?
- The site and its summaries are available in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Polish, Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic and Hindi. The summary is written in the language of the page you use, whatever language the video is in.
- Can I share or save a summary?
- Yes. Every summary has its own page with a link you can share, and the share button posts it to social apps, messages or email. You can also copy the summary as plain text or Markdown.
- Is my data stored?
- The server works from the video id and its public captions and never learns who asked. Summaries are cached by video so the same video is only summarized once; pasted transcripts are never stored. The privacy page has the details.
- Does it work on a phone?
- Yes. Share a video from the YouTube app, paste the link into Unwatch in your browser, and read the summary. The chapter links open the video at the right moment.
- Is there a limit on video length?
- Transcripts up to about 90,000 words, roughly ten hours of speech, are accepted. Longer videos are refused rather than summarized badly.