Do you love learning through YouTube videos but struggle to keep organized notes for each one? Manually taking notes can be time-consuming, and existing services are often too costly for what they offer. Plus, wouldn’t it be great to customize your notes exactly the way you like?

With just a few lines of Python code, you can easily summarize YouTube videos into concise, readable study notes—all for free! Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Install the Required Libraries

pip install youtube-transcript-api
pip install langchain
pip install langchain-openai
export OPENAI_API_KEY={YOUR_OWN_API_KEY}

Step 2: Import the Necessary Libraries

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
from langchain_core.output_parsers import StrOutputParser
from langchain_core.prompts import PromptTemplate
from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI

Step 3: Set Up the ChatGPT Prompt (customize it for your need)

prompt = PromptTemplate.from_template("""
Act as an expert copywriter specializing in creating study notes. 

Your task is to take a given YouTube transcript and transform it into a
well-structured, succinct and useful note, that is easy to read. 

Your objectives are as follows:

Content Transformation: Begin by thoroughly reading the provided YouTube 
transcript. Understand the main ideas, key points, and the overall message
conveyed.

Original Quotes: For really great original sentences or conversations, please
include them as highlighted quotes.

Proofreading: Proofread the article for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure it is free of any mistakes that could detract from its quality.

By following these guidelines, create a well-optimized, unique, short and helpful
note for review in markdown format. Try to keep it less than 200 words.

Transcript:{transcript}
""")

Step 4: Generate the Notes

Take the video ID from any YouTube link (e.g., from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shVqZQvjDcY, use shVqZQvjDcY as the ID), and run the following code:

vid = 'shVqZQvjDcY'
transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript(vid, languages=["en"])
full_text = " ".join(part["text"] for part in transcript)
summarizer = prompt | ChatOpenAI(model="gpt-4o-mini") | StrOutputParser()
final_notes = summarizer.invoke({"transcript": full_text})

Now, you turn any Youtube Video into a beautiful Markdown notes, that you can save.

Result

Now you can easily transform any YouTube video into beautifully formatted Markdown notes that you can save and refer back to anytime.

• Full code here.

If you’re preparing for an interview, simply paste the generated notes into Synco, and get real-time reminders during the meeting. Try it out and streamline your study process!

Need more hands-on tips for study? Follow @congxing on X or LinkedIn: Congxing Cai.