The short answer
- Transcript: description › Show transcript (on a computer).
- Notes: paste it into your notes app with the link on top, then write a three-line summary.
- One tap: share the video to BrainTube; it saves the transcript, a summary and the link, searchable by meaning.
The manual way, step by step
1. Open the transcript
On a computer, open the video, expand the description and choose Show transcript. The transcript opens beside the video with timestamps. Not every video has one: it depends on captions being available.
2. Copy it into your notes
Turn timestamps off from the transcript's menu if you want plain text, select it and paste it into your notes app. Keep the video link at the top so you can find the source again.
3. Write the summary yourself
Read through once and write three to five lines: what the video claims, the evidence, and what you will do with it. This step is what makes notes stick.
The weak spot is step 4 a month later: a pasted transcript in a notes app is hard to search, and you rarely remember which video said what.
The one-tap way with BrainTube
Share the video link to BrainTube. It fetches the transcript, writes a summary and files it in your library. Later you search by meaning ("that talk about sleep and memory") instead of by title, and you can ask Cue a question and get an answer with links back to the exact videos.
- iPhone: in the YouTube app, tap Share › BrainTube. Get BrainTube on the App Store.
- Computer: paste the link on brain-tube.com, or use the Chrome extension.
- In your AI tools: Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor can read the same library over MCP. Setup: give your AI long-term memory with MCP.
Spaced-repetition recall then turns your saves into short review sessions, so the ideas stay. More on that: how to remember what you watch and read.