A YouTube playlist summarizer for whole playlists and search pages
Bulk Summaries is the Claras YouTube playlist summarizer. Paste a playlist or a YouTube search page, tick the videos you want, and get one combined summary or one per video.
Paste a link, pick your videos
Paste a public playlist link or a YouTube search results link. Claras lists the videos with their length, and you tick the ones you want. The first ten come ticked.
- A playlist loads its first 50 videos, from the top. A search page gives its top 20 results
- Finding videos costs nothing. Only running a summary counts
- Channel pages and Watch Later are not supported
One combined summary, or one per video
The combined option gives you one YouTube playlist summary that pulls the videos together, including where they agree and where they differ. Or get a separate summary for each video.
- With two or more videos, Claras also picks the best one to watch and says why
- A video with no usable transcript is skipped, and Claras tells you
- Summaries come in the language you choose, whatever the videos are in
Keep going after the summary
Results open on three tabs: Summary, Transcripts and Ask AI, so you can question the whole batch at once.
- Download the summary or all the transcripts, or send them to another AI
- Export the list of videos as a CSV from the pick screen
- Reopen any run later from History, for free
How a run works, step by step
- Open Bulk Summaries. Sign in to the web app and choose Bulk Summaries in the sidebar. Pick the summary language from the menu beside the link box.
- Paste the right link. For a playlist, use the link that starts youtube.com/playlist?list=. A link to one video playing inside a playlist counts as a single video and is turned away. For a search, run it on YouTube and copy the results page link, the one with search_query in it. Then press Find videos.
- Pick the videos. The list shows each title, channel and length, with the first ten ticked. Use the buttons to take the first 5, 10 or 25, or all of them, or tick by hand. The bar at the bottom adds up the runtime of your pick. Export list saves every video found as a CSV with title, channel, length and link.
- Choose a mode. One combined summary blends every video into one piece. A summary per video keeps them apart.
- Run it, and leave the tab open. You'll see Downloading transcripts with a count of videos done, then Analyzing all transcripts, then Writing the summary. A big batch can take a couple of minutes.
- Read, ask, export. Results open with the best pick on top, then the three tabs. Download the summary as a Markdown file with the source videos listed at the end, download every transcript in one text file, or send either to another AI. The run is saved to History.
A worked example: 20 videos on getting your first customers
This follows the search in our home page demo. The video titles and lengths come from the demo. The notes on how much is read come from how Bulk Summaries works, and are rough.
Finding the videos
Say you search YouTube for "how to get your first customers" and paste the results page link. Claras lists the top 20, about 5 hours 15 minutes in all, including Y Combinator's "How to Get Your First Customers | Startup School" (22:54) and Greg Isenberg's "How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)" (49:47). A free run takes up to 20 videos, so all of them fit.
Combined, all 20
You get one summary and a best pick. In the demo, the summary has parts on what the speakers agree on and where they differ. But the combined summary has a fixed reading budget shared by every video. With 20 videos it reads about 4,500 characters of each, roughly the first five minutes of speech. Greg Isenberg's 49-minute video adds its opening, not its whole argument.
Fewer videos, or one per video
If depth matters more than breadth, pick the five that look strongest. The same budget then covers roughly the first 20 minutes of each. Or choose a summary per video, which reads up to roughly the first 45 minutes of each one, but doesn't compare them.
Then ask across the batch
In Ask AI, try "What do they say about cold email?" Claras looks for the ten transcript sections that share the most words with your question, across all the videos, and the answer names the video each point comes from.
What it does well, and where it stops
What it does well
- Breadth. The shared ideas and the disagreements across many videos, from one link.
- Choosing. The best pick and the list of titles and lengths help you decide which one or two to watch in full.
- Asking across videos. One question searches every transcript in the run.
Links it takes, and links it doesn't
- It takes public playlist links and YouTube search results links.
- It turns away channel pages, single videos, and Watch Later, which is private to your YouTube account. To cover a channel, use one of its playlists, or search for the channel's name with your topic.
- Private, deleted and live videos in a playlist are left out of the list.
How much it reads
This is the part to understand before a big run. The combined summary reads the start of each transcript, and the more videos you pick, the less of each it reads. As a rough guide for speech at a normal pace:
| Videos in a combined run | Read of each video (rough estimate) |
|---|---|
| 5 | About the first 20 minutes |
| 10 | About the first 10 minutes |
| 20 | About the first 5 minutes |
| 36 to 50 | Under the first 3 minutes |
A summary per video reads up to roughly the first 45 minutes of each, however many you pick. Videos shorter than these limits are read in full. The best pick looks at even less, each title and the opening couple of minutes, so treat it as a hint.
What a run leaves out
- No chapters and no clickbait check. For those, open the video on its own.
- Your own summary instructions from Settings don't apply here.
- Ask AI reads ten sections across the whole batch for each answer, so a video missing from an answer may still cover the topic.
- Videos with no captions go through AI transcription, within your plan's length limit. That is slower, and a video that fails is skipped.
Plans
The free plan includes one run every 30 days, up to 20 videos. On Pro, each video in a run counts toward your 50 videos a day. Unlimited has no limit. Only runs that got at least one transcript count, and a run is counted once its transcripts are in, so closing the tab after that still uses it. See the plans.
One feature, two names
The web app calls it Bulk Summaries. The Chrome extension calls it Super Search, and the pricing page SuperSearch. In the extension, a floating button on YouTube search and playlist pages starts a run on the page you're looking at.
How it fits the rest of Claras
Bulk Summaries is for breadth. When one video stands out, open it on its own for the full treatment.
Questions about Bulk Summaries
How many videos can I summarize at once?
Up to 50 in one run, or 20 on the free plan. A playlist loads its first 50 videos and a search page its top 20.
Can I summarize a YouTube channel?
Not from the channel page, which Bulk Summaries turns away. Use one of the channel's playlists, or search YouTube for the channel's name with your topic and paste that results page.
Does it read every video in full?
Not when you pick many. The combined summary shares one reading budget across all the videos, so with 20 it reads roughly the first five minutes of each. For more depth, pick fewer videos or choose a summary per video.
Does it work with private playlists or Watch Later?
No. The playlist has to be public. Watch Later is private to your YouTube account, so neither the web app nor the extension can read it.
What happens to videos without captions?
AI transcribes them, within your plan's length limit: up to 30 minutes per video on the free plan and up to 3 hours on a paid plan. That is slower, and a video that fails is skipped, and Claras tells you how many were.
Can I open a run again later?
Yes. Runs are saved to History in the web app. Reopening one is free: it fetches no transcripts and makes no new summary, and Ask AI works on it again.
Why does the extension call it Super Search?
It's the same feature. The web app calls it Bulk Summaries, while the extension calls it Super Search and the pricing page SuperSearch.
Watch less. Learn more.
Paste a video link and get the summary, chapters and answers in seconds.