TubeDigest — turn the YouTube rabbit hole into a knowledge asset

You watch hours of YouTube to learn — tutorials, talks, deep dives — and an hour later it's gone. TubeDigest quietly tracks the videos you watch in a session, pulls their transcripts, and uses Claude AI to hand you a structured digest you can actually use.

The problem

Long-form video is where the good ideas live, but it's the worst format to retain. No notes, no structure, no searchable takeaways — just a watch history you'll never open again.

What TubeDigest does

Watch normally. When you're done, click Generate Digest and get:

• Key learnings — the 3–5 things that actually mattered, per video
• Topic clusters — how the session's videos connect into themes
• A ready-to-publish article draft in Markdown
• A Twitter/X thread drafted from your session
• One-click export to Markdown

Best use cases

• Researchers & students turning a study session into notes
• Creators mining their watch history for article and thread ideas
• Developers & founders keeping a searchable log of what they learned
• Anyone who wants their YouTube time to compound instead of vanish

Core features

• Silent session tracking (configurable 15/30/45/60s watch threshold)
• Automatic transcript fetching
• Claude-powered extraction (claude-sonnet-4-6)
• Topic clustering across the whole session
• Article draft + Twitter thread generation
• Dark, minimal, developer-friendly dashboard
• English / French / Japanese digests

Privacy first — no backend, ever

You bring your own Claude API key. Everything stays in your browser; transcripts go directly to Anthropic's API and nowhere else. There is no TubeDigest server, no account, no tracking.

Who it's for

Lifelong learners, content creators, and builders who treat YouTube as a learning tool, not just entertainment.

What you get

• The full Chrome extension (Manifest V3), delivered via GitHub release
• Setup instructions and a thank-you note
• MIT-licensed, open source — yours to inspect and extend

Requirements

• Google Chrome (or any Chromium browser)
• A Claude API key from console.anthropic.com — you pay Anthropic only for what you use (~$0.03–0.11 per digest)

Good to know

• ~20–30% of YouTube videos have no transcript; those are still included using title + channel and flagged ⚠️
• Sessions are capped at 15 videos per digest to stay within the model's context window