Transcripts of long YouTube videos
Long videos get the whole transcript, not an excerpt. One in the library runs 3 hours 6 minutes, split into 29 chapters. Chapters are what make a long transcript usable: skim their summaries, jump to the one you want, and copy the full text when you need it. Part of getting a YouTube transcript.
Reading a long transcript
- Start from the chapters. On desktop they sit in the sidebar with the current one marked; on a phone they're in the chapter list. Click one to jump.
- Search with your browser. The whole transcript is on the page, so Ctrl+F (⌘F on Mac) finds a word anywhere in it.
- Listen faster. Set YouTube's speed in the player's gear menu; the transcript keeps up.
Giving a long transcript to an AI assistant
Copy transcript copies everything, which for a three-hour video is a lot of text. If an assistant says the text is too long, or its answers start missing the middle, paste one or two chapters at a time instead: the chapter headings and timestamps in the copied text show where each one starts. See giving a video to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
Livestreams
A finished livestream works like any other video once its captions exist. While a stream is live, or just after it ends, the captions often aren't ready; try again a few hours later. See when a video has no captions.
Example from the library
Global Meet-Up: The Supremacy of SinPredictive History · 3h 06mThree hours and six minutes in 29 chapters.