Learn more, watch less
Your favorite videos and podcasts auto-summarized to 3 minute reads
TubeZen follows the YouTube channels and podcast shows you care about and turns every new episode into a structured, timestamped summary. Read it in three minutes, then watch the parts that earned it — here, at up to 2x speed.
10 summaries a month, free forever. No credit card, no API key.
One inbox, both feeds
YouTube channels and podcast shows land in the same place, summarized and ready to triage.
Structured, not a blob
Overview, key takeaways, steps and notable quotes — every line carrying a timestamp that jumps you there.
Watch it right here
Built-in player with 1x to 2x speed and 10-second skips. No sidebar, no up-next, no comments.
Your library, inside Claude
Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini straight to everything you have saved and ask it questions. Included with the lifetime license.
Three steps, then it runs itself
Set it up once. After that, new content arrives already summarized and waiting for you.
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STEP 1
Pick your sources
Follow YouTube channels and podcast shows, point us at a YouTube playlist, or search a topic and import a batch.
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STEP 2
We summarize every new upload
Each one is broken into an overview, key takeaways, steps and quotes, tagged by topic, and — for how-to content — scored on how actionable it really is.
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STEP 3
Save, snooze or bin it
Skim the summary and make a call in seconds. What you keep files itself into your library under a category you choose.
The summary
Shrinks an hour of video to a 3 minute read
Every summary opens with who is talking, about what, and why it matters. Then the key takeaways, the steps if it is a how-to, and the quotes worth remembering — each one stamped with the moment it happens.
Tap any timestamp and the video opens right there, inside TubeZen. Run it at 2x, skip ten seconds at a time past the filler, and close it the moment you have what you came for.
- Timestamps that seek the player in place
- Playback at 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x or 2x
- Automatic topic tags, plus your own
- Search every summary you have saved
The inbox
An inbox for content, not an endless feed
New summaries arrive in Unreviewed. You read, then choose: save it, snooze it for later, or delete it and never think about it again. The queue empties. Feeds never do.
Everything you save files under a category you control, so six months from now "that one video about pricing" is two clicks away instead of lost.
- Unreviewed, Saved, Snoozed and Deleted — nothing sits in limbo
- Your own categories down the side, with live counts
- Search across titles, channels, tags and summaries
- Automations that file new uploads for you — on the subscription
Capture, don't consume
Save it in one tap. Don't watch it.
The trap is not that YouTube has bad videos. It is that finding something worth watching and watching it are the same act, so you open the tab "just to check" and lose an hour. TubeZen splits those two apart.
Spot something useful, hit Save to playlist, and close the tab. Within fifteen minutes the summary is waiting in your inbox — and you never pressed play. The whole loop works on your phone: save from the YouTube app, read it in TubeZen on the same screen.
Save to a playlist
Point TubeZen at a YouTube playlist once. Anything you save there is picked up and summarized without you opening it.
Follow a channel
The creators you trust need no decision at all. New uploads arrive summarized, and we backfill their recent ones when you follow.
Search a topic
Researching something specific? Search YouTube by subject, tick a batch, and import the lot — all filed under a category named after your search.
Break free of the YouTube algorithm
YouTube optimises for one thing: how long it keeps you there. TubeZen optimises for how quickly you can leave.
No thumbnails built to hook you
Every thumbnail on YouTube is A/B tested to maximise clicks and every title is tuned for curiosity or outrage. Here you read what you asked for, with nothing in the sidebar pulling you sideways.
No Shorts, ever
We skip Shorts and clips under three minutes on purpose. TubeZen is for interviews, lectures, tutorials and long podcasts — the content actually worth summarizing.
No supercomputer deciding your "up next"
Nothing queues itself after what you chose. When your inbox is empty you are done for the day — which is something a feed can never say.
Podcasts
And the shows you listen to, not just the ones you watch
Podcasts are not a bolt-on here. Search thousands of shows, follow the ones you actually listen to, and every new episode is summarized with timestamps in the same inbox as your videos — triaged the same way, filed under the same categories, searched by the same search.
It is the format that needs this most. A three-hour conversation has maybe twenty minutes of substance, and no thumbnail to tell you which twenty.
- Every episode shows what the summary just saved you
- Built-in audio player with the same speeds and 10-second skips
- Your own private podcast feed of summaries, read aloud
- Export episodes to NotebookLM with the full transcript
Everything else TubeZen does
The parts that turn a pile of summaries into something you actually use. Anything unlabelled is on the free plan.
Detail Score
Every how-to gets scored 1 to 10 on how actionable it really is — 10 means exact steps, tools and settings; 1 means vague motivational advice. Skip the fluff before you watch it.
Time saved, priced in dollars
Your dashboard tracks the hours you did not spend watching, and converts them to money at an hourly rate you set. Set it to what your time is actually worth.
Email digest
LifetimeGet your new summaries as one written digest, daily or weekly. Tell the AI the tone, focus and length you want and it writes to that.
Automations
SubscriptionTrust a channel completely? Set a rule and every new upload saves itself straight into the category you choose, no triage needed.
Shareable summaries
Send any summary as a link — public, or locked behind a six-digit code — and collect a reply from whoever reads it.
Flows into your own tools
LifetimeEvery summary you save can sync into your Obsidian vault as a clean, linkable note, grouped by channel or show — or export straight into NotebookLM as sources when you want to interrogate a batch of them at once.
Pick your own model
LifetimeRun summaries on your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Google key — stored encrypted — and you are never stuck with whatever model we picked. Change provider whenever something better ships, summarize as much as you like, and pay that provider at cost instead of paying us a markup.
Installs like an app
Add TubeZen to your dock or your home screen and it opens in its own window — no tabs, no address bar, and nothing sitting one click away from YouTube. Works the same on desktop, Android and iPhone.
Tags that match how you think
Topics are tagged automatically, and you can add your own tag list that gets matched against everything coming in.
AI Connection
Point Claude at everything you have ever saved
TubeZen runs an MCP server, so you can connect Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor or VS Code directly to your library. Ask a question in plain English and your assistant searches your own summaries to answer it. Your assistant does the thinking on your own account, so the calls cost us nothing and we do not meter them.
"What have I saved about pricing a B2B product?" — and it answers from the eleven videos and podcasts you actually watched.
Search by meaning
Finds the right passage even when none of your words appear in it.
Search by phrase
Titles, tags, channels and summaries, matched literally.
Read any summary
Pull a full summary into the conversation on demand.
Read the transcript
Go to the source when you need the exact words. On the subscription.
Start free. Pay once if you stay.
Most of TubeZen is a one-time purchase, because most of what it costs to run is paid by your own AI key rather than by us. Only the parts that cost us every month are a subscription.
Free
For trying it on your own channels
Free forever. No card, no API key.
- 10 summaries a month
- YouTube channels and podcast shows
- Timestamped summaries and the built-in player
- Your library, categories and tags
- Search your saved summaries
- Shareable summary links
- Obsidian plugin — sync every summary you save
TubeZen Lifetime License
Pay once. Runs on your own AI key.
One-time payment. No subscription.
Launch price — save $100.00 until 17 Oct
- Unlimited summaries on your own AI key
- YouTube channels and podcast shows
- Everything in Free
- Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to your library
- Email digest and your private podcast feed
+ Transcripts
Add-onAdd-on for the lifetime license
/ month
Everything in the lifetime license, plus:
- Raw transcripts via the export API and your AI client
- Semantic search across transcripts, not just summaries
- Automations that auto-save new uploads
- Transcripts included in your Obsidian notes
Then add this from your dashboard whenever you want it.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, as long as the video has closed captions or auto-generated subtitles available. It works exceptionally well for podcasts, tutorials, interviews and lectures. We skip Shorts and clips under three minutes on purpose — TubeZen is built for long-form content.
Three ways, and most people use two of them. Follow a channel or a podcast show and new episodes arrive summarized on their own. Connect your YouTube account and point us at a playlist, then saving a video to that playlist from YouTube — on your laptop or your phone — is all it takes. Or search YouTube by topic from inside TubeZen and import a whole batch at once.
Yes — podcasts are a first-class part of TubeZen, not an afterthought. Search and follow shows, get every new episode summarized with timestamps, and listen to any episode in the built-in player at up to 2x speed. Summaries count against the same monthly allowance as videos.
Our AI uses advanced language models to ensure highly accurate extraction of key concepts. It captures the nuance and context, not just keywords. Every summary links back to the exact moment in the source, so you can always check it yourself.
We use third party APIs to get the data for the summaries. We only use YouTube for getting basic video metadata and syncing your playlist data and the channels that you follow.
The free plan includes 10 summaries a month. A live counter in your dashboard shows how many you have used and the date it resets, and it turns amber as you get close — so it is never a surprise. Everything you have already summarized stays yours to read, and nothing is deleted when the month rolls over. The lifetime license removes the cap entirely by running summaries on your own AI key.
No. The free plan is free forever, and the lifetime license is a single payment — there is nothing recurring on either. The only subscription is the optional add-on that covers raw transcript access and automation rules, which are the two things that cost us money every month. You can cancel that from your dashboard at any time with one click and keep everything your lifetime license gave you.
Two reasons, and both of them work in your favour. It is what makes a one-time price honest — summarizing costs money every time, so anyone charging once for unlimited summaries on their own account is going to cap you later or put the price up. And it hands you the choices we would otherwise be making for you: which model summarizes your content, when to switch to a better one, and what you spend. You pay OpenAI, Anthropic or Google at cost, which is a few cents a month for normal use, and we never meter you.
It is quick and easy, and you do not have to work it out yourself: our step-by-step guide covers OpenAI, Anthropic and Google one screenshot at a time, including where to set a spend cap so there are no surprises. Most people are done in about five minutes.
Your key is encrypted at rest, used only for your own summaries, and you can remove or replace it at any time. Until you add one you stay on the free monthly allowance, so nothing breaks while you get to it.
Our platform offers a user-friendly interface built on top of models like Google Gemini and Claude to enhance usability and provide additional features. We are an independent service and not affiliated with the model providers.
Get your evenings back
Follow the channels and shows you already love. Read what matters, watch what earns it, and be done.
10 summaries a month, free forever. No card, no API key.
TubeZen is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube, Google, or Alphabet Inc. YouTube is a registered trademark of Google LLC. TubeZen is an independent product that operates in compliance with YouTube's Terms of Service and API Services Terms of Service.
TubeZen is not affiliated with any LLMs used for creating the summaries on your behalf. Some of those LLMs might include Google Gemini, Claude, as well as others. We are an independent service and not affiliated in any way with these or any other model providers.