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Daneel AI

How to Chat with a YouTube Video

Daneel automatically extracts transcripts from YouTube videos, letting you ask questions about video content the same way you chat with any other page.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”
  1. Navigate to any YouTube video in Chrome.
  2. Open the Daneel chat panel (sparkles icon on the launcher).
  3. Daneel detects the YouTube URL and extracts the transcript automatically.
  4. Ask a question about the video:

What are the three main points discussed in this talk?

The AI receives the full transcript with timestamps and responds based on the video content.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

Daneel extracts transcripts via YouTube’s InnerTube API:

  1. Detects youtube.com/watch, youtu.be, or m.youtube.com/watch URLs
  2. Parses video metadata (title, channel, duration)
  3. Fetches caption tracks — preferring manual captions over auto-generated ones
  4. Merges short fragments into natural sentences with timestamps
  5. Formats everything as Markdown:
# Video Title
**Channel**: Creator Name · **Duration**: 12:34 · **Language**: English


## Transcript
[0:00] First sentence of the video...
[0:15] Second sentence continues here...

Supported videos

Section titled “Supported videos”
  • Any video with captions (manual or auto-generated)
  • Any language with available caption tracks
  • Daneel prefers: manual English > any manual > auto-generated English > first available

Videos without any captions will fall back to the visible page content (title, description).

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”