8 apps to learn from YouTube videos
The best app to learn from YouTube videos depends on what you want afterward. To learn a video step by step and remember it, Wondering turns a YouTube link into an ordered course of 3-minute lessons with practice questions and spaced review. Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) is best for asking questions across several videos and documents, and makes audio overviews, flashcards, and quizzes. Ask YouTube answers questions on the video page itself. Recall, Glasp, and Eightify summarize videos with timestamps, and Knowt and Gizmo turn them into flashcards. Wondering is the one place that covers those jobs together, and it also has polished, ready-made courses and teaches any other topic you want to learn.
| App | What it makes from a video | Platforms | Free to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wondering | An ordered course of 3-minute lessons with practice and spaced review | Web and iPhone | 3 courses a month and 5 lessons a day |
| Gemini Notebook | Chat, audio and video overviews, mind maps, flashcards, and quizzes | Web, Gemini app, and Android | Up to 100 notebooks of 50 sources each |
| Ask YouTube | Answers to your questions about the video | YouTube on phones, computers, and TVs | Built into YouTube on select videos |
| Recall | Summaries to read or listen to, a knowledge graph, and quizzes | Web, browser extensions, iOS, and Android | 10 summaries a month |
| Glasp | A timestamped summary and transcript beside the video | Browser extensions and a mobile app | 3 summaries a week |
| Eightify | Key points with timestamps, for videos up to 10 hours | Chrome, iOS, and Android | 7-day trial |
| Knowt | Notes or flashcards | Web and a Chrome extension | 1 AI summary a month for students |
| Gizmo | Flashcards with spaced repetition | iPhone and iPad | Free download, with paid plans |
Watching is not the same as learning
A good video makes an idea feel clear while you watch it, and most of that feeling is gone a week later. What makes it stay is pulling the idea back out of memory: answering a question about it, explaining it, or using it.
So the useful question is what each app asks you to do after the video. A summary helps you find your way back to it. Questions, flashcards, and spaced review are what help you remember it.
1. Wondering: turn a video into a course
Paste a YouTube link when you create a course, tell Wondering what you want to learn from it, and it builds an ordered course of 3-minute lessons from the video. You review the plan of sections and lessons before the course is created. Each lesson can be watched, played as a podcast, or read, and ends with practice questions. Spaced repetition brings those questions back over the next days, and an AI tutor answers your follow-up questions.
Wondering reads the video captions. A video without captions works if it is 20 minutes or shorter. Add one video at a time, since playlists are not read. It runs on the web and iPhone and is free to start, with 3 of your own courses a month and 5 lessons a day.
Most apps below do one job well: a summary, flashcards, or a chat about the video. Wondering does those jobs in one place. You can read a lesson like a summary or play it as a podcast, practice questions and spaced review replace flashcards you would make yourself, and the tutor answers your questions. It also goes past the one video, with polished, ready-made courses and polished lessons on popular topics, and courses on anything else you want to learn for your work or your interests.
Read lesson 1 of a course on Andrej Karpathy's deep dive into LLMs
2. Gemini Notebook: research across many videos
Gemini Notebook, which Google renamed from NotebookLM in July 2026, lets you add YouTube videos as sources next to documents and web pages, then ask questions across all of them. It can also make Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, mind maps, flashcards, and quizzes from your sources.
It imports the transcript only, so the video must be public and have captions, either the creator's or automatic ones. It is free with a Google account for up to 100 notebooks of 50 sources each, and runs on the web, in the Gemini app, and on Android.
3. Ask YouTube: questions while you watch
On select videos, YouTube shows an Ask button that opens a chat about the video, with suggested questions or your own. It works on phones, computers, and TVs in selected countries, including the US, for signed-in users who are 13 or older. It is the quickest way to clear up one confusing part without leaving the video.
4. Recall: a library of everything you watch
Recall summarizes videos and articles with timestamps that you can read or listen to, links related ideas in a knowledge graph, and lets you chat with what you saved. Its Plus plan adds spaced-repetition quizzes. The free plan includes 10 summaries a month, and Plus costs $10 a month billed yearly. It runs on the web, as a browser extension, and on iOS and Android.
5. Glasp: a summary beside the video
Glasp shows a timestamped summary and the full transcript next to the video, and its chat answers cite the moments they come from. You can export notes to Notion or Obsidian. The free plan includes 3 summaries a week, and paid plans start at $15 a month. It works as an extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, with a mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
6. Eightify: key points from long videos
Eightify pulls out the key points of a video with timestamps, in more than 40 languages, for videos up to 10 hours long. You can choose the focus, format, and length of the summary. It has a 7-day free trial, then Pro costs $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. It runs in Chrome and on iOS and Android.
7. Knowt: notes and flashcards for school
Knowt turns a YouTube video into notes or flashcards, from its website or Chrome extension. It is built for students, who get 1 AI summary a month free. Ultra costs $7.99 a month billed yearly, or $24.99 month to month.
8. Gizmo: flashcards you review over time
Paste a YouTube link into Gizmo and it makes flashcards that you review with spaced repetition, and its AI tutor can also write notes and quiz questions. It is free to download on iPhone and iPad, with paid plans for more use.
Use what YouTube already has
Open the description and choose Show transcript to read along and jump to any line. Chapters, which creators add or YouTube makes on some videos, let you skip to the part you need. Some channels publish Courses, with a progress panel and quizzes the creator adds, and since October 2025 YouTube has turned some teaching playlists into Courses automatically.
How to learn more from any video
Before you press play, write down what you want to be able to explain afterward. It tells you which parts to slow down for and which to skip.
Pause at the end of each section and say the main point out loud without looking. If you cannot, rewind that part.
Answer a few questions about the video the next day and again a few days later. That spacing is what turns a video you watched into something you still know next month.
How to turn any article, PDF, or video into a course
How we chose
We picked apps that take a YouTube link and help you learn from it, not only download or translate it. Prices, limits, and platforms come from each app's own website, help pages, or app store listing, checked on November 11, 2026, and can change.
Questions
Can AI turn a YouTube video into a course?
Yes. Paste the video link when you create a course in Wondering, and it builds an ordered course of 3-minute lessons from the video, with practice questions and spaced review. It reads the captions, and a video without captions works if it is 20 minutes or shorter.
How do I make flashcards from a YouTube video?
Gizmo and Knowt turn a YouTube link into flashcards, and Gemini Notebook makes flashcards and quizzes from videos you add as sources. Wondering ends each lesson with practice questions and brings them back with spaced repetition, so you do not have to make cards yourself.
Do these apps work on videos without captions?
It depends on the app. Gemini Notebook needs the video to have captions, and YouTube shows a transcript only for captioned videos. Wondering reads captions when they exist, and a video without captions works if it is 20 minutes or shorter. Most of the other apps do not say.
Can I turn a YouTube playlist into a course?
In Wondering, add one video at a time, since playlists are not read. On YouTube itself, some channels publish playlists as Courses with progress tracking and quizzes.
Is a video summary enough to learn from?
A summary helps you remember what a video covered and find your way back to it, but it does not ask you to recall anything. To keep the ideas, answer questions about them and review them over the following days.