YouTube Summary: Claude + Make

A medical student watches hours of lecture videos and needs notes from them, not a rewatch at 2x the night before an exam. Scrubbing back through a 90-minute video to find one explanation is the study tax that eats the evening. The knowledge is in the video; getting it into text is the wall.

This build turns a video into notes. Paste a YouTube link into a sheet, and Make pulls the transcript, hands it to Claude, and Claude writes a clean summary or article, saved as a WordPress draft you can read and search. The lecture becomes study notes while you make coffee.

We wire it in Make, part of our video and voice set. A transcript app fetches the captions, then Claude does what it is best at, turning a wall of transcript into something readable. It works on any video with captions, yours or anyone’s.

What does this workflow actually do?

In one line: a YouTube link becomes a written draft. Make watches your sheet. When you paste a video URL, it fetches the transcript, hands it to Claude, and Claude writes a clean summary or article, saved as a WordPress draft. A video you would have to rewatch becomes text you can skim.

A few real cases, none of them the usual ones:

• The medical student above, turning lectures into searchable study notes.
• A founder turning competitor webinar recordings into short briefs.
• A film student turning director-commentary tracks into notes.
• A gardener turning hour-long how-to videos into a simple step list.

Watching a video is easy. Turning it into notes you can search and quote is the slow part, the rewinding and the pausing. That turning-into-text is exactly what Claude is good at.

Why use Make if Claude can already summarize?

Reasonable question. Claude is excellent at turning a transcript into clean notes or an article. It cannot fetch a YouTube transcript on its own, nor watch a sheet and save a draft. That is plumbing, and Make does plumbing.

Make handles the no-judgment steps: catching the pasted link, fetching the transcript, saving the draft, running on its own. Claude handles the one step that needs reading and writing, the summary. Make is the courier; Claude is the writer. Together a link becomes notes without you opening the video.

What do you need before you start?

• A Make account. The free 1,000 operations a month covers plenty of videos.
• A transcript-app key (this build uses one that fetches YouTube transcripts). Most have a free tier.
• A Claude API key from the console, not the chat app. See how to use Claude.
• A WordPress site for the drafts, or swap the last step for a Google Doc.

Two Make words. A scenario is the whole link-to-draft automation. A module is one box. Four boxes, because fetching the transcript is its own step.

How does the workflow work, step by step?

Four modules, left to right:

Module	App	What it does
1. Trigger	Google Sheets	Fires when you paste a YouTube link
2. Fetch	Transcript app	Pulls the video’s transcript
3. Brain	Claude	Turns the transcript into a clean draft
4. Output	WordPress	Saves it as a draft to review

Step 1: Set up the link sheet

Create a scenario and add Google Sheets, Watch New Rows, connect your account, and point it at a sheet with a YouTube URL column. Pasting a link starts the run.

Step 2: Fetch the transcript

Add the transcript module (this build uses DumplingAI’s Get YouTube Transcript), paste its key, and map the URL from Step 1. It returns the video’s captions as text for Claude to read. Any video with captions works.

Step 3: Let Claude write the draft

Add a Claude module, Create a Prompt, paste your key, pick Sonnet, and map the transcript from Step 2:

Turn this video transcript into a clean article.
Transcript: {{transcript from Step 2}}

Write a short intro, clear subheadings, and tight paragraphs in plain
English. Keep the facts and any steps exact. Note anything the
speaker only showed visually as [visual: ...] so I can fill it in.

The [visual: …] flag is useful, since a transcript misses what was only shown on screen, and it tells you where to add a screenshot.

Step 4: Save it as a draft

Add WordPress, Create a post, connect with your application password, map Claude’s draft, and set Status to Draft. The notes wait for your review, never auto-published.

How do you run it and check the result?

Click Run once with a test link. When I tested this, a captioned video became a clean draft in under a minute, and the tweak that helped was the [visual: …] flag, which marked the spots where the speaker pointed at something the transcript could not capture. Tune the prompt, then turn the scenario on so any link you paste becomes a draft.

After that, videos stop being a time sink. A link becomes searchable notes you can skim, quote, and keep, and the rewatching disappears.

What does this cost to run?

Piece	Free tier	If you outgrow it
Make	1,000 operations/month free	Core plan from about $9/month
Transcript app	Free tier for light use	Paid by volume of transcripts
Claude API	Pay per use	A draft on Sonnet costs a fraction of a cent
WordPress	Your existing site	No extra cost

Each video is a few Make operations, a transcript fetch, and a sliver of Claude. Light use sits inside the free tiers. More on Make in our Make guide.

What can go wrong, and how do you avoid it?

• The video has no captions. No transcript means nothing to summarize; pick videos with captions, or transcribe the audio first with our Whisper build.
• It misses on-screen content. A transcript cannot see the screen; the [visual: …] flag marks where to add it.
• Long videos make long drafts. Very long transcripts may need trimming or summarizing in sections.
• It publishes unread. Keep Status on Draft so a human reads before anything goes live.

The same fetch-then-write pattern runs many jobs. See Make AI scenarios.

How do you build this in Zapier or n8n instead?

The four jobs do not change, only the names do.

Job	Make	Zapier	n8n
Catch a link	Watch New Rows	New Spreadsheet Row trigger	Google Sheets Trigger node
Fetch the transcript	Transcript app	Transcript app / HTTP	HTTP Request node
Write the draft	Claude module	Claude (Anthropic) action	Anthropic node
Save the draft	Create a post	WordPress Create Post	WordPress node

Make and Zapier are easiest to start. Zapier vs Make vs n8n compares all three.

Common questions about this build

Does it work on any YouTube video?

Any video that has captions or a transcript. Most popular videos do; some small or very new ones may not.

Can it summarize my competitor’s videos?

Yes, any public video with captions. For your own private videos, transcribe the file first with the Whisper build.

Can it save to a Google Doc instead of WordPress?

Yes. Swap the last module for Google Docs Create a Document. The Claude step does not change.

What about videos in other languages?

Many transcripts include other languages; Claude can also translate as it writes, if you ask it to in the prompt.

Is the chat app the same as the API?

Same models, different door. Make needs an API key from the console, not the chat login.

References and sources

• Creating a scenario (Make Help)
• Claude API overview (Anthropic)
• YouTube Data API (Google)
• WordPress REST API
• Captions and transcripts — Grokipedia

Last reviewed: May 2026. Make, Claude, the transcript app, and WordPress update their interfaces; check the official pages for exact button names.

You may also like

• AI Automation for Beginners (the hub)
• Transcribe a recording with Whisper + Make
• Draft WordPress posts from a spreadsheet with Claude
• Make.com Complete Beginner’s Guide
• How to use Claude AI
• Make AI Scenarios: automations that save hours
• The AI Tools Directory