Distill

Distill turns captioned YouTube videos into written summaries, with interviews, podcasts, and educational long-form videos among its intended material. Summaries are prose arranged in sections, accompanied by a player for jumping to chapters or moments. Users can switch among summary, chapter, and transcript views, read the full transcript, and take a short quiz. Distill depends on YouTube captions and reports when subtitles are unavailable rather than inferring content from a title or description. Public captioned videos are supported, with a focus on videos around four minutes or longer; Shorts and very short clips are not supported. Users can paste a YouTube URL or open a link shared from YouTube or Safari. Guest access allows one summary daily for videos up to 30 minutes. An email-verified free account allows three daily summaries for videos up to 60 minutes and adds a saved library, history sync, continued watching, and offline reading. Pro costs $3.99 a month and includes unlimited summaries, videos up to two hours, 40+ languages, chapters, transcripts, an outline, and a 7-day free trial. Distill is available on iOS.

Distill provides a structured way to review captioned YouTube videos through summaries, chapters, transcripts, and quizzes. Its usefulness depends on caption availability and supported video length.

Distill suits people who want written summaries and transcripts of captioned YouTube interviews, podcasts, or educational videos. It is limited to supported public YouTube videos rather than uploaded video files.

Overview

Distill is an iOS app that turns captioned YouTube videos into sectioned written summaries, with chapters, transcripts, and a short quiz. It is best suited to people who regularly review interviews, podcasts, or educational videos. Its focused set of reading and navigation tools is useful, but only for supported videos with captions.

Key features

Summaries and video navigation

Distill builds summaries from YouTube captions and reports when a video has no subtitles rather than guessing from its title or description. That makes it a more grounded choice for captioned material, while leaving unc captioned videos outside its reach. Summaries are flowing prose organized into sections, not just a list of extracted points.

The player appears above the summary, and users can switch among summary, chapters, and transcript tabs. Chapter markers and the full transcript make it easier to find a passage or check a summary against what was said; the short quiz provides a review prompt after reading. Users can paste a YouTube URL or open a shared link from YouTube or Safari. Distill does not accept video uploads.

Supported videos and processing

Distill supports public YouTube videos with captions, focusing on videos roughly four minutes and longer. It does not support Shorts or very short clips. Pro raises the video-length limit to two hours, which makes it the suitable plan for longer material; even then, the caption requirement remains central.

Captions and video metadata are sent to Distill servers hosted on Railway, then to Google Gemini for longer videos or Groq for eligible shorter ones. Distill says it asks for in-app consent before the first AI summary and does not send captions to AI providers before consent. It also says it does not use content to train third-party foundation models without consent. Data is encrypted in transit with HTTPS/TLS, and access to production systems is restricted.

Distill collects account information, usage data, and basic device and app diagnostics; it does not receive full payment card numbers. Signed-in users can remove saved items in the app, and can request deletion of their account and associated data by emailing support from their registered address. Support typically replies to email within one business day.

Pricing

Distill has a free plan and Pro subscriptions, with paid access starting at $3.99 a month. A 7-day free trial is included with the Pro plans.

The free tiers impose daily quotas and shorter video limits, and Guest gives up saved-library and sync features. Free account requires email verification for its three daily summaries. Pro removes the summary quota and extends the video cap, but its annual plan's price is custom pricing.

Platforms

Distill is available on iOS. It works with YouTube URLs and shared YouTube links, not uploaded video files.

Who it's for

Distill is a good fit for iOS users who want to review captioned YouTube interviews, podcasts, and educational videos through a combination of summary, transcript, chapter navigation, and quiz. The free account makes sense for occasional use within its three-summary daily limit and 60-minute cap. Pro is the stronger fit for frequent use or videos up to two hours. Look elsewhere if you need to summarize Shorts, unc captioned videos, or files uploaded from your device.

Pros and cons

Pros

• More than a recap: Chapters, a full transcript, and a player above the summary help users locate and verify specific passages.
• Useful free account: Three daily summaries, a saved library, history sync, and offline reading cover more than one-off link processing.
• Clear consent position: Distill says it asks permission before sending captions to AI providers and does not use content for third-party model training without consent.

Cons

• Caption-dependent: Videos without subtitles cannot be summarized, and Shorts and very short clips are unsupported.
• Limited free capacity: Guest allows one summary daily and caps videos at 30 minutes; even the verified free account is limited to three summaries daily and 60 minutes per video.
• Narrow platform and input support: Distill is an iOS app for YouTube links, with no video uploads.

Alternatives

AI Video Summarizers is a broader category guide for readers comparing options.

• Summarize Video to Text is a better fit for readers who need Android, a browser extension, or web access as well as iOS. Its free tier allows two videos per day without an account, or 10 credits per month with free Google sign-in, and supports videos up to one hour with an account.
• YouTubeSummarizer.com suits readers who want five free summaries a day with no trial and support for videos of any length. Its free plan also includes TL;DR, takeaways, chapters and notes, plus Markdown export and share links; Pro is $12 a month.
• Glasp is an option for readers who also want PDF and audio tools alongside YouTube summaries: its free plan includes three YouTube summaries a day, 30 PDF files, 30 audio transcription minutes per month, and other PDF and AI chat allowances.
• Mindgrasp is an alternative for readers seeking AI-generated study materials and question answering about uploaded material; its Scholar plan is $8.99 a month, billed $107.88 once per year.
• Eightify is another choice for readers comparing paid YouTube-summary subscriptions, with Pro at $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year.
• Helpolos is an alternative for readers who want a web or API service with free daily credits, summaries, transcripts, mind maps, quizzes, video AI chat, and export.
• Hushscript is an alternative for readers comparing transcription services.
• sipsip.ai is an alternative for readers comparing web-based subscription and transcription-credit options.

Verdict

Choose Distill if you want an iOS-focused way to read and navigate captioned YouTube videos, especially interviews, podcasts, or educational material. Its combination of prose summaries, chapters, transcripts, and quizzes gives it a clear role in video review. Look elsewhere if your videos lack captions, exceed the plan's length limit, or come from outside YouTube.