How to Highlight YouTube Videos With Web Highlights

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the Web Highlights browser extension installed. You can get it from the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons, or Microsoft Edge Add-ons.

Video Tutorial

This tutorial goes with the video above. If you prefer reading, you can follow the written guide here.

Watch on YouTube: How to Highlight YouTube Videos With Web Highlights

Introduction

Hey, Marius here, founder of Web Highlights. In this tutorial, I want to show you one of our most loved features, YouTube highlighting. YouTube highlighting is perfect for anyone watching podcasts, TED Talks, or any other long-form video content on YouTube.

Highlighting a YouTube video is super useful. When you watch a video, you can directly highlight the text in multiple colors. You can create notes, add text to later find your information super easily. Later on, when you revisit your highlights, you can directly dive into the YouTube video and scan your notes and highlights to understand what the video was about without re-watching the whole thing. Additionally, you can easily create an AI summary to get a brief overview of everything you've watched.

Opening the YouTube Highlighter

To highlight a YouTube video, simply click the Web Highlights icon in the extension toolbar, which already shows an indicator that this is a YouTube video. You can also click the new control that's added by our extension. When you click it, it opens up a loading popup.

Click the Web Highlights extension button to open the YouTube highlighter

This can take a while if you open it for the first time or if it's a very long video. What's happening in the background is that our tool fetches the transcript of the video and then opens it up in our reader interface.

Transcript Reader Interface

Once loaded, you can see the whole transcript of the video is visible and ready to use. You can scroll through the entire text of the TED talk, podcast, or any other video content.

The transcript reader interface with the full video transcript loaded

You can now go through the transcript and make highlights just as you would on any other website. You can choose from different colors and add notes to your highlights.

Create highlights by selecting text and choosing colors

Let's add some notes to demonstrate. Of course, this also opens up in the sidebar on the left. If you click on highlights here, you can also focus them in the transcript. You can add tags like "TED Talk" to organize your content.

View and manage your highlights in the sidebar

Video-Transcript Synchronization

The cool thing is that you can also play the video while working with the transcript. When you forward through the video, you can see that the transcript highlights the current part being played.

Another great feature is autoscroll, which will always keep the current part of the video in view. So if you scroll, it always focuses on the currently played section. You can also pin the video to always keep it in the frame.

Use autoscroll and pin features to keep the video in view while studying

When you fast forward in the video, it also highlights the part which is currently set in the transcript.

Reader Customization

Similar to how our reader works on different websites, you can also change between different color modes - dark, sepia, or high contrast dark mode.

Choose from different color modes: light, dark, sepia, or high contrast

More about this in our Reader Mode Customization guide.

Timestamp Navigation

If you have a highlight that you find interesting, you can click on the timestamps on the left to jump to specific parts of the video. For example, let's jump to minute 3:31.

Click on timestamps to jump to specific parts of the video

When you click on a timestamp, you can see that the video plays exactly at that point and highlights what's being said right now. This makes it very easy to jump to specific highlights you've made or search for specific things in the transcript.

AI Summary Feature

Another super cool feature is our AI summary. This lets you generate a quick summary of the YouTube video. Simply click on "AI Summary" and the AI works in the background to summarize the key points of the TED talk.

Click the AI Summary button to generate a summary of the video

There are more options for different types of summaries, and you can also make a medium or long summary. For more details on this feature, check out our AI summary tutorial.

AI generates key points and summaries of the video content

Free Web Tool Alternative

There is also our free YouTube highlighter tool which works without the extension installed. You can simply enter any YouTube video link.

The web tool in action - paste a YouTube URL and start highlighting

Let's copy our link here and enter the URL. Search for the video and then click "Highlight Video". This is our free tool which you can try directly without even installing our extension.

However, I highly recommend adding our extension to Chrome, Edge, or Firefox for the best experience.

Conclusion

Web Highlights' YouTube highlighting feature transforms any educational video into an interactive study experience. Whether you're preparing for exams, researching topics, or just want to remember key points from your favorite YouTube content, this tool will help you learn more effectively.

The combination of real-time highlighting, video-transcript synchronization, AI summaries, and seamless navigation makes it the perfect companion for anyone who wants to get more out of their YouTube learning sessions.

Ready to Get Started?

Try it out with your favorite educational video and let us know how it works for you! You can start by installing our PDF & Web Highlighter extension for the best experience or use our Free Youtube Video Highlighter Tool.