Add a YouTube source
Use this guide to import a YouTube video transcript into an Atlas project so it can be searched, cited, and used in research chat.
Before you start
Atlas imports YouTube videos from their transcript text, not from the video itself. A video with no transcript, a missing transcript, or an auto-generated transcript that is mostly noise will produce limited results.
Good videos for this use case:
- Lectures, seminars, and conference talks
- Interviews with clear speech
- Product demos with spoken explanation
- Talks with enough substance to ask questions about
Steps
- Copy the YouTube video URL.
- Open the Atlas project where the source belongs.
- Open the add-source panel and paste the URL.
- Wait for transcript processing to finish.
- Open the source and skim the transcript to confirm it looks correct.
Review the transcript
After the source processes, open it and skim the transcript. Check:
- The main content is present, not just an intro or outro.
- Speaker names and key terms are recognizable.
- The text is readable rather than garbled.
If the transcript is noisy, ask narrower questions and verify important answers against the video directly.
Result
After processing, you can ask questions about the video content, receive citations linking to transcript passages, and mention the source in notes using @.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely reason |
|---|---|
| No content appears | The video may not have a public transcript |
| Answer misses content from slides | The transcript does not include visual material |
| Transcript wording is inaccurate | Auto-generated captions can misrecognize words |