Everything you need to take better notes on video content, from manual timestamps to AI-generated summaries.
The core of Notch is the ability to attach notes to specific moments in a video. As you watch, a single click stamps the current playback time onto your note. Later, clicking that timestamp seeks the video directly to the referenced moment. No more scrubbing through a recording to find the part you vaguely remember — every note is a direct link to the exact second that prompted it.
This feature works identically across all video sources: YouTube videos, direct URLs, and uploaded files. The timestamp format is human-readable (e.g., 1:23:45 for longer videos) and is stored with millisecond precision internally, so seeking is always accurate. You can add multiple notes at the same timestamp, edit notes after creation, and reorder them as needed.
The note editor supports plain text with no formatting overhead. We intentionally keep it simple because video notes need to be fast to write. When you are watching a lecture and the professor makes an important point, the last thing you want is to fuss with markdown syntax or rich text toolbars. Type, timestamp, move on.
Notch can generate a full transcript of any video using Google's Gemini AI models. The transcription engine processes the audio track and produces a timestamped text document that captures everything said in the video. This transcript is searchable, scrollable, and synced with playback — as the video plays, the transcript highlights the current segment.
Transcription is useful on its own for accessibility and reference, but it also serves as the foundation for AI note generation. Once a transcript exists, Notch can analyze the content and produce structured notes automatically. The transcription process handles videos of any length by chunking the audio into manageable segments and processing them in parallel, so even a three-hour recording completes in a reasonable time.
The system supports all audio languages that Gemini can process. For videos with background music or multiple speakers, the transcription does its best to capture the spoken content, though accuracy naturally varies with audio quality. YouTube videos that already have captions can use those directly, bypassing the AI transcription step entirely.
Once a transcript is available, Notch's AI note generator can produce structured, topic-based summaries of the video content. Rather than a flat wall of text, the generated notes are organized into logical sections — each with a descriptive heading, key points, and timestamps linking back to the relevant portions of the video.
The generation process divides the transcript into time windows and processes each chunk in parallel, then assembles the results into a coherent set of notes. This approach means the AI captures detail from the entire video rather than just the beginning and end, which is a common failure mode of single-pass summarization.
Generated notes appear alongside your manual notes in the same panel. They are clearly marked as AI-generated so you can distinguish between your own observations and the automated summary. You can edit, delete, or reorganize generated notes just like manual ones. The intent is not to replace your note-taking but to provide a comprehensive baseline that you can annotate and refine.
Notch works with three types of video sources, all within the same interface:
All three sources share the same note-taking interface, the same timestamp system, and the same AI features. There is no difference in functionality between a YouTube lecture and an uploaded screen recording — both get the same treatment. The player abstraction handles the technical differences behind the scenes, so you never need to think about video formats or hosting.
Notebooks let you group related videos into collections. A notebook might represent a university course, a research project, a client engagement, or a content creation pipeline. You create notebooks, give them descriptive names, and assign videos to them. A single video can belong to one notebook, keeping the organizational model straightforward.
Within a notebook, you see all assigned videos with their note counts and can quickly switch between them. This is much more manageable than a flat list of videos, especially once you have accumulated dozens or hundreds of annotated recordings. Notebooks also help with search — you can search within a specific notebook to narrow results to a particular topic or project.
The organizational system is intentionally flat: notebooks contain videos, videos contain notes. There are no nested folders, tags, or complex hierarchies. This constraint keeps the interface fast and prevents the organizational overhead that plagues more complex note-taking systems. If you need more structure, you can use notebook names to encode it (e.g., "CS 101 - Fall 2025" or "Client: Acme Corp").
Notch provides a unified search that spans your notes, transcripts, and video titles. Type a query and results appear instantly, grouped by video. Each result shows a snippet of the matching content and the timestamp, so you can jump directly to the relevant moment in the video without even opening the note first.
Search is particularly powerful when combined with AI transcripts. Even if you did not take notes on a particular section of a video, the transcript ensures that the spoken content is searchable. This means you can find information from videos you watched months ago, even if your manual notes were sparse. The combination of your own notes and the AI transcript creates a comprehensive, searchable archive of everything discussed in your video library.
Unlimited manual notes and timestamps. 500,000 AI tokens for transcription and note generation — enough for dozens of videos. No time limit; tokens never expire. Full access to all features.
Everything in Free, plus 10 million AI tokens per month. Designed for heavy users who transcribe and summarize videos regularly. Managed through Stripe with easy cancellation.
The free tier is genuinely usable, not a crippled trial. Manual note-taking — the core feature — has no limits at all. The token budget only applies to AI-powered features (transcription and note generation), and the free allocation is generous enough for most casual users. The Pro tier exists for power users who rely on AI features daily.
Notch is a web application that runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to install, no desktop client to download, and no mobile app to manage. Open the URL, sign in with Google, and start taking notes. Your data syncs across devices automatically through Firebase, so you can start on your laptop and continue on your tablet without missing a beat.
The interface is responsive and works on screens from phone-sized to ultrawide monitors. On larger screens, the video player and note panel sit side by side. On smaller screens, they stack vertically with easy switching between the two views. Keyboard shortcuts speed up common actions like adding a timestamp, creating a new note, and toggling playback.