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Everything you might want to know about VidNotes. Can't find your answer? Email us at contact@silpho.com.
VidNotes is an AI video transcription and summary app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and the web. It turns any video into a searchable, timestamped transcript, then uses AI to make summaries, flashcards, action items, and more. You can paste links from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Vimeo, or upload local files from your device or cloud storage.
VidNotes works in English and 30+ other languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and Polish. The transcription engine handles different accents and dialects within each language, and mixed-language videos work too. AI features like summaries and flashcards come back in the same language as the transcript, so you don't need to pick one yourself.
VidNotes uses speech-to-text models that perform well on clean audio. The usual things move the needle. Background noise, how clearly someone is speaking, mic quality, and how many people are talking at once. For YouTube videos with existing captions, VidNotes pulls those directly, which is close to perfect. For local recordings, the engine adapts to the audio and gets the best result it can from what you give it.
There's a free tier that gives you core transcription and TXT export. The monthly plan is $9.99/mo and unlocks unlimited transcriptions, AI summaries, flashcards, action items, AI chat, and every export format including PDF and Markdown. The yearly plan is $49.99/yr ($4.17/mo), which saves you 58%. On web, the yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial so you can try the full feature set before paying. Pricing is the same on iOS and the web, and payments run through Stripe and the App Store.
VidNotes handles any length, from 30-second clips to multi-hour lectures and meeting archives. Longer videos process in the background with progress updates, so you can keep using the app while it's working. There's no hard cap on duration. Processing time scales roughly linearly with length, so a two-hour video takes about twice as long as a one-hour video.
Paste a link from YouTube (Shorts included), TikTok, Instagram, or Vimeo and you're set. For local files, you can pull from your camera roll, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. The app handles every common video format. YouTube videos with existing captions are nearly instant. Everything else runs through the full transcription pipeline on the audio track.
There's a native app for iPhone (iOS 17+), iPad (iPadOS 17+), Mac (macOS 14+), and Apple Vision Pro (visionOS 1+). There's also a web app at app.vidnotes.app that runs in any modern browser, so Android phones, Windows PCs, and Linux machines work too. Your transcripts are stored locally on each device.
Yes. Videos move over an encrypted connection during processing, and the files aren't kept after transcription is done. Transcript data lives locally on your device through SwiftData, not on remote servers. You decide what gets exported, shared, or deleted. We don't sell user data or train AI models on your content. A free account is used for saved web results, daily free usage, and Premium sync.
Yes. Export to PDF with proper headings and timestamps, TXT for plain text, or Markdown for note apps like Obsidian, Notion, and Bear. You can export full transcripts, AI summaries, flashcard decks, or action item lists on their own or together. The iOS share sheet sends exports straight to email, Messages, Slack, or any cloud storage you've got set up.
You can try the browser flow before committing. To save results, keep daily free usage, or upgrade on web, create a free VidNotes account. Paid checkout then uses that account so your Premium access can sync across web and the apps.
You can cancel anytime from your App Store settings on iOS, or through the Stripe billing portal for web subscriptions. After you cancel, you keep paid features until the end of the current billing period. Your existing transcripts and notes stay accessible. No cancellation fees, no penalties.
Paid plans include AI Summaries that pull out key points and structured highlights, AI Chat that lets you ask questions about your video and get answers with timestamp citations, automatic Flashcards for studying and review, and Action Item extraction that picks out decisions, owners, and deadlines from meeting recordings. Every AI feature works across all 30+ supported languages and replies in the same language as the transcript.
Try VidNotes free, or email us at contact@silpho.com.