youtube-to-ebook
Automatically transform YouTube channel videos into beautifully formatted EPUB ebooks with scheduled email delivery.
Suggested prompts
Help me configure the YouTube to Ebook tool to automatically compile the latest videos from @mkbhd and @veritasium into a weekly ebook.
How do I set up the YouTube Data API and Anthropic API keys to start the video-to-ebook pipeline?
How can I launch the Streamlit web dashboard to manage my video subscriptions and ebook generation tasks?
About this skill
YouTube to Ebook
Transform YouTube videos from your favorite channels into beautifully formatted EPUB ebooks.
Use Cases
- Turn YouTube channel content into offline-readable ebooks
- Read magazine-style articles from your favorite video creators
- Get regular summaries of the latest videos from subscribed channels
Core Capabilities
- Fetches latest videos from YouTube channels (automatically filters out Shorts)
- Extracts transcripts from videos
- Uses Claude AI to transform transcripts into polished magazine-style articles
- Generates EPUB ebooks readable on any device
- Optional: Email delivery with ebook attachment
- Optional: Web dashboard for easy management
How It Works
- You provide a list of YouTube channel handles (e.g.,
@mkbhd,@veritasium) and API keys - The tool fetches the latest videos from each channel and extracts their transcripts
- Claude AI converts the transcripts into well-structured, readable articles
- An EPUB ebook is generated, and optionally sent to your email as an attachment
What You Need to Provide
- YouTube Data API Key (free) – for fetching video list and transcripts
- Anthropic API Key – for Claude AI processing
- Channel list – add YouTube channel handles (e.g.,
@mkbhd) tochannels.txt, one per line
What You Get
- An EPUB ebook containing articles from the latest videos of your chosen channels
- Optional: the ebook delivered as an email attachment
- Optional: a web dashboard to view and manage generated content
Usage Example
# Example channels.txt
@mkbhd
@veritasium
@3blue1brown
After running, the tool generates articles for the latest videos from these channels and packages them into an EPUB.
Notes
Quick API Key Setup
YouTube Data API (Free)
- Go to Google Cloud Console
- Create a new project, enable "YouTube Data API v3"
- Create credentials → API Key, copy it to your
.envfile
Anthropic API
- Go to Anthropic Console
- Create an API key, copy it to your
.envfile
Known Issues & Solutions
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| Shorts not filtered by duration | Check /shorts/ URL pattern |
| Search API not chronological | Use uploads playlist instead |
| Transcript API syntax changed | Use instance method ytt_api.fetch() |
| Cloud servers blocked | Run locally, not GitHub Actions |
| Names misspelled in transcripts | Include video description in Claude context |
| Articles truncated mid-sentence | Increase max_tokens in write_articles.py |
Additional Information
- Generated ebooks are saved in the
newsletters/directory - Previously processed videos are tracked to avoid duplicates