How to add a YouTube video to a Claude project

Claude projects have a knowledge base, documents Claude reads before answering anything in that project. Here's how to get YouTube videos into it, so a video becomes something Claude permanently knows.

Why project knowledge beats pasting into chat

Paste a transcript into a normal chat and it helps exactly once: that conversation. Upload it to a project's knowledge and every conversation in the project can draw on it, you can ask a question on Monday that spans a video you added in March. For research workflows (competitor teardowns, course notes, podcast libraries), project knowledge is the difference between a chat log and a knowledge base.

The manual way

1. Get the video's transcript (see how to get the transcript of any YouTube video).
2. Paste it into a text or markdown file. Add the title, channel, and URL at the top so the source stays traceable.
3. Open your project on claude.ai, go to its knowledge section, and upload the file.

Functional, but slow, and the quality of your knowledge base depends on how disciplined you are about labeling every file.

The one-click way

The YouTube Transcript to Claude extension does the extract-format-label-upload pipeline automatically:

1. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Click the extension icon and pick your default project, one time.
3. On any YouTube video, click Add to Claude. Done.

Each video arrives as a self-describing markdown document, title, channel, source link, length, caption language, and a timestamped transcript. Filenames follow the video title, so your knowledge stays organized without any manual effort.

Building a video library Claude can query

Once adding a video costs one click, new workflows open up. Add every talk from a conference and ask Claude for the themes speakers disagreed on. File a competitor's entire channel and ask what objections they answer in their marketing. Keep a "watch later" project where Claude has already read everything you haven't watched yet. Related: how to chat with a YouTube video.