What is Rundown?
Rundown is an AI-powered YouTube summarizer and personal knowledge feed developed by Tessera. It monitors the YouTube channels you follow, generates structured summaries for every new upload — with key points, clickable timestamps, and a "worth your time if…" verdict — and delivers them as one daily email digest. Every summary becomes a permanent, searchable entry in your personal knowledge library. A free tier is available with 15 summaries per month, no credit card required.
Last updated: 8 May 2026
How Rundown works
- Connect your YouTube account. Sign in with Google. Rundown requests read-only access to your subscribed channels — it cannot post, modify, or delete anything.
- Choose the channels you want summarised. Most active YouTube users subscribe to dozens of channels but actively follow a smaller set. You pick which ones Rundown should monitor.
- New uploads are detected in real time. Rundown subscribes to YouTube's WebSub (PubSubHubbub) feed for each selected channel, so it knows about new uploads within minutes of publication.
- Each video is summarised by a large language model. The summary is structured: a 1–4 paragraph overview (scaled to video length), a list of key points with clickable timestamps, and a personalised "worth your time if…" recommendation.
- You receive one daily email digest. Every morning, Rundown sends a single email containing all summaries from the past 24 hours. You scan it in two minutes and decide what — if anything — to actually watch.
- Every summary is archived in your library. The library is searchable across months of content. Find a half-remembered quote, a thesis from three months ago, or a technique you almost forgot — without rewatching anything.
Key features
- Automatic subscription monitoring. No manual URL pasting, no per-video clicking — Rundown watches every selected channel for you.
- Daily email digest. One email per day with all new summaries. Read it over coffee.
- Structured AI summaries. Overview, key points, timestamps, and a recommendation — every video, every time.
- Clickable timestamps. Every key point links to the exact moment in the video on YouTube.
- "Worth your time if…" recommendation. A single line per video that tells you whether it's relevant to you.
- Searchable knowledge library. Every summary is archived and full-text searchable across your entire history.
- Real-time upload detection. Powered by YouTube's WebSub protocol — no polling delays.
- No browser extension. Rundown is a web app and email — there is nothing to install.
Pricing
Rundown is free to start. No credit card is required for the free tier.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Summaries / month | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | €0 | 15 | Unlimited channels, searchable library, no credit card |
| Plus | €8.99 | €6.29 | 150 | Daily digest email |
| Max | €29.99 | €20.99 | 500 | Priority processing |
Annual plans save approximately 30%.
Who Rundown is for
- Lifelong learners who treat YouTube as an education platform and follow many long-form channels (lectures, talks, deep-dive explainers, podcasts).
- Professionals who follow industry channels for trend awareness but cannot spend hours watching every upload.
- Creators who track competitors, collaborators, and niche trends across YouTube.
- Researchers and students who need to extract arguments, quotes, and timestamped citations from talks and lectures.
- Anyone with subscription overload — people whose Watch Later list has become unusable and whose feed is dominated by recommendations rather than the channels they actually chose to follow.
How Rundown compares to other YouTube summarizers
There are several categories of YouTube summarisation tools. Rundown is in its own category — automatic, digest-based, and library-first — but here is an honest comparison with the alternatives.
| Rundown | Browser extensions (Eightify, Glasp, Recall, NoteGPT) |
ChatGPT direct | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | Monitors all your subscribed channels automatically | You open a video, click the extension, get a summary | You paste a URL into ChatGPT and prompt it |
| Effort per video | Zero — it shows up in your inbox | Open + click for every video | Find URL + paste + prompt for every video |
| Delivery format | Daily email digest | In-browser popup or sidebar | Chat response in a session |
| Knowledge base | Yes — every summary searchable, permanent | Limited (some tools save to a profile) | No — conversations expire or get cluttered |
| Browser extension required | No | Yes | No |
| Best for | Following many channels you don't have time to watch | Quickly summarising the one video in front of you | Ad-hoc, occasional summaries |
Browser-extension summarisers like Eightify, Glasp, Recall, and NoteGPT are useful when you're already watching a video and want a quick summary. Rundown is built for the opposite problem: when you are not watching, and want to know — without opening anything — what your favourite creators have published since yesterday.
Technical details
- Real-time upload detection via YouTube's WebSub (PubSubHubbub) protocol — Rundown is notified by YouTube when a subscribed channel publishes a new video.
- AI summarisation using state-of-the-art large language models. Output is structured (overview, key points, timestamps, recommendation) for consistency across videos.
- Length-aware summaries. A 2-minute clip gets a 1–2 sentence summary; a 2-hour podcast gets several detailed paragraphs and 12–20 timestamped key points.
- Email delivery via a dedicated transactional email provider, designed for reliable inbox placement.
- Searchable library backed by full-text search across all summaries the user has ever received.
- Read-only YouTube access. Rundown only requests permission to read your subscriptions — it cannot post, modify, or delete anything on your account.
- Hosted on Railway. Built by Tessera.
Frequently asked questions
Rundown is an AI-powered YouTube summarizer and personal knowledge feed developed by Tessera. It monitors the YouTube channels you follow, generates structured summaries for every new upload, and delivers them as one daily email digest. Every summary becomes a permanent, searchable entry in your personal knowledge library.
After connecting a YouTube account, Rundown detects new uploads from your subscriptions in real time using YouTube's WebSub protocol. Each video is analysed by a large language model into a structured summary: an overview, key points with timestamps, and a "worth your time if…" recommendation. Every morning, Rundown sends one email with all new summaries. Every summary is archived in your searchable library.
Yes. Rundown is a YouTube summarizer, but it works differently from browser-extension summarizers. Instead of summarising one video at a time on demand, it monitors all your subscribed channels automatically and delivers summaries for every new upload as a daily email digest. It is also a personal knowledge feed — every summary is searchable and persists in your library over time.
Tools like Eightify, Glasp, Recall, and NoteGPT are browser extensions or web apps that summarise individual YouTube videos on demand — you paste a URL or open a video and click a button. Rundown takes a different approach: it monitors all your subscribed channels automatically, summarises new uploads as they go live, and delivers everything in a daily email. There is no extension to install and no per-video action to take. Every summary is also permanently archived in a searchable knowledge library.
Yes. The free tier includes 15 summaries per month, unlimited channels, and the searchable library — with no credit card required. Plus is €8.99/month (€6.29 billed annually) for 150 summaries with the daily digest email. Max is €29.99/month (€20.99 billed annually) for 500 summaries with priority processing.
No. Rundown is a web application — there is nothing to install. You sign in once, choose the channels you want summarised, and summaries arrive as a daily email and in your library on the web.
Rundown is built for people who follow more YouTube channels than they can possibly watch — including lifelong learners who use YouTube as an education platform, professionals who track industry channels, creators who monitor competitors, and researchers who reference long-form video and podcast content. It's also for anyone who wants to extract knowledge from YouTube without spending hours watching.
Try Rundown free
15 summaries per month. No credit card. Cancel anytime.
Get started freeSee also: Rundown homepage · YouTube Summary Generator · AI Video Summarizer