Knowledge Bases

YouTube

Index video transcripts and answer questions from your YouTube content

What is YouTube?

YouTube hosts vast libraries of tutorial, product demo, conference talk, and support content. Most of this knowledge is locked inside video files — unsearchable and unreachable by AI. BeforeQuery fetches video transcripts (auto-generated or custom captions) from your channel or playlist, chunks them by segment, and indexes them so users can ask questions and get precise answers with timestamps and video links as citations.

Integration

How BeforeQuery works with YouTube

Everything you can do once the integration is connected.

Transcript indexing with timestamps

BeforeQuery fetches auto-generated or uploaded caption tracks for each video and chunks transcripts into overlapping segments with start timestamps. Answers link directly to the relevant video timestamp.

Channel and playlist sources

Index an entire YouTube channel, a specific playlist, or a list of individual video IDs. New videos published to the channel or playlist are picked up on your configured sync schedule.

Language and caption track selection

Configure which caption language to index (English, Spanish, French, etc.) or let BeforeQuery use the primary auto-generated track. Multi-language channels can have separate sources per language.

Incremental sync

BeforeQuery checks for new videos and updated transcripts on a schedule you control. Only new videos and changed caption tracks are re-indexed, keeping processing costs low.

Setup

How to set it up

In the BeforeQuery dashboard, add a source of type youtube. Enter your YouTube channel URL, playlist URL, or a comma-separated list of video IDs. Provide a YouTube Data API v3 key from the Google Cloud Console.

Select the caption language and sync schedule. Run the first index — BeforeQuery fetches and chunks transcripts for all videos immediately.

Embed the widget on your docs site, help center, or YouTube channel landing page so users can ask questions and jump directly to the relevant video moment.

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YouTube — Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about connecting BeforeQuery to YouTube.

Yes. BeforeQuery uses YouTube's auto-generated caption tracks when no manually uploaded transcript is available. Auto-generated accuracy varies by video — for highest quality, upload corrected caption files via YouTube Studio.

Yes. Each transcript chunk retains its start timestamp. Answer citations link to the YouTube video URL with a ?t= parameter set to the exact second so users can jump directly to the relevant part of the video.

BeforeQuery can index unlisted videos if you provide their video IDs explicitly in the source configuration. Fully private videos require OAuth credentials from a Google account with access to the channel — contact support for enterprise OAuth setup.

Videos without any available caption track are skipped and logged in the sync report. BeforeQuery processes all other videos in the channel or playlist normally. You can review skipped videos in the source details view in the dashboard.

There is no hard cap on video count. Large channels (thousands of videos) are indexed in batches during the initial sync. Transcript storage and embedding counts toward your project's chunk quota — see the pricing page for details.

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