Hi Obsidian community,
With AI and LLMs like ChatGPT advancing rapidly, I wanted an easy way to take notes from online videos and save them directly to my Obsidian vault.
After experimenting with various manual solutions (inspired by posts like this one) I built HoverNotes—a Chrome extension that:
- Lets you take notes on any video online (YouTube, Udemy, Coursera, etc.)
- Saves notes in real-time to your Obsidian vault as Markdown
- Captures video screenshots, embedding them in your notes and storing them in your vault
- Uses AI to automatically generate the notes from the video and write them down just as you would.
- Works with any video playing in Chrome
How it works
HoverNotes runs in Chrome but connects directly to a folder on your computer, writing notes locally to your Obsidian vault—nothing is stored externally.
I wanted the AI to see the video just like I do. So the extension does not just rely on the transcript like all current solutions but rather lets the AI actually watch the video like you do - seeing diagrams, code, and visual elements that aren’t captured in transcripts and referencing them while making the notes. My goal was to create AI-assisted notes that feel as if I wrote them myself.
The LLM functionality is just an optional feature, you can also just type the notes yourself and they will appear in your obsidian vault.
I’d love feedback from this community as I continue to refine this tool. You can try the free version here: HoverNotes website
Happy to answer any questions!