Summarise any YouTube channel into Google Sheets with n8n (free workflow)

Description and use

Automated extraction and summarization of the latest YouTube videos using n8n, Apify, and OpenAI, with results stored in Google Sheets.

Problem

Need to monitor many YouTube channels without watching every video, capturing key announcements, tools, and topics.

Outcome

Automated weekly extraction and summarization of the latest 3 videos per channel, producing a searchable Google Sheet archive.

Workflow

• Schedule Trigger every Monday 7:00
• HTTP Request to Apify transcript Actor
• Filter to keep videos with transcripts
• Remove Duplicates keyed on videoId to ensure idempotence
• Basic LLM Chain with OpenAI Chat Model to generate summary
• Edit Fields to select columns
• Google Sheets node to append row

Evidence

every Monday it takes the newest videos of a channel, summarises them with an LLM and adds one row per video to a Google Sheet.

Source

The HTTP Request node calls Apify's synchronous run endpoint…

Source

Transcripts: $0.002 per video that has a transcript…

Source