Make YouTube chapters and a description on Mac

The free way (if there is one)

There isn't a built-in way to do this on macOS today — you'd normally reach for a web tool that uploads your file, or a paid app.

macOS can't generate chapters or a description from a video. The usual route is an online generator you paste a transcript into, or upload the whole video to. Fileknife drafts them from the video on your Mac instead.

With Fileknife

Here's the same job in Fileknife, where it stays on your Mac:

Why reach for Fileknife

• You get timestamped chapters (the first at 00:00), a description, three title ideas and tags — ready to paste into YouTube.
• Chapter times are taken from the video's own transcript, so they land on real moments.
• The video is transcribed and the text drafted on your Mac; nothing is uploaded.
• Everything is editable before you save it as a text file.

Presets and options

• Timestamped chapters (first at 00:00)
• Description, three title ideas and tags
• Save as a text file

Takes: MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV and WebM video. Gives: An editable text file with chapters, a description, title ideas and tags.

Honest limits

Needs Apple Intelligence — a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 26 or later, with Apple Intelligence turned on. On a Mac that can't run it, the tool still appears with a calm note about what it needs, and won't run there. Chapters come from the video's spoken transcript, so a video with no speech has nothing to work from. The draft can contain mistakes — edit the chapters, description, titles and tags before you save. Meeting Notes, Video Chapters and Summarize (for recordings) use Apple's on-device speech recognition. macOS downloads its speech files once, the first time you use it. Your audio never leaves your Mac.