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Podcast episode to show notes in ten minutes

Transcribe an episode from its feed link or file, use the summary as the first draft of the show notes, and get subtitles for the video version at the same time.

Updated October 17, 2026 · 3 min read

Show notes are the part of podcasting nobody enjoys: an hour of talking, condensed into a few paragraphs and some timestamps, usually at the end of a long day. A transcript with a summary turns that into an editing job rather than a writing job. Here is the ten-minute version.

1. Point at the episode

You do not need the file on your computer. Every podcast feed carries a direct link to each episode’s audio (the “enclosure” URL in the RSS feed, and the download link in most hosts’ dashboards). Paste that link under Transcribe from a link on the dashboard, or upload the MP3 if you have it. If the episode is also on YouTube, the YouTube link works too, though that path gives you the video’s captions without speaker labels.

2. Wait for the files

A one-hour episode takes two to four minutes. You get five downloads: text with timestamps and speaker labels, SRT and VTT subtitles, JSON, and a PDF.

3. Start from the summary

Every episode gets a few-sentence summary, in the language of the episode. It is not your show notes, but it is the first paragraph of them, written before you have read anything. Paste it in and edit the voice.

4. Pull timestamps from the text

The text file starts each paragraph with a timestamp and the speaker, so the chapter list writes itself: scroll, find where the topic changes, copy the time.

[00:12:40] Speaker 2: Let’s talk about the pricing change, because that’s what everyone wrote in about.

Quote the guest from the transcript rather than from memory; it is where the pull-quotes for social posts come from, too.

5. Subtitles for the video version

If you publish the episode as video, the SRT file uploads straight into YouTube’s subtitle editor, and the VTT file works for web players. Both are built from the same timestamps as the text.

Doing it for every episode

Once the flow works by hand, automate it: a new item in your RSS feed triggers a transcription, and the summary and text land in a document or a draft post. The n8n, Make and Zapier guides walk through it with the exact fields; the API is three calls if you prefer code.

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