Help & FAQ

How do I install ShortTicks?

Click the "Add to Chrome" button at the top of this page — it will take you directly to the Chrome Web Store listing. Once installed, navigate to any YouTube video and a "ShortTicks AI Summary" button will appear below the video title. No account or API key required.

Why does the summary sometimes contain wrong information?

ShortTicks reads YouTube's subtitle track, which is often auto-generated by speech recognition. ASR subtitles can mishear technical terms, proper nouns, and numbers. Where confidence is lower, ShortTicks marks the point with ⚠️ so you know to verify in the original video. Accuracy is significantly better on videos with creator-uploaded subtitles.

Why does it fail on some videos?

ShortTicks requires a subtitle track to work. Videos with no subtitles at all — including many livestreams, short clips, and videos from smaller creators — cannot be summarized yet. Audio recognition is on our roadmap. If a video has subtitles but still fails, please report it using the Feedback link.

How do I switch the AI output language?

Click the ShortTicks icon in your Chrome toolbar to open the popup. Under Settings, find "AI Output Language" and select Chinese or English. This setting takes effect immediately on your next summary — no need to restart the browser. Note: the UI language follows your Chrome locale setting, while the AI output language is independent.

What's the free limit?

The free tier includes 3 video summaries and 5 chat messages per device per day. Limits reset automatically at UTC midnight. We don't require an account — limits are tracked by an anonymous device identifier stored locally in your browser. Your usage is shown in the ShortTicks popup.

Is my data private?

Yes. We do not collect your name, email, or browsing history. When you summarize a video, its subtitle text is sent to our AI provider for processing and then discarded — we don't store transcripts. The only data we retain is an anonymous usage count, which expires within 48 hours. See our full Privacy Policy for details.

The summary looks cut off — what happened?

This happens when a video is very long and the summary hits the length limit. Try switching to "Detailed" mode in the popup settings, which allocates more tokens. If the problem persists, report it via the Feedback link below.

How do I report a bug or request a feature?

Email [email protected]. Please include the YouTube video URL, your Chrome version, and a description of what happened versus what you expected. We read every message.