Free tool
Text summarizer
Paste a text into this summarizer and get its summary and key points: an article, a report, an essay, an email thread or a page of notes. Choose short, medium or detailed, and the summary keeps to what the text says, in the language it is written in.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Nothing is stored
Up to about 8,000 words, 5 free summaries a day.
Most of what you need summarized is said out loud? NoteOwl writes summaries, decisions and action items from your meetings on your Mac, with on-device AI models, unlimited.
How it works
How do you summarize a text?
Paste the text, or open a text file, pick a length and press Summarize. It reads the whole text, long ones in parts, and writes an overview and the key points in the order the text makes them.
- 1
Paste the text
Anything up to about 8,000 words: copy it from a web page, a PDF or a document, or open a .txt file.
- 2
Pick a length
Short gives two sentences and a few points, medium a paragraph and five to eight, detailed the most.
- 3
Copy the summary
Copy it with one click, or save it as a text file, a Word document or Markdown.
Short, medium or detailed: which summary should you pick?
Pick by what you’ll do next. Short tells you what a text is about; medium is enough to brief someone; detailed keeps most of the substance when you have to act on it or study it.
- Short
- What you getOne or two sentences, and three to five key points
- Good forDeciding whether to read the whole thing
- Medium
- What you getTwo to four sentences, and five to eight key points
- Good forNotes, a briefing, a reply to an email
- Detailed
- What you getFour to six sentences, and eight to twelve key points
- Good forStudying, or a report you have to act on
| Length | What you get | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Short | One or two sentences, and three to five key points | Deciding whether to read the whole thing |
| Medium | Two to four sentences, and five to eight key points | Notes, a briefing, a reply to an email |
| Detailed | Four to six sentences, and eight to twelve key points | Studying, or a report you have to act on |
What kinds of text can you summarize?
Anything written in sentences: articles, reports, papers, essays, email threads and notes. Lists and tables summarize less well, because the summary works from what the sentences say.
- 1
Articles and blog posts
The argument and the evidence, without the padding.
- 2
Reports and papers
The findings and the figures, in the order they appear.
- 3
Email threads
Who wants what, from a long back-and-forth.
- 4
Notes and transcripts
A meeting transcript or your own notes, cut down to the points.
What about recordings and videos?
Use the tool made for them: it transcribes the sound first, then lists key moments with their times alongside the summary.
- Summarize a video file: MP4, MOV and WebM
- Summarize a YouTube video, from the transcript under it
- Summarize a lecture, with the terms explained
- Summarize a podcast episode, with quotes
- Meeting minutes from a transcript, with decisions and action items
Can your meetings be summarized on your own computer?
Yes, on a Mac. NoteOwl records your calls with no bot joining and writes the summary, the decisions and the action items on your Mac with on-device AI models, so what was said stays there. See NoteOwl’s meeting summaries.
FAQ
Questions about summarizing text
Is this summarizer free?
Yes. It writes 5 summaries a day for free, each from a text of up to about 8,000 words, with no account and no sign-up.
How long can the text be?
Up to about 8,000 words (50,000 characters). A longer text is summarized up to that point, and the page says how much of it the summary covers.
Does it add anything that isn’t in the text?
It is told to use only what the text says, and the server checks the result before you see it: a line with a number that isn’t in your text is removed.
Is my text stored?
No. The text is sent over a secure connection to an AI service that writes the summary, and NoteOwl stores neither the text nor the summary: it exists only in the open page until you close it.
Can it summarize a PDF or Word document?
Copy the text out of the document and paste it in. Plain text files (.txt) open directly; for a PDF or a Word file, select the text, copy it and paste it into the box.
Does it work in other languages?
Yes. Paste a text in Spanish, French, German or another language and the summary comes back in that language.
Keep exploring
More summary tools
- Video summarizerUpload a video or paste its transcript and get an AI summary, the key points and key moments with times; nothing is stored
- YouTube video summarizerPaste the transcript under a YouTube video and get a summary, the key points and key moments with its timestamps; never contacts YouTube
- Lecture summarizerUpload a lecture recording or paste its transcript and get the key concepts, the terms the lecture explains and the moments to rewatch
- Podcast summarizerUpload a podcast episode or paste its transcript and get the episode in brief, the topics, word-for-word quotes and key moments
Related
- AI meeting summariesAI meeting summaries, decisions and action items written on your Mac from any template, when the call ends
- Meeting summary templateA meeting summary template to copy, what each section holds, an example, and how NoteOwl writes it
- Meeting minutes templateA meeting minutes template to fill in online or copy, what each section holds, an example, and how NoteOwl writes minutes
Meeting summaries that never leave your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
Last updated