Comparison
SavedThat vs Obsidian for saved videos
Obsidian is where a lot of people keep everything they think. The question here is narrower: when you clip a Reel, a TikTok or a YouTube video into your vault, can you find what was said in it three months later?
Quick verdict
- Keep Obsidian for the notes you write, the links between ideas, and files that live on your own disk. Nothing on this page argues you should leave it.
- Add SavedThat if your vault has turned into a pile of video links you never open: you saved the Reel, you remember someone explaining the thing, and you cannot find the moment.
Side-by-side
| Feature | SavedThat | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A searchable library of the videos you save | A notes app: a folder of Markdown files you write and link |
| YouTube | Transcribed automatically on save, searchable by meaning | Web Clipper can pull the transcript into a note; community reports it breaks when YouTube changes its page |
| Instagram Reels, TikTok | Transcribed automatically, same search as YouTube | No documented transcript path; you keep the link and whatever caption is on the page |
| Find a moment by what was said | Yes, and the result opens the video at that second | Only if the transcript made it into the note; no jump to the second by default |
| Search type | Hybrid: meaning plus exact words, across languages | Exact text search over your vault (plugins add more) |
| Save from the phone | Android Share (iPhone app on the way) | iOS Share Sheet since July 2026 (full text or URL) |
| Where the data lives | SavedThat's servers; Markdown export with transcripts | Plain files on your own disk - you own every byte |
| Pricing | First 5 videos free. Then Pro $5.92/mo or Power $10.17/mo (billed yearly), 7-day trial. | App free without limits. Sync $4/mo billed yearly or $5 monthly |
What actually lands in Obsidian when you save a video
| You save | What ends up in the note | Findable by a phrase said at 0:40? |
|---|---|---|
| A YouTube video, with the Web Clipper | Title, link, page metadata, and in recent versions the transcript as text. With custom selector templates the transcript panel has to be open before you clip. | Yes, if the transcript came through. You land on the note, not on 0:40 in the video. |
| An Instagram Reel | The link and the caption that is on the page. No transcript path is documented. | No. The speech never reaches the note. |
| A TikTok | The link and the caption. No transcript path is documented. | No. |
| Any of the three, from the iOS Share Sheet | Full text of the page or just the URL, your choice. | Only what was on the page as text. |
Why the YouTube transcript is fragile
The clipper reads the transcript out of YouTube's page. When YouTube redesigned that page on 23 February 2026, templates that pulled it stopped working; people on the Obsidian forum traded new selectors on 3 March and again on 12 to 14 March, and a template built on the clipper's own transcript variable was reported working in July. The official clipper has since added a YouTube transcript view (release notes), and community plugins such as YTranscript fetch it another way. It works, but it is a scraper riding on someone else's HTML, and it does nothing for Reels and TikToks, which do not publish a transcript at all.
Sources: Obsidian Web Clipper docs, clipper release notes and the Obsidian forum thread linked above, per Obsidian's docs as of October 2026.
What Obsidian does better
Obsidian is one of the best tools ever made for thinking in writing, and on its own ground SavedThat does not compete.
You own the files. A vault is a folder of plain Markdown on your disk. No account, no lock-in, readable in any editor in twenty years. SavedThat keeps your library on its servers; you can export it, but the default is ours, not yours.
It is free, and it is for your ideas. The app costs nothing (pricing). Links, backlinks, the graph, canvases - it is built for connecting what you think. SavedThat has no notes, no links between ideas, no graph.
Plugins for everything. Thousands of community plugins mean Obsidian can be bent into almost any workflow, including fetching YouTube transcripts if you are willing to maintain it.
What SavedThat does better
The overlap is one job: you saved a video, and later you need something that was said in it.
Reels and TikToks have words in them too. SavedThat transcribes every saved video, short or long, YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. In Obsidian the speech of a Reel never reaches the note, so the most-saved format on your phone is the one you can least search.
Search by what you remember, land on the second. You type «the bit about cold brew ratios» in your own words, in any language, and the result opens the video at the moment it was said. A vault search finds the note; you still scrub the video.
Nothing to maintain. No templates, no selectors to fix when YouTube ships a redesign, no plugin that stopped working. Saving is one tap from the phone: Android Share today, the iPhone app is on the way.
Obsidian alone is enough if…
- You mostly save YouTube, and you take notes while you watch
- You are happy to fix a clipper template when YouTube changes
- You rarely save Reels or TikToks
- Owning every file on your own disk matters more than anything else
Add SavedThat if…
- You save Reels and TikToks from your phone, a lot
- You remember what someone said, not what you titled the note
- You want to jump straight to the second, not scrub
- You want your saved videos in your vault as Markdown too
Use both: Obsidian for your notes, SavedThat for your videos
The setup that works is boring: save videos to SavedThat from wherever you watch them, keep writing in Obsidian, and move the transcript across when a video earns a note.
Markdown export. Settings, Data & privacy, Export transcripts, Markdown. You get one .md file with every saved video, its creator, and the transcript as timestamped lines; each timestamp is a link to that second of the original video. Put it in your vault and Obsidian search reaches your videos as well as your notes. It is a manual export today, not a live sync - an automatic per-video export to a vault is something we are considering, not something that exists.
Links to the moment. Any search result in SavedThat opens the video at the exact second, and that link pastes into a note like any other.
Ask from your AI assistant. SavedThat has an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can search your saved videos and pull the exact moment while you write. Read-only, scoped to your own library.
For a tool-by-tool look at how the other note apps handle saved videos; for finding one video you saved long ago, see this guide.
FAQ
Can I save Instagram Reels and TikToks to Obsidian?
You can save the link, and with the Web Clipper or the iOS Share Sheet you can save whatever text is on the page, usually the caption. Obsidian does not document any way to get the spoken words of a Reel or a TikTok into a note, so a note made that way cannot be found by something the person said.
Does the Obsidian Web Clipper save YouTube transcripts?
Recent versions can, and the official release notes list a YouTube transcript view in Reader mode from April 2026. It depends on reading YouTube's page, and the Obsidian forum shows it breaking after YouTube's February 2026 redesign and again in March before fixes landed. When it works, the transcript is plain text in your note and Obsidian search finds it.
Is SavedThat an Obsidian alternative?
No. Obsidian is for notes you write and link together, and SavedThat does not do that at all. SavedThat is the video layer: it transcribes the Reels, TikToks and YouTube videos you save and finds the moment by what was said. Most people who would use both keep their thinking in Obsidian and their saved videos in SavedThat.
Can I get my SavedThat transcripts into my Obsidian vault?
Yes. Settings, Data & privacy, Export transcripts, Markdown gives you one .md file with every saved video, its transcript, and a timestamp on each line that links to that second of the video. Drop it into your vault and Obsidian search covers your videos too. It is a manual export today, not a live sync.
Is Obsidian free?
The app is free without limits, including commercial use. Sync costs $4 a month billed yearly or $5 monthly, and Publish $8 or $10. SavedThat is free for your first 5 videos with no card, then Pro or Power with a 7-day trial.
Try SavedThat free
5 videos free, no card. Then Pro or Power with a 7-day trial. Works with Reels, TikToks, Shorts, and any YouTube video.
Start saving free →