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Import Videos and Podcasts

To turn a YouTube video, Bilibili video, or podcast into subtitles you can study, follow this sequence: copy the link → Home → Import from Link → open the episode in the player → wait for transcription. Channel, playlist, and RSS links start a subscription instead of opening one episode.

For example, paste one video link to study an English interview, or paste a show or RSS link to follow a podcast over time. Once the subtitles are ready, you can play and practice sentence by sentence and export the subtitles for use in other tools.

What This Solves

You do not have to download a video or a podcast to your computer first and then upload it to Aelano. Copy one link, paste it in, and Aelano turns it into study material you can listen to with subtitles, tap words in to look them up, and save in My Words & Sentences.

Situations where this helps:

  • You found a video on YouTube you want to watch again and again
  • You are following a foreign-language podcast and want to study it closely
  • You have saved content from foreign-language creators on Bilibili
  • You want to subscribe to a whole podcast and follow it long term

Open Aelano and go to the Home page, where you will see the upload panel at the bottom. Tap “Import from Link” and a link input box appears, with the hint “Supports YouTube, Bilibili, podcasts”.

Which Platforms Are Supported

Video platforms

  • YouTube: single videos, channels, playlists
  • Bilibili: single videos, collections
  • Douyin, Xiaohongshu: single videos

Podcast platforms

  • Apple Podcasts: single episodes, whole shows
  • Spotify: single episodes, whole shows
  • Standard RSS podcast feeds

Some platforms place their own restrictions on content (paid content, region locks, and copyrighted material, for example), and Aelano cannot import content like that.

How to Use It

Tap “Share” in an app such as YouTube, Bilibili, or Apple Podcasts, and the link you get will work. You can also copy the link straight from your browser’s address bar.

Open the Aelano Home page, go to “Import from Link”, and paste the link into the input box. Aelano recognizes which platform the link came from and shows you the type it detected. If the link is malformed or is not supported, it tells you.

3. Single episodes open in the player, channels become subscriptions

Aelano decides what to do next based on the link type:

  • A single video or episode: opens the player directly and starts generating subtitles for that episode
  • A channel, collection, playlist, or RSS feed: is subscribed into your library as a content source. From then on, whenever that channel publishes something new, you will see an “Updated” badge in your library
  • Douyin and Xiaohongshu short videos: open in the player as a single item

4. Wait for the subtitles to finish

Short videos usually take under a minute to transcribe. An episode over 30 minutes — a long podcast or a long video — can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several minutes. You can go do something else in the meantime; when transcription finishes, the content appears in your library.

A Few Practical Tips

  • Import straight from the share menu: in YouTube, Bilibili, podcast apps, and so on, tap the system share button and pick “Aelano” from the menu, so you do not have to copy and paste manually. This works on both iOS and Android.
  • Subscribing once is enough: once you subscribe to a podcast or a channel, Aelano pulls in new episodes automatically. You do not need to paste a link for every episode.
  • Not sure whether it is an episode or a channel: after you paste, Aelano first tells you the type it detected, and then you decide whether to continue with the import.
  • Extra text is cleaned up automatically: when you copy a link from another app, it sometimes comes with a block of text attached (something like “Check out this video on Bilibili…”). Aelano extracts the link out of it.

Common Questions

I pasted a link and it says “unsupported link”. Why?

There are a few possible reasons: the link comes from a platform that is not integrated yet, the link points to paid or private content, or the link format is nonstandard. Try the standard link you get from the platform’s official app via “Share” — that is usually more reliable.

Why is subtitle generation so slow for a YouTube video?

The longer the video, the longer transcription takes. For anything over 30 minutes, start it and go do something else. It will show up in your library once it is done.

Is imported content visible only to me?

Yes. Content imported from a link belongs to your own library. It does not appear among the public content sources, and other users cannot see it.

Does subscribing to a channel automatically download its whole back catalog?

No. After you subscribe, Aelano does not transcribe all the past content at once. It generates subtitles for an episode when you actually want to study that episode. That way it does not waste your points.

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