Show HN: Trott – search,sort,extract social media videos(ig,yt,tiktok)

trott.hattimatimlabs.in

35 points by sudo712 a day ago

I built Trott out of frustration with my own “Saved” folders on Instagram and YouTube. I’d save reels and shorts—workout tips, recipes, travel spots—thinking I’d find them again later. But, like most people, I ended up with a black hole of unsorted videos: no search, no filters, and if I ever did find the right video again, I’d have to dig through the whole thing just to get that one detail I needed.

When I tried looking for solutions, I found only genre-specific apps or tools that demanded manual uploads or new workflows. None felt like they understood how real users behave or save content. So I decided to build Trott.

What makes Trott different?

You can share any Instagram Reel or YouTube Short (TikTok support launches next week) to Trott, straight from your phone’s native share menu—no manual uploads.

Trott uses AI to extract relevant info automatically (ingredients, places, products, etc.) and sorts everything for you.

It’s fully searchable with natural language. Just type something like “that Kyoto café from Instagram” and Trott finds it.

For travel videos, it can even produce Google Maps routes from extracted locations.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/trott/id6751728352 Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.hattimatiml...

I’d love to hear how you organize your own saved content—or if you’ve just given up and let it pile up like I used to. Open to all questions, feedback, and bug reports. Happy to discuss the tech details behind Trott if you’re interested!

toomuchtodo a day ago

Great work! I share Insta and Tiktok links to a Karakeep (https://github.com/karakeep-app/karakeep/) instance, and any media links are consumed by a queue and worker that pipes the links to yt-dlp (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp) to rip and package in an archive, which is uploaded to object storage. This is a great compliment to my workflow.

  • sudo712 18 hours ago

    I didn't know about karakeep, but it seems like I am trying to build my own karakeep. Thanks for introducing it to me. I would love to hear your feedback on whether my app can provide some value to your workflow, and how I can improve it. Also, it currently doesn't support TikTok, but I plan to add it next week.

lazyfanatic42 a day ago

I'm too old for this world of massive youtube videos as my front page, I also don't have a "scroll" because I actively avoid the scrolling habit now because I think it is really really bad for you.

  • sudo712 18 hours ago

    I understand that. My frustration was that when I save a video, I have to scroll through a massive list of videos and have to guess which one is which by looking into thumbnails. Seemed like such a waste, hence I made this. I cant completely give up instagram, and I love some of the content there like the travel and food videos, so I would like to make the most out of my time

gerardnico a day ago

You should give a better name in google oauth. I get

Google will allow project-316434798136 to access this info about you

Can’t wait to see if you extract the transcript on TikTok’s ?

  • sudo712 18 hours ago

    Yes. I will fix the name and release the TikTok next week. Thanks for the feedback.

gala8y a day ago

There is a lot of quality content on these platforms, no doubt. I would much prefer to be able to download a reel or a whole account easily (using, say, Instaloader), without needing to climb their gardens' walls (obviously something which gets harder and harder), instead of their UIs.

  • sudo712 18 hours ago

    I don't have a web version yet, but my app works with just url too, so that you can use it like Instaloader, and you will still get all the data in the video, already summarized and important bits extracted and highlighted. I am not storing the video locally because it seems that storing locally only provides me with the advantage of playing the video offline.

  • MrGilbert 21 hours ago

    Interesting. I always assumed that the "download" functionality on Instagram is "given", but it seems as if creators can deactivate it. Sometimes, when pressing the "Share" menu, you will have the option to download a reel to your local videos.

xfeeefeee a day ago

Does this analyze the video itself with AI or does it just use the text / description and other metadata? Would love to know more details on how that works

  • sudo712 18 hours ago

    It analyzes the entire video along with the metadata so that the entire context is captured. It even extracts important info like it is a travel itinerary, it will give you a list of places with direct links to Google Maps, or if it is a movie review, it will give a button that will take you to the trailer on YouTube. I am supporting 9 different specific genres and 9 genre-specific UI.