master Lovable AI in 30 minutes (beginner tutorial)

Description

in this 30-minute Lovable tutorial i'll teach you what you need to get started building your own apps with this insane AI tool the moment you finish watching.

🔴 use code 'TIM' to get 10% OFF paid plans when signing up for Lovable: https://bit.ly/timgabe-lovable

🔴 get the prompt template here: https://timgabe.com/resources/mini-youtube-in-lovable

Timecodes
0:00 - Introduction
0:34 - Signing Up for Lovable
0:59 - AI Best Practices: Planning the App
2:26 - Setting Up the Project in Lovable
4:06 - First AI-Generated Page
7:00 - Fixing Navigation Links & Authentication
8:52 - Setting Up a Database with Supabase
10:47 - Testing Authentication & Fixing Login Issues
14:52 - Refining UI & Fixing Image Layout
16:11 - Uploading Videos with a Modal
21:00 - Displaying Uploaded Videos
24:37 - Implementing Likes & Comments
27:31 - Adding Like Animations & UI Improvements
30:39 - Fixing Search Functionality

Summary

Master Lovable AI in 30 Minutes: Build a YouTube Clone Without Coding

In this comprehensive tutorial, Tim demonstrates how to build a fully functional YouTube clone application using Lovable AI in just 30 minutes, without writing a single line of code. The video showcases the incredible power of AI-assisted development for beginners who want to create web applications quickly.

Tim walks viewers through the entire process, starting with proper planning before approaching AI tools. He emphasizes the importance of creating detailed requirements and specifications to get the best results from Lovable. The tutorial covers setting up a project in Lovable, connecting to a Supabase database, and implementing essential features like user authentication, video uploads, likes, and comments.

Throughout the demonstration, Tim encounters and resolves common errors that arise when building with AI tools, showing viewers how to effectively communicate with the AI to fix issues. He demonstrates best practices for working with Lovable, including how to provide visual references through screenshots to help the AI understand design requirements.

Key features implemented in the YouTube clone include:
- User authentication (signup/login)
- Video uploading with thumbnails and descriptions
- Video playback on detail pages
- Like functionality with animations
- Comment system
- Search functionality
- Responsive UI design

The tutorial is particularly valuable for non-technical creators who want to bring their app ideas to life without coding expertise. Tim highlights how Lovable dramatically reduces development time from weeks to minutes, making app creation accessible to everyone.

For those interested in trying Lovable themselves, Tim offers a 10% discount code "TIM" on paid plans, along with a downloadable prompt template to help viewers replicate the project. The video is in English and includes detailed timestamps for viewers who want to jump to specific sections of the build process.

Whether you're a complete beginner or someone looking to prototype ideas quickly, this tutorial demonstrates how AI tools like Lovable are revolutionizing the app development process by removing technical barriers.

Transcript

0:00 in this video we'll be building a 0:02 YouTube clone in an AI tool that has 0:05 blown my freaking mind more than any 0:09 tool ever has there's just something 0:11 magical about not having to know any 0:13 code and basically chitchatting your way 0:16 to an app that has login search upload 0:20 and even comments and likes it's crazy 0:23 this would probably take an engineer 0:25 days if not weeks to build out just a 0:28 year ago but in this video we'll do it 0:30 in 30 minutes let's get right into it 0:34 just go to lovable dodev and sign up or 0:37 if you're the moneys saving kind of 0:39 person you can use my link below to get 0:41 a 10% discount the next steps will be to 0:45 follow specific best practices for AI 0:48 building with lovable this is to make 0:51 sure that we get the best possible 0:53 outcome so make sure you don't skip 0:56 ahead here step one we need to stop and 0:59 think anytime we build something with AI 1:02 this is what we should ask ourselves 1:05 what are we building here while it might 1:07 not sound like it this step is 1:10 absolutely freaking crucial because the 1:12 better your instructions are the better 1:15 the AI will do his job because you will 1:17 encounter errors when building stuff 1:21 even with AI and although it's usually 1:23 as easy as clicking a fix this for me 1:26 please button we still want to avoid it 1:29 as as much as we can so how do we do 1:32 this well we create a little list of 1:35 requirements and if you don't want to 1:37 type it out yourself you can find the 1:39 promt template I'm using in the link in 1:41 the description below basically though 1:43 what we have is an app overview where 1:46 we're kind of just describing what the 1:48 app is about then we have list of pages 1:51 so all the pages we want to have in our 1:53 app we have functionality per page we 1:55 have the database requirements so we're 1:59 going to have use for example so we're 2:01 going to upload videos likes comments 2:02 Etc all of these things need to be part 2:05 of the database we have aesthetic and 2:08 visual preferences we have the sequence 2:11 in which we want to develop and we 2:13 usually start with UI and then we get 2:15 into connecting the database later and 2:18 lastly we just have some UI details for 2:20 the first pages of our 2:22 app all right so let's jump into lovable 2:26 I'm going to select the little text 2:29 field here or the input field I should 2:31 say and I'm going to paste The Prompt 2:34 that we had the next step for me is I'm 2:37 going to jump over to a figma file where 2:40 I've actually created this layout 2:42 beforehand this is going to be helpful 2:45 because it will give lovable a very 2:47 clear instruction on how I want things 2:50 to look with that said though it's 2:52 definitely not a necessity you could 2:55 just create it with a prompt straight up 2:58 and it's still going to yield very good 3:00 results for me I want a very specific 3:03 kind of UI that's why I'm using these 3:05 screenshots so I'm going to just take a 3:09 screenshot and jump back into lovable 3:12 and paste it in here now I'm going to 3:15 change this to be a private project for 3:17 now and then we're just going to click 3:21 the button and let lovable do its 3:24 magic now something I want to say here a 3:27 little 3:28 disclaimer that you might hate me for 3:30 but it comes from my heart here I love 3:33 this tool the first time I started using 3:36 it like 5 minutes in I just knew I had 3:40 to contact lovable and see if they would 3:44 be interested in a collab and it turns 3:47 out they were interested so this is a 3:50 sponsored video it's a collab video but 3:54 genuinely I think this is the best tool 3:57 of its kind on the market and you'll see 4:00 why with your own eyes just here so 4:04 let's let it load here and see what it 4:06 comes up with there we have the first 4:08 page like a pretty amazing job just out 4:12 of the gate here amazing now let's fix 4:16 the logo 4:18 type in the 4:21 center and the 4:23 navigation here it 4:26 is and I'm going to upload in the 4:29 attached section my logo type then I'm 4:33 just going to send that and there we go 4:36 we have the logo type here we have the 4:38 logo type here now some things I want to 4:40 add is I want the Navigation logo type 4:46 to always link back to the welcome 4:52 page if you're not logged 4:55 in and if you're logged in 5:00 we'll route it to the feeds 5:07 page also I want to 5:11 connect the sign 5:16 in 5:18 Button as 5:19 well as the get started button to the 5:26 sign in 5:28 page the 5:30 sign up links should go to the sign up 5:37 page okay so let's see get started takes 5:41 us to a 404 so that doesn't work sign in 5:44 as well sign up as 5:48 well and since we're already on the page 5:52 I do get a link indicator here so I 5:54 think that works now let's make sure 5:57 that the get start 6:01 Ed button is called sign 6:05 in and that it takes us to the sign in 6:11 page all right so let's see if this 6:15 works 6:17 nope and you see here we get a 404 error 6:22 but lavable doesn't see this so I want 6:25 to make sure to tell it as I click on 6:29 these sign 6:30 in button it takes me to this 404 page 6:36 please fix 6:38 that and while this is getting fixed 6:41 you'll run into these kinds of issues 6:44 with lovable with AI any coding tool 6:46 really where you have some kind of error 6:50 that is happening here and lovable does 6:53 it doesn't see it itself sometimes it 6:57 will know that there's an error and it 6:58 will even give you a button to fix it 7:01 right but in this case I had to provide 7:04 that context for it to understand that 7:07 there was an error and now it works so 7:10 if I click back here and I click sign in 7:13 that works if I click on sign in here it 7:17 also works if I click on sign up still 7:20 doesn't work so let's fix that let's fix 7:23 the 7:24 sign up link as well it gets 7:30 uh 7:31 4042 now if we try it sign up works as 7:35 well awesome now the next step we want 7:38 to get into is actually creating the 7:41 database for our project because if we 7:44 want functionality that is more than 7:47 just showing stuff on the screen here 7:50 that will basically disappear if we want 7:52 to have users if we want to have videos 7:55 if we want to have likes and comments 7:57 Etc we need to connect the into a 8:00 database and in lovable it's super 8:02 simple to do that so I'm going to go 8:04 here to super 8:05 base this is like integrated into 8:08 lovable which makes it super easy I'm 8:11 going to click on connect to a project 8:13 here my email address then I'm going to 8:16 create a new project in here I'm going 8:19 to say this will be 8:23 food tube with three O's very important 8:27 then we're going to have a random 8:30 random password and we're just going to 8:33 create this new project now while this 8:36 is creating itself I'm also going to 8:40 mention that if you guys like this kind 8:42 of stuff like me creating tutorial 8:45 content on AI um which I basically said 8:48 I wouldn't be doing but lovable just got 8:50 fire in me again for some kind of 8:53 tutorials if you like this if you want 8:56 to get more into the creative f future 9:00 of this AI world that we're living in 9:03 check out my newsletter where I 9:05 basically cover everything that is 9:07 needed to become irreplaceable in this 9:10 era of AI I have the link in the 9:13 description now some awkward silence and 9:17 then there we have it the project is set 9:20 up here in super base we don't really 9:22 need to think much more about that for 9:25 now if we go back into lovable this is 9:29 now set up here we're going to go here 9:31 though to the project and we'll see 9:34 active projects food tube and we can 9:37 connect it so I'm going to do that I'm 9:39 going to connect it we're going to get 9:41 this Modo click connect and now you can 9:44 see that it's connected to our project 9:47 this is important because now I want to 9:49 get into the creation 9:52 of uh basically users right I want to be 9:55 able to create an account so we can log 9:57 in in order to do that I'm going to tell 10:00 lovable 10:02 awesome now let's make sure that 10:06 authentication works I'm going to hit 10:09 enter and it gives me this SQL code here 10:14 that I can read if I'm not lazy which I 10:17 am so I'm just going to assume that this 10:18 is good and I'm going to click apply 10:20 changes and this is the cool thing right 10:23 if you're lazy like me if you don't know 10:25 a bunch of code I do know some code but 10:28 I'm not a 10:30 programmer or an engineer by any 10:33 means then this like we can now create 10:36 our own ideas like this as creatives I'm 10:39 creating a YouTube clone here just by 10:41 chitchatting right all right so now it 10:44 says to me that it should be set up so 10:47 let's see here if I add my 10:51 email um actually I was thinking of 10:54 having a username here as well so let's 10:57 add that 10:59 thanks 11:01 actually let's also add a 11:06 username to the sign up 11:11 page make sure it's added in the 11:15 database 11:17 too and there we go so now we have the 11:19 email so I'm going to use my email and 11:22 we have a username going to go with Tim 11:24 Gabe then we're going to add a password 11:28 I'm just going to paste some in there 11:30 and now the Moment of Truth success and 11:34 here it even says please check your 11:36 email to verify your account so it even 11:38 sends me an email to confirm my account 11:42 here so if I check for super base I have 11:45 the email here if I click into it you'll 11:48 see this it looks like it's broken it's 11:51 not though it works we haven't fixed 11:54 this page yet but that's fine we don't 11:57 need it because now we're validated 12:00 so if I go here you can see that it 12:02 automatically took us to login page I 12:05 take my email I take my password and I 12:09 sign in nothing happens all right we can 12:14 fix that so I'm telling it that the Au 12:17 works but the login 12:19 doesn't now though I want to show it my 12:22 next screenshot so I want to take a 12:25 screenshot of this which is the homepage 12:28 or the feeds page 12:29 when we have no videos which we don't 12:32 have yet right so I'm going to put that 12:34 in there and say this is the home/ feeds 12:39 page when we don't have videos 12:44 uploaded please make 12:47 sure that we end up here as we log 12:54 in also make sure that the login 13:00 works all right so let's try again 13:03 signing in and there we are I mean it 13:05 basically almost got it right from the 13:08 start here some things that we need to 13:10 fix like you can see here this is 13:12 supposed to be an avatar button the 13:15 search doesn't look quite right this 13:17 image here is not quite right so let's 13:20 say 13:21 awesome you 13:25 rock let's update the center image to 13:29 the one I upload here I'm going to 13:34 attach this image that I 13:38 have also let's make sure the search bar 13:45 is 13:47 rounded without any border lastly let's 13:52 make sure that the Avatar icon actually 13:57 has an icon and that it has a popover on 14:03 click that allows you to log 14:07 out 14:08 boom now I basically added a bunch of 14:12 stuff now into this prompt which could 14:16 become a problem we'll see sometimes it 14:18 figures it out sometimes it doesn't 14:21 again rule of thumb is that the fewer 14:24 instructions you give it the better it 14:28 is going to be at actually executing it 14:30 correctly however we also have limited 14:33 amount of tokens that we can use unless 14:36 we want to buy more of them so it's a 14:39 fine balance you have to find there okay 14:43 boom it got most of the stuff right the 14:46 image doesn't look quite right so let's 14:49 say 14:52 awesome let's fix the image let's make 14:56 sure the image in the center 14:59 fits within the container right now it's 15:04 getting 15:05 cropped groped 15:07 cropped and there we go now we can see 15:10 here that it still has this background 15:12 color from the container the image is in 15:16 so we could say remove the 15:19 background color of the container of the 15:23 image 15:26 please 15:27 also let's 15:30 tie it in up or let's make the search 15:35 bar 15:37 shorter 15:39 and add some add like six pigs or maybe 15:44 four PX more in 15:49 padding uh 15:52 horizontally and there we go I mean it's 15:54 not perfect it's not exactly what I had 15:57 here it's not looking 15:59 as crisp I would say but we could just 16:03 continue doing this and making sure that 16:05 it looks exactly like we want but for 16:08 now this is fine what I want to do now 16:11 though is I want to make sure these 16:13 upload buttons work I say great now 16:17 let's make sure that the upload 16:21 buttons trigger a modal where we can 16:26 upload the videos 16:30 include all the fields needed like 16:34 thumbnail 16:36 video title and 16:40 description now we got something here 16:42 saying unwanted changes so it basically 16:46 asks me to just ask the same thing again 16:50 but in a different way so let's take 16:53 what I just wrote and let's say let's 16:55 make sure that upload buttons trigger 16:58 model where we can upload the 17:02 videos going to keep it at that and see 17:04 what 17:05 happens all right let's see if it works 17:08 upload boom Works upload boom and it 17:12 works we have the title description the 17:14 thumbnail and the video so if we go 17:18 through this test 17:21 testing choose a file for the thumbnail 17:24 let's say that image the 17:27 video and we click upload nothing 17:30 happens yet so now let's say 17:35 awesome 17:37 again now let's make sure that the 17:43 upload actually takes place as we click 17:48 upload 17:50 video 17:52 granted we filled out all the 17:56 fields correctly 17:59 and uploaded the 18:03 items and there we get this SQL code 18:07 again that we just 18:09 apply also again it does help I would 18:13 encourage people to read these things 18:16 and to actually immerse themselves in 18:18 the code as much as possible because 18:20 it's just going to be easier for you to 18:22 debug and to create with AI overall but 18:27 if you are lazy like like me you're 18:30 going to get by still because the tool 18:33 just does the work for us all right so 18:36 we can see that the file is getting big 18:38 so it's asking us to or asking us if we 18:41 want to refactor and make it smaller for 18:44 better maintainability but before we do 18:46 that let's see if it actually works so 18:50 uh let's say homemade 18:52 pasta this is a 18:56 description that spend some thing like 18:59 one row then we have a 19:03 thumbnail let's take that and let's take 19:07 uh do we have any pasta I don't think so 19:09 but let's take this video Moment of 19:12 Truth 19:14 upload and it couldn't cannot read 19:17 properties of null reading reset and as 19:22 you'll see here now we don't get this 19:26 fix it button by lovable in this case so 19:31 if we want to go fancy and if we want to 19:34 investigate ourselves we can click or 19:37 right click and inspect we're going to 19:40 get this developer tools 19:43 menu and if I go to the console here 19:47 you'll see this little um what would you 19:51 call it these arrows up here you have 19:53 different kinds of um tabs basically you 19:57 choose console and you'll see the 19:59 console of everything that's happening 20:02 here with requests etc etc etc here we 20:06 can go in and copy anything that looks 20:10 red so that we can give some context to 20:13 lovable and tell it like what to look at 20:17 for fixes so I'm going to take these 20:20 down here I'm going to copy them and say 20:22 I get this 20:26 error can you help me fix it and also I 20:31 get this error as I try to upload the 20:36 video so give it context then we'll let 20:39 it 20:41 run all right so let's try it once again 20:45 let's do just test testing for the speed 20:49 cuz we're lazy let's upload a thumbnail 20:53 and a video let's give it another try 20:57 and now it seems like like our video has 21:00 been uploaded successfully which is good 21:03 the problem is that I don't see any 21:06 videos here so I am going to jump back 21:10 into my figma file here and I'm going to 21:12 take a print screen or a screenshot of 21:16 this 21:18 screenshot back to lovable I'm going to 21:20 paste it in here and say now it seems to 21:24 work I think the video is uploaded in 21:29 the 21:30 database however once we upload the 21:34 first video we need to display 21:40 it so let's change the layout to the 21:45 layout I submitted as a 21:49 screenshot once we've 21:52 uploaded uh 21:54 video all right so as we did that we 21:58 encountered a new error we can see here 22:00 that now lovable saw the error itself so 22:04 I'm just going to go to try to fix 22:07 it and here it gave us an option to 22:10 apply changes because it knows or it 22:13 thinks it knows what the issue is so I'm 22:15 going to apply the 22:17 changes all right so now it seems like 22:20 the videos are uploaded 22:23 here awesome it even made some of its 22:26 own design choices adding this watch now 22:28 Buton to each so that's good we have 22:33 that working I'm actually going to 22:34 refactor now so that it just stops 22:37 asking for that I mean no no shame on 22:40 the AI for refactoring it's a good 22:43 practice but you know we're lazy we just 22:47 want stuff to happen and it's happening 22:49 so quickly with a tool like this that 22:51 you just feel like I don't want to spend 22:53 time on that I just want to build more 22:55 stuff but anyways okay so it's done 22:59 refactoring now if I click on watch now 23:03 nothing happens right it does have a 23:05 quite a cool hover effect on each card 23:09 we have our videos uploaded now let me 23:12 try to upload again just to make sure 23:13 that it actually works as we want so 23:16 title uh let's see pancakes 23:20 Deluxe 23:22 this or these are the best 23:26 pancakes ever 23:28 thumbnail we actually don't have 23:31 pancakes so we're going to kind of um 23:35 catfish the people on here but no shame 23:38 in that in this case I think upload 23:42 video video 23:44 uploaded and there we have it I'm just 23:46 going to make sure that we now can 23:49 actually click into these detail Pages 23:52 here so let's say once we 23:57 click on the video 24:02 cards I want to be linked to the detail 24:09 page of 24:11 the the the the 24:16 video and let's jump back to figma let's 24:20 take a screenshot once 24:23 again let's paste it in here and we hit 24:28 enter 24:29 now let's see if this works if I click 24:33 we get the detail view that's awesome 24:37 all right so not exactly the visual 24:39 Aesthetics that I was looking for but 24:41 it's fine let's now actually make sure 24:45 that the comments and the likes also 24:48 work 24:50 so 24:52 thanks 24:54 let's make 24:57 sure that if I click like it adds a like 25:03 to the UI and in the 25:08 database the same with comments if I add 25:13 a 25:14 comment it adds it in the UI and in the 25:19 database Yad yadish yes apply changes 25:24 okay apply changes and apply changes and 25:28 this is the process right with AI you 25:31 will have 25:33 to get into these errors and then you 25:36 will have to apply changes and you will 25:37 have to fix stuff and you will have to 25:40 error handle but in the end with a speed 25:44 you're working at here like creating an 25:47 app in minutes instead of days and weeks 25:52 it's worth it 25:54 awesome 25:56 let's implement 25:59 the 26:00 commenting 26:02 functionality so basically what it did 26:05 here was changing a bunch of stuff in 26:08 the database and now we're ready to 26:11 actually start implementing it here in 26:13 the UI with the correct components and 26:16 everything needed to actually add uh 26:19 comments there we go we have a comment 26:23 section where I can add a 26:26 comment can post it 26:29 and we have a comment posted 26:32 successfully cool now if I click here 26:36 nothing happens 26:38 so great now let's make sure that we can 26:44 add a like 26:47 to to each 26:51 video when we click the like button 26:58 I want an 27:00 animation that shows a heart that 27:05 hovers up and Fades 27:09 out 27:13 seamlessly 27:15 also make the 27:19 heart that we 27:22 click 27:24 red 27:25 once we've liked a video 27:31 boom again have to apply changes we need 27:34 to change stuff in the database to make 27:37 sure everything 27:40 works and we encountered an error so we 27:43 show the logs pretend that we look at 27:46 what's the problem here and we say 27:49 gracefully try to fix it my friend thank 27:53 you all right so Moment of Truth here if 27:56 I click the like 27:59 lo and behold we get the 28:01 animation gets 28:03 red but we don't get the number to 28:06 change 28:08 so let's ask it to change the number 28:14 too let's give it another try 28:17 here 28:19 boom and there after some fighting it 28:22 works we have the likes we have the nice 28:25 little animation we don't have the video 28:28 though so let's make sure also first 28:33 thanks 28:35 man let's make sure that the 28:39 video 28:40 is displayed in the top instead of the 28:46 thumbnail there we have it now we're 28:48 talking we have the video here instead 28:51 of the thumbnail I like that 28:55 now let's go back to the video feed here 28:59 and let's click into these different 29:01 ones let's see looks like it's working 29:05 we can add a like 29:07 here and the video plays it even has 29:11 sound on if I go in here has another 29:15 video and it's showing the thumbnail 29:17 before the video starts playing which is 29:19 quite cool 29:20 too so all of this seems to be working 29:23 now the last thing actually the second 29:27 last thing we can see here we don't have 29:30 the correct number if we click in here 29:33 we have four comments and one like so 29:35 that's correct but here it's not yet 29:39 connected so let's quickly do that 29:43 awesome now in the video feed page let's 29:49 make sure that we also display the 29:53 correct values for comments and Li 30:00 in each 30:03 card and there we go now we have one 30:06 like four comments one like two comments 30:09 and here is 0 and if we go in here and 30:12 check indeed it is 0 30:15 0 awesome so that is now working the 30:20 last thing before I round this off 30:22 because I mean functionality wise we 30:25 have just one more thing UI it's still 30:28 not really there but the last thing 30:32 functionality wise to fix is the search 30:35 now if I search for pan nothing happens 30:39 so we want to connect the search right 30:43 so great thanks 30:48 again I'm going to go to the figma file 30:52 I'm going to take a screenshot of this 30:54 search 30:56 results and I'm going to go back to 30:58 lovable paste it in there and say now 31:02 let's make sure that if we type 31:06 something in the search 31:08 field and hit uh 31:12 enter it shows us the search 31:17 page with 31:21 results look at this 31:25 screenshot as a reference 31:31 and as we do that we get an error so we 31:34 try to fix 31:37 that 3 2 31:43 1 all right now let's check here if we 31:47 search we say what do we say we say pan 31:53 and I search and I get the results for 31:55 pancakes Deluxe if I go back and I 31:59 search for 32:01 home I get homemade pasta if I click in 32:05 and I click 32:07 like we get a 32:10 like it seems like everything is working 32:13 now we have built ourselves a little 32:17 YouTube clone in the span of again 32:21 minutes instead of days or weeks now if 32:25 you want to like get notified 32:28 whenever I discover something new when 32:30 it comes to creativity surviving in the 32:33 AI age becoming Irreplaceable as a 32:37 creative then check out my newsletter 32:40 again the link is in the 32:43 description with that have an amazing 32:47 everything and we'll talk soon