Sources

A source is a static copy of the source document you import or upload to the app. When using NotebookLM, the model will use the sources you upload to answer your questions or complete your requests. You can see the full list of supported source types in the below section.

NotebookLM can’t delete or edit your original files. When you upload a Google Doc or a local PDF file from your computer, the app makes a copy of the original file. NotebookLM doesn’t keep track of changes to the original doc automatically, including access to it, so you have to manually refresh any local file you uploaded or use the Click to Sync button to refresh imported Google Docs and Slides in the source viewer.

Source Overview

When you upload a new source to NotebookLM, the app instantly creates a source overview that summarizes the document and offers key topics and questions to ask. Think of it as a research assistant that helps you better understand the source material.

Source Types and Limitations

• Right now, NotebookLM supports the following source types:
  • Google Docs
  • Google Slides
  • PDF, Text and Markdown files
  • Web URLs
  • Copy-pasted text
  • Youtube URLs of public videos
  • Audio files
• Each source can contain up to 500,000 words, or up to 200MB for uploaded files. Each notebook can contain up to 50 sources. We’ll review these limits periodically to help determine the best user experiences
• Avoid uploading documents you don’t have the applicable rights to

 

Importing via Google Drive 

• NotebookLM can’t delete or edit your original files in Drive. When you import Google Doc or Google Slides, the app makes a copy of the original file. NotebookLM doesn’t keep track of changes to the original doc automatically so you have to manually re-sync the imported Google Docs and Slides in the source viewer.

• You will only see the ”Click to sync with Google Drive” button in the left hand side source viewer if the original file has been updated since the last time you viewed the current source.

• Limitations:

  • the 'Click with Drive' button in NotebookLM will only be displayed if you have write access to the original Google Drive file

  • Other types of sources will need to be manually deleted and re-uploaded, as NotebookLM only keeps a static copy of the file at upload time.

 

Importing via Web URL 

• Only the text content of the given webpage will be scraped for use as a source; images, embedded videos or nested webpages will not be imported
• Paywalled webpages or those that have disabled web scraping are not supported

 

Importing via YouTube URL

• Only public YouTube videos with captions (either user-uploaded or auto-generated) are supported
• Only the text transcript of the video will be imported as a source
• Recently uploaded videos (<72 hours) may not be available to import; you may try again later
• Videos with no speech are not supported
• Sources will be auto-deleted from your notebook within 30 days if the video itself is deleted or made private
• No limit for length of video, unless the caption file contain over 500,000 words
• My import still failed, why?
  • This is possible for a number of reasons, but the most common are: the content isn't a valid YouTube link, the video is potentially unsafe, the content does not have a captions file that I can read, or the video language is currently not supported.

 

Importing a local Audio file

• The audio file will be transcribed during import and its text will be saved to use as a new source
• Supported audio file types include MP3, WAV, among others
• Audios with no speech are not supported

Languages listed below are supported for audio import, however import may still fail if the audio is low quality: 

• Afrikaans
• Amharic
• Arabic
• Azerbaijani
• Belarusian
• Bulgarian
• Bangla
• Catalan
• Traditional Chinese
• Czech
• Danish
• German
• Greek
• English
• Spanish
• Estonian
• Basque
• Persian
• Finnish
• Filipino
• French
• Galician
• Gujarati
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Hungarian
• Armenian
• Indonesian
• Icelandic
• Italian
• Japanese
• Javanese
• Georgian
• Khmer
• Kannada
• Korean
• Lao
• Lithuanian
• Latvian
• Macedonian
• Malayalam
• Mongolian
• Marathi
• Malay
• Burmese
• Norwegian
• Nepali
• Dutch
• Panjabi
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Sinhalese
• Slovak
• Slovene
• Albanian
• Serbian
• Sundanese
• Swedish
• Swahili
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Urdu
• Uzbek
• Vietnamese
• Traditional Cantonese
• Zulu