10 Hacks Every NotebookLM User Should Know

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Google can spend more time promoting its Gemini AI chatbotbut NotebookLM (LM stands for Language Model) is built on the same core AI and takes the analysis and deep-dive features up a notch.

NotebookLM is built around the idea of ​​a digital notebook where a variety of disparate sources are brought together and scrutinized. Using data you import, NotebookLM can produce anything video explainersto podcasts, to presentation slides, to flashcard study aids from your chosen sources.

It is a feature packed app available on the networkon Androidand on iOS. If you’ve tried it and are ready to improve your NotebookLM experience beyond the basics, these 10 tips will get you there.

You can make NotebookLM find its own sources

The traditional way to get started with NotebookLM is to provide it with one or more sources—PDF files, web links, or YouTube videos, for example—but the application can actually go to the web and find its own relevant sources as well.

If you want to explore and research a topic but are starting from scratch, this can be really helpful. The Search the web the box is in Sources panel and you can choose between Quick research and In-depth researchdepending on how quickly you want your results back.

When the results appear, select the ones you want to use and click Importing. You can continue to search for new sources as needed, changing the information you are looking for each time.

You can be a “guest” on your audio review podcasts

You may have already played around with NotebookLM’s Audio Overview feature, which lets you create realistic-sounding podcasts from your material, but there’s a way to add your own interjections to those podcasts—like a radio caller.

Click the waving hand icon next to any audio preview to go interactive, and when you have something to say, click Join in. The AI ​​hosts will pause to let you have your say and then respond to your comment or question before resuming the podcast.

You can have NotebookLM show you previews of individual sources without typing prompts

Once you’ve uploaded all your materials to NotebookLM, you’ll probably want to bother asking questions about them, but you can have NotebookLM provide brief overviews of your sources without typing prompts.

Select a separate source from Sources window and you will see a Source Guide up top: This is a handy, AI-generated overview of the source and the content it contains. This will give you a good understanding of the material and help you decide if it is a source you want to include in future inquiries. There are also labels at the bottom of the guide that cover the key topics in the source – click on any of them to get NotebookLM to tell you more about that topic in particular.

You can give each chat with NotebookLM its own personality

Up at the top of each Chat panel has a configuration button (looks like three sliders). Click on that then select To order to understand how you want NotebookLM to respond in this conversation: You can ask it to play a certain role, tailor your output to a certain audience, or work towards a set goal.

For example, you can ask that answers be aimed at a high school level of understanding, indicate that you’re writing a report for a board meeting, or have the AI ​​break down your answers into short, bulleted points. The instructions you give here apply to the rest of the chat until you change them again.

You can upload existing NotebookLM slideshows to use as an example when making yours

NotebookLM can create presentations based on your sources – either prompted or via Sliding deck option c Studio panel, but sometimes it can be difficult to make these presentations look exactly how you want them to.

You can fix this by uploading an existing slideshow and using it as a starting point. Add it as a source and then refer to the filename in your request for a new presentation: Just tell NotebookLM to use the existing slideshow as a stylesheet and it will.

NotebookLM’s sharing options can connect your notebooks to the world

You don’t have to keep your notebooks to yourself: As you click on Share it button on a notebook page will let you collaborate with other people on projects (and you get control over how much they can edit and view), you have more options than that. If you choose Anyone with a connection under Access to notebookthen click Copy the linkyou will get a URL that you can share with anyone or post publicly on the web. (Here’s one at the Made by Google 2025 event.)

This link will take anyone who finds it directly to your notebook. They’ll get their personal chat history, but won’t be able to make changes to Studio sources or materials.

You can use NotebookLM to sort your Google Drive

As you might expect, NotebookLM works well with other Google apps, and if you’re comfortable giving it access to your files, then the AI ​​tool can work really well as a way to search your Google Drive and extract information from it.

When you click Add sourcesthen you need to click on Network drop-down menu and select I’m driving instead. Type in something you’re looking for and you’ll get a list of matches from your Drive storage: You can then use the checkboxes to decide which files to import.

Whether you’re working on your next novel or trying to pull together data from multiple spreadsheets for a business report, it makes it easy to retrieve the data in anything you store in Google Drive.

You can customize the sources for each prompt

You don’t have to use every source for every prompt: Use the check boxes next to each entry in the Sources panel to tell NotebookLM where to pull its information from (the overview of sources mentioned above can be helpful here). There may be times when you want to analyze every source except one, or you just want to focus on one particular source – maybe you have a bunch of reports you’re analyzing and there’s one in particular you want to interrogate, for example.

Use Google Docs to provide more complex prompts

If you’re working on really complex prompts—full of instructions, references, and multi-level requests—then they might work best as separate documents in your notebook. This means you have more flexibility when composing and editing them, and once they’re done, you can refer to them again and again.

Make a new Google Docs document and then compose your prompts as required – you can even break it up with headings and bullet points if needed. Then add it as a source in NotebookLM.

For your next prompt, specify the name of the document and ask NotebookLM to use its contents as a framework for what to do next. The AI ​​will confirm that it has read and understood the document and then proceed as instructed.

Download information from all your notebooks at once by uploading them to Gemini

Your NotebookLM notebooks will also be available in the Google Gemini app. Choose + (plus) next to the Gemini prompt box and NotebookLM comes as an option. You can then select one or more notebooks to import. There are many ways this can be useful, from using Gemini to create videos and images based on your collected materials, to running prompts that analyze multiple notebooks at once (saving you from switching between them in NotebookLM).