NotebookLM is not just a tool for college students. This is a versatile AI app that can be used to process any information source in a variety of ways. If you provide NotebookLM with a pile of notes, the app can convert them into flashcards. Give it an article and NotebookLM can turn it into a podcast-style audio summary. The possibilities are endless, and I’m still using NotebookLM even after college. Starting with a source or collection of sources, the program uses Gemini models to analyze, summarize, or recreate those sources as needed.
It’s been a long time since your Google Labs research project, and you may have missed some of NotebookLM’s best features. The biggest upgrade to NotebookLM in my book is the change in the way the learning tool handles finding sources. It supports a variety of file types, web links, and Google Drive content to help you find sources if you don’t know where to start. You can use YouTube videos as sources for NotebookLM projects. This is a great solution if you have a lot of videos you want to watch for more time than you have left in the day.
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NotebookLM makes it easy for users to create podcast-style explanations for any topic, and the default prompts are just the beginning.
YouTube videos are the best source not using
YouTube has billions of videos waiting to be used as a source
NotebookLM projects start from source. Your end goal might be to create audio summaries or mind maps in NotebookLM Studio, but first you need to provide the learning platform with the dataset you want to capture. Supported source types include PDFs, audio recordings, images, websites, copied text, and finally YouTube videos. The latter may be the most interesting source type. The platform has billions of YouTube videos, and you can take any one of them and turn it into a learning session using NotebookLM.
When using YouTube as a source for NotebookLM, only the text transcript of the video is processed. If you think that defeats the purpose of watching YouTube videos, consider this. There are some videos on YouTube that aren’t videos at all. These are audio-first and have limited visual value, which is the case for many long videos. Even at double speed, it takes time to process an hour-long podcast or seminar recording. Additionally, if you’re not a YouTube Premium subscriber, the number and length of ads you have to watch during these long videos can be dizzying.
If you import a long YouTube video without attractive visuals into NotebookLM, the ads will be removed completely. You can also condense information to save time and effort. To add YouTube videos to your NotebookLM project, open the app or web client and start a new project. next, YouTube or website Source type in list. Paste the YouTube video URL into the text field and add it to your notebook. Repeat this process for as many YouTube videos as you need for your NotebookLM project.
When you add a YouTube video as a source, you’ll see a quick overview of the analyzed content. You can then start a conversation with the NotebookLM chatbot or create one in NotebookLM Studio.
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You can prompt to find YouTube sources
Yes, NotebookLM’s handy “Discover Source” tool works with YouTube
The basic method of adding a YouTube video as a NotebookLM source requires you to have a specific video in mind or manually locate the video. This works in certain scenarios, but what if you don’t know where to start? Fortunately, NotebookLM’s discover the source This feature works with YouTube videos. You can describe a topic you want to learn more about and specify that you want NotebookLM to find YouTube video sources related to that topic. As you type the prompts, NotebookLM suggests related YouTube videos that you can import into your project as sources.
For example, I used NotebookLM’s Discover source to search for YouTube videos related to Major League Baseball news using the following prompt:
Search for YouTube video sources related to Major League Baseball’s CBA negotiations for my notes.
NotebookLM finished discovering the “Fast Research” sources in seconds and displayed a message explaining, “These YouTube selections provide expert analysis of MLB CBA proposals, labor history, and 2026 work stoppage risks.” You could choose from 10 YouTube video sources and add one or more of them to your NotebookLM project. Before you add a video to your project, you can preview the content by clicking on the video to open the YouTube video.
Although I chose a developing sports story as the topic for my NotebookLM project, these steps can be replicated for any theme. All you need to do is clearly indicate that you want NotebookLM to display YouTube video sources. It can be done using the Detect Source option.
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Create with NotebookLM Studio from YouTube source
All your favorite NotebookLM authoring tools can use YouTube as a source
NotebookLM’s[Studio]The nice features of the tabs work as usual when using YouTube videos as a source. Access the full suite of studio creation tools, including audio summaries, slide decks, video summaries, mind maps, reports, flashcards, quizzes, infographics, data tables, and more. Admittedly, some of these modes don’t make sense when the source is a YouTube video. There’s no point in taking a video and converting it to an audio or video summary. However, other features like mind maps, reports, and infographics also make perfect sense.
You can use any YouTube video as information in your NotebookLM project, unless it’s set to private or unlisted. You’ve probably used documents and web links before, but YouTube transcripts may be the missing piece in your learning efforts.
- OS
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Android, iOS, and web-based apps
- developer
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google
- price model
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free
NotebookLM is Google’s AI-powered research notebook that helps you read your uploaded content and turn it into structured summaries, explanations, and visuals.
