Getting started with NotebookLM is simple. Go to notebooklm.google.com and sign in with your Google account — it's free to use.

Creating Your First Notebook

1. Click "New Notebook"
2. Give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Q4 Strategy Research" or "Machine Learning Thesis")
3. Start adding sources

Adding Sources

Click the "+" button in the Sources panel to add materials:

• Google Drive — Select Docs, Slides, or PDFs from your Drive
• Upload — Upload PDFs, audio files from your computer
• Link — Paste URLs to web pages or YouTube videos
• Paste text — Copy and paste text directly

Each source gets a Source Guide — an auto-generated summary with key topics, a table of contents, and suggested questions. This is incredibly useful for quickly understanding a new document before diving in.

Organizing Sources

Within a notebook, you can:

• View all sources in the Sources panel on the left
• Click any source to see its full content and Source Guide
• Remove sources that are no longer relevant
• Add sources at any time — NotebookLM immediately incorporates them

Multiple Notebooks

Create separate notebooks for different projects:

• "Thesis — Chapter 3: Methodology"
• "Competitive Analysis — Q1 2026"
• "Book Club — Thinking, Fast and Slow"
• "Onboarding — Company Policies"

Practical Setup Tips

1. Start with 3-5 high-quality sources rather than dumping everything in
2. Use descriptive notebook names — you'll accumulate many over time
3. Group related sources in the same notebook for cross-referencing
4. Remove outdated sources to keep responses current and relevant

Best Practice: Use the auto-generated Source Guide for every new upload before asking questions. The Source Guide summarizes the document's main topics and suggests questions — this primes you to ask more targeted queries and reveals what the document actually covers vs. what you assumed it covers.

Common Pitfall: NotebookLM does not crawl websites dynamically — it captures a snapshot of a URL at upload time. For frequently updated pages (competitor pricing, news articles), re-upload the URL periodically to ensure your notebook reflects current information.

Named Example: Academic researchers preparing literature reviews upload paper PDFs and start with "What methodology does each source use?" — a cross-source analytical question that NotebookLM answers by synthesizing across all uploaded papers simultaneously, something that would take hours of manual reading.