Body
Environment
U-M Google, NotebookLM
Issue
- What is Google NotebookLM?
- How do I access and use Google NotebookLM with my U-M Google account?
Resolution
What is it?
Google NotebookLM is an AI-powered research and note-taking assistant available to all University of Michigan faculty, staff (regular and temporary), and students. (Sponsored affiliates, alumni, retirees, and Shared Accounts do not have access to NotebookLM.) Using Google's Gemini models, NotebookLM lets you upload your own sources, such as documents, PDFs, and Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, and interact with them through summaries, questions, audio overviews, and AI-assisted exploration. It is especially helpful for synthesizing large amounts of information across uploaded materials.
Google documents the general limits of NotebookLM but notes that they may change frequently based on demand and available capacity, and that any changes will be made without notice. In general, you can own up to 100 notebooks, with each notebook containing up to 50 sources. Each of those sources can be up to 500,000 words or 200MB for local uploads, but there is no page limit. Accounts are limited to 50 chat queries, three Audio Overviews, three Video Overviews, ten reports, ten flashcards, and ten quizzes per day. Accounts can use Deep Research ten times a month, and there are currently no limits on Mind Map generation.
How do I access it?
- U-M Google accounts have access to the free NotebookLM web app as a Core Service covered under our agreement with Google.
- You can access NotebookLM via the web at https://notebooklm.google.com or the mobile app (Android and iOS).
- Ensure you are logged in to your U-M Google account and not a personal (non-UM) account.
- Google does not display the University of Michigan logo beside your profile picture in the top-right corner of NotebookLM, as it does in other Google services, like Gemini.
- You do not have access to the features/functionality available in the paid version, NotebookLM Plus. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Sharing public, featured, or "chat-only" notebooks
- Although NotebookLM may allow you to select Chat-only under the "Viewers have access to" sharing setting, it does not work and will revert to Full notebook upon refreshing the page
- The ability to delete notebooks or chat history within notebooks
- You can share notebooks by clicking the Share button in the top-right corner of the screen. You can grant either Viewer or Editor access to other individuals.
- You can share with an unlimited number of U-M individuals and MCommunity groups.
- When shared with a group, group members do not receive any welcome emails or notifications.
- You cannot share with external (non-UM) email addresses at this time.
- The Copy link functionality in the sharing dialog only works for those who are already shared on the notebook.
Privacy & security
- NotebookLM at U-M is approved for use with the same types of sensitive data as your U-M Google account. Refer to the Sensitive Data Guide for more information.
- Institutional data, such as FERPA, should never be used with a personal (non-UM) Google account.
- The data protections U-M Google offers are not available in personal accounts.
- Your interactions, chats, uploaded sources, and generated content are not human-reviewed or used to train Google’s AI models, as long as you are using your U-M Google account to access the service.
- They remain in U-M Google and are not shared externally with third parties.
- If you export your notebooks from NotebookLM, the terms and policies of the service you export to will apply to that content.
- Chat responses and audio overviews only use data from the sources you upload.
- When using Audio Overviews in interactive mode, your voice and transcribed interactions with the hosts will not be stored.
Resources
Notebooks
- Google Help Center | Create a notebook in NotebookLM
- Each notebook is independent. NotebookLM can’t access information across multiple notebooks simultaneously.
- You cannot transfer ownership of notebooks. When you leave the university (or change departments), you will not be able to transfer a notebook to another individual at U-M.
- Notebooks are not stored within Google Drive, so you cannot search for them there as you would with other Google file types.
- You cannot duplicate a notebook.
- NotebookLM does not meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards for accessibility.
- While you are encouraged to explore the capabilities of NotebookLM, we also strongly encourage you to explore U-M's GenAI tools (U-M GPT, Maizey, GoBlue, etc.), as these tools provide some overlapping functionality, but with important advantages due to greater internal control over accessibility.
Sources
- Google Help Center | Add or discover new sources for your notebook
- Sources are static copies of the resources you import. At this time, Google supports the following source types:
- Audio files: .3g2, .3gp, .aac, .aif, .aifc, .aiff, .amr, .au, .avi, .cda, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .mp4, .mpeg, .ogg, .opus, .ra, .ram, .snd, .wav, .wma
- Imports may fail if the audio is of low quality.
- Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides
- Images: tiff, .heic, .jpeg, .avif, .bmp, .gif, .ico, .jp2, .png, and .webp
- Microsoft Word, Text (.txt), Markdown (.md), and PDF files
- Copy and pasted text
- Web URLs
- YouTube URLs of public videos with captions (user-uploaded or auto-generated)
- You can search for sources from the web using Fast Research or Gemini Deep Research. You can also search your Google Drive content with Fast Research.
- When you import a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file into NotebookLM, Google makes a copy of the original file at the moment of upload. This means any changes you make to the original file in Drive won’t be reflected in the notebook’s source version until you resync it with Drive manually.
- This is because NotebookLM can’t delete or edit your original files in Drive.
- Select the Google Doc, Sheet, or Slides file from the Sources list and click the Click to sync with Google Drive link at the top under its title.
- It may take a few minutes for NotebookLM to register that a change has been made to the original file.
- Click to sync with Google Drive is only displayed if you have Editor access to the original Drive file.
- Sheets have a 100k token limitation (1 token is ~4 characters), and Slides are limited to 100 slides.
- NotebookLM does not import footnotes or comments from Google files.
- While NotebookLM will pull data from multiple tabs in Docs and Sheets into a single source, content within sub-tabs isn't imported.
- You can upload sources from all supported languages, including a combination of different languages in the same notebook.
- If your PDF file is copy-protected, NotebookLM won't be able to import that source.
- When you import a source via URL, only the visible text on the page is imported.
- Images, embedded videos, or nested webpages are not imported. Webpages with paywalls are also not supported.
- PDFs uploaded through URLs are treated as PDF sources.
- Note: Some U-M websites (*.umich.edu) may result in an "Invalid URL" error when using them as a URL source. This is likely due to the way the websites are configured. The workaround for this is to either download the webpage as a PDF (CTRL/CMD + P > Save as PDF) or copy and paste the site content into a .TXT file or directly into NotebookLM as sources.
- When importing a YouTube URL, only public videos with captions/transcripts (user-uploaded or auto-generated) are supported.
- Only the video's text transcript is imported as a source. (As a result, videos without speech aren't supported.)
- There is no limit on the length of the video unless the caption file exceeds 500,000 words.
- If the video's spoken language is not currently supported by NotebookLM, your import will fail.
- Videos uploaded less than 72 hours prior may not be available to import.
- If a video is deleted or made private, sources are auto-deleted from your notebook within 30 days.
- If the video is marked "Unsafe" or "NSFW," your import will likely fail.
Notebook chats
- Google Help Center | Use chat in NotebookLM
- Chat history does persist between sessions and when you refresh the page in a notebook.
- You can also save specific chat responses as notes by clicking the Save to note button.
- Saved response notes aren’t editable once created.
- Your chat history remains private to you. However, your saved notes, sources, and anything you generate (e.g., Mind Map, flashcards) are visible to whoever you share the notebook with.
Notes
- Google Help Center | Create & add notes in NotebookLM
- You can create up to 1,000 notes per notebook.
- Notes can be saved as sources by clicking Convert to source at the bottom of the note.
- Saved chat notes aren’t editable once created.
- Note edits sync in real-time for all collaborators in the same open notebook.
- Only individuals with the Editor role on a shared notebook can edit notes.
- There's currently no way to recover deleted notes.
Generated "Studio" content
- Google Help Center:
- You can export most of the content you generate in NotebookLM.
- Mind Maps and Infographics are downloaded PNG files.
- You must open all Mind Map sections before saving to ensure you have the entire map.
- Audio Overviews are downloaded as M4A files.
- Video Overviews are downloaded as MP4 files.
- Reports are exportable as Google Docs.
- If a report includes a table, you can export the table to Sheets. (The rest of the document won't export into Sheets.)
- You will receive an error if you attempt to export a report to Sheets and it doesn't contain a table.
- Slide decks cannot be exported to Google Slides at this time. You can download them as either a PDF or a PowerPoint file.
- Flashcards and quizzes cannot be downloaded.
Google Help Center
Refer to the ITS AI Services site for more information on Google Gemini and NotebookLM at U-M.
Additional Information
- Google may advertise NotebookLM Plus to you within NotebookLM and ask you to “try” it, but you won’t have the ability to do so with your U-M Google account.
- You also cannot pay to use any premium NotebookLM features.
- Google provides individuals the opportunity to send their questions and support requests directly to the Google NotebookLM team at notebooklm-user-support@google.com.
Need additional information or assistance? Contact the ITS Service Center.