Setting Up: Notebooks, Sources, and Limits

NotebookLM is organized around two simple ideas: notebooks and sources. A notebook is a project, and the sources are the documents inside it. Once you understand how these fit together, everything else in the tool clicks into place. In this lesson you will create your first notebook, add sources the right way, and learn the limits so you never get surprised by them.

What You'll Learn

• How to open NotebookLM and create your first notebook
• The full range of source types you can add
• How to organize sources so answers stay sharp
• The current free tier limits and where the paid tier fits

Getting in

NotebookLM lives at notebooklm.google. Sign in with a Google account and you are in, no separate app to install on desktop. There is also a mobile app for iPhone and Android, covered later in the course. The free tier is generous and is all you need to work through everything here.

The layout you will see has three main areas:

• Sources on the left: the documents in the current notebook
• Chat in the middle: where you ask questions and read grounded answers
• Studio on the right: where you generate Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, mind maps, and reports

Creating your first notebook

Click Create new (or the plus button) to start a notebook. A notebook is just a container for a related set of sources and everything you make from them. A good habit is one notebook per topic or project: one for a course module, one for a client, one for a book you are studying. Keeping unrelated material in separate notebooks keeps answers focused.

What counts as a source

This is where NotebookLM is powerful. You can mix many source types inside one notebook:

• PDFs such as papers, reports, manuals, and ebooks
• Google Docs and Google Slides straight from your Drive
• Text and Markdown files you upload
• Copied text pasted directly into a source
• Website URLs, where NotebookLM reads the page text
• YouTube links, where it uses the video's public transcript
• Audio files such as recorded lectures or meetings

NotebookLM can also help you find material with Discover sources: you describe a topic and it suggests relevant web sources you can add with one click. This is handy when you are starting a notebook from scratch and do not have documents ready yet.

A couple of practical notes. For YouTube, only the spoken transcript is used, so a video with no captions gives NotebookLM little to work with, and the video must be public. For websites, it reads the visible text of the page, not paywalled or login-protected content.

Organizing sources for better answers

The quality of NotebookLM's answers depends heavily on the quality and focus of your sources. A few habits make a real difference:

• Curate, do not dump. Add the sources that matter for your question, not every file you own. A focused notebook gives focused answers.
• Give sources clear titles. Rename a source from "document-final-v3.pdf" to "Q3 Sales Report" so citations are easy to read.
• Split giant collections by topic. If you are studying a whole textbook, a notebook per unit often beats one enormous notebook.
• Refresh when material changes. NotebookLM reads a source as it was when you added it. If a Google Doc changes a lot, re-sync or re-add it.

You can select or deselect individual sources before asking a question. Deselecting the ones you do not need is a quick way to narrow an answer to just the relevant documents.

The limits you should know

NotebookLM's free tier is capable, but it has caps. These numbers can change, so treat them as a snapshot as of mid-2026 and confirm current figures in the app:

• Up to 50 sources per notebook on the free tier
• Up to 100 notebooks total on the free tier
• A per-source cap of roughly 500,000 words or 200MB, whichever comes first, on every tier
• A daily limit on chat questions (around 50 per day on the free tier)

For most students and professionals, the free tier comfortably covers real work. If you regularly hit these caps, higher limits come through NotebookLM Plus, which raises the number of sources per notebook, the number of notebooks, and the daily chat and generation limits, and adds early access to new features.

How you get the paid tier

As of mid-2026, NotebookLM Plus is not sold as a standalone product. Its higher limits come bundled with Google's paid AI subscriptions (the Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra plans) and with eligible Google Workspace and education plans. Because the exact plan names and prices change, do not memorize a dollar figure; check the current options in NotebookLM or on Google's plans page when you actually need more capacity.

The practical takeaway: start free, learn the tool, and only consider upgrading when you consistently bump into the limits above.

Key Takeaways

• NotebookLM is organized into notebooks (projects) that each hold a set of sources (documents).
• Sources can be PDFs, Google Docs and Slides, text, pasted text, website URLs, YouTube links, and audio files, and Discover can suggest new ones.
• Curate focused notebooks with clearly titled sources for sharper, more reliable answers.
• As of mid-2026 the free tier allows about 50 sources per notebook and 100 notebooks, with a roughly 500,000-word cap per source.
• Higher limits come via NotebookLM Plus, bundled into Google's paid AI and Workspace plans rather than sold on its own, so verify current pricing before upgrading.