There are conflicting opinions on whether NotebookLM is actually a note-taking app. I’m firmly in the camp that it isn’t. NotebookLM is primarily an AI research assistant, and a summarization and retrieval tool. This is clearly demonstrated in the features it offers and how it lays them out - the chat panel is the star of the interface that you use for summaries and insights. There’s only one Note feature and it’s at the lower end of the visual hierarchy, making it secondary to what the rest of the app offers. This Note feature also doesn’t have much in terms of formatting options. So I stand firm in my view that it isn’t a note-taking app.

However, with the right approach, you can use it as a note-taking tool. I’ve used NotebookLM off-label for many things at this point, including as a personal journal, as a “video editor”, and I’ve actually already tried to set it up as a smart note-taker before. So I know it’s capable of stepping up as a note-taking tool. This time, I wanted to give it a real shot and see if it could replace the clutter of note apps on my PC for an extended period. Here’s how it went…

The note-taking features that NotebookLM offers

It’s not much, but you can make do

As I’ve mentioned, NotebookLM only has the one note-taking feature, and it’s situated in the bottom corner of the app in the Studio panel (labeled Add Note). It can be used as a standalone tool, but it is mainly built to support the rest of NotebookLM’s features - this intent shows up in two ways…

First, you can turn any of your notes into a source and it will get added as a text document to the Source panel, which NotebookLM can include in its citations. Second, you can turn any of NotebookLM’s responses into a note. Now that we have chat history in NotebookLM, this function has become less useful to me to save responses, plus you can’t edit a note that’s a saved response.

So NotebookLM’s Note tool is more of an ancillary feature than a core one. But, you can still use it as a note-taking space if you’re willing to work within its constraints. As someone who prefers minimalist setups, I actually appreciate how stripped-down it is. It uses rich text editing and only sticks to the essentials. You’ve got a couple of header and subheader options, things like bold and italic, hyperlinking, and lists. Given that I typically rely on a minimal plain text setup, this suffices for me.

Using NotebookLM for my notes

It was more frictionless than I expected

When I started leaning on NotebookLM for my notes, I used the Note feature as if it were a standalone tool. This means that I would open the relevant notebook that my notes pertained to most, and simply create my notes. Unlike the limited source count, you can create up to 1,000 notes in NotebookLM, which is ideal when you’re working on complex topics.

Keeping my notes separate from the rest of the app did work for a while, but again, the Note feature is meant to function in tandem with the other features, so this is where I was going to get most use out of NotebookLM as a note-taking tool. I started using Note only as a quick capture space, then as I worked with my sources in the chat panel, I’d expand on those notes, embed relevant links, and gradually turn them into developed sources.

Doing this actually also replaced my need for traditional backlinking, which most of my regular note apps support, but NotebookLM doesn’t. Instead, I rely on the AI to retrieve related notes and connections on demand (after I converted them to sources). I also use the Mind Map feature to visualize relationships between topics, which often proves more effective than manually linking notes because it shows clusters I might have missed with backlinks.

The rest of the Studio features also play nicely with my notes. I haven’t really come across a note-taking app that generates quizzes, flashcards, and slide decks - you often have to painstakingly create them yourself. So being able to actually learn from my own notes with proven methods was a major win.

The downsides of using NotebookLM as a note-taking app

It’s not a real note-taking app, after all

The biggest downside to using NotebookLM as a notes app is the barrier to entry. You have to create a notebook, open it, and add sources before you’re able to use the Note feature. This demonstrates, once again, that it’s not a real note-taking app. A real note-taker would give you immediate access to create notes at the first touchpoint in the app, independent of the rest of the app’s functions.

Another downside is that all your notes are stored on Google’s servers. Regardless of your stance on privacy and data ownership, this presents a practical roadblock either way - to get a copy of your notes or to get it into a local folder, you’ll have to manually copy-paste because there’s no export function beyond other Google apps.

You win some and lose some by using NotebookLM as a note-taker

Using NotebookLM as my primary note-taker gave me several benefits that I don’t have with my other note-taking tools. I can actually interact with my notes using the context-aware AI and the myriad of additional Studio features. In a way, this has made my notes more useful than they’ve ever been. The downside is that NotebookLM is not a very practical note-taker, and you’ll bump into some friction points that require workarounds.