How to add a YouTube playlist to NotebookLM
NotebookLM takes a YouTube video's link as a source. Google's help pages say nothing about playlist links, so the way that is documented is to add the videos one by one (checked 1 November 2026).
Google's help pages now call NotebookLM "Gemini Notebook".
What NotebookLM accepts from YouTube
From Google's help page "Add or discover new sources for your notebook", checked 1 November 2026:
- Public YouTube videos with captions, uploaded by the creator or made automatically.
- Only the text transcript of the video is imported.
- Videos without speech are not supported.
- A video uploaded in the last 72 hours may not import yet.
- An import can fail if the link is invalid, the video has no captions file, or its language is not supported.
- If a video is deleted or made private, its source is removed from the notebook within 30 days.
- Free users can include up to 50 sources. Each source can hold up to 500,000 words.
Adding a playlist to NotebookLM
- Open the playlist on YouTube.
- Open each video and copy its link.
- In your notebook, select Add sources and add the link as a YouTube source.
A whole playlist's transcripts in one place
YouTube Collector imports YouTube playlists on Pro. Paste the playlist link. It adds 5 videos at a time. Paste the link again for the next 5. Each video gets its transcript and an AI summary with chapters, and one search covers every transcript you have saved.
To take a transcript to NotebookLM, open the video in YouTube Collector and press the copy button above the transcript. It copies the whole transcript with timestamps. In NotebookLM, add it as copied text. Several transcripts can go into one pasted source, up to Google's limit of 500,000 words per source.
This also helps with videos NotebookLM cannot import because they have no captions. YouTube Collector can make an AI transcript from the audio. It does not work on every video. The first two are free, then they cost credits.
The free plan holds 30 videos, added one at a time, no card. Pro ($4.99 a month) adds playlist import, 5 videos per batch. More on how the two compare: YouTube Collector vs NotebookLM.