How do I back up my Gemini Notebook sources?
Keep your own copy of every source outside Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM). Save the original files and links, copy important notebooks, and export source text to Markdown or other files so you can rebuild a notebook if a source is removed or stops loading.
In more detail
Gemini Notebook stores your sources, but you should not rely on it as your only copy. Some users report sources disappearing or failing to load, deleted notes cannot be recovered, and links you imported can change or go offline. A simple backup routine: 1) Keep original files (PDFs, documents) in a folder or Google Drive. 2) Keep a list of the URLs you imported. 3) Since August 2026 you can copy a notebook, which duplicates its eligible sources and Studio items (not chat history or notes); copy important notebooks before large changes. 4) Export the text of your sources to open formats. Gemini Notebook Toolkit helps with step 4: everything you capture is saved to your private Toolkit library first, you can export the library as Markdown, LaTeX, JSON or plain text, and the extension side panel can save the text of an open notebook's sources. Markdown exports open in Obsidian or any text editor.
Get one-click capture for NotebookLM
Gemini Notebook Toolkit saves ChatGPT, Claude, YouTube, Reddit, and any web page to NotebookLM in one click. Free to install.
Install Gemini Notebook Toolkit