NotebookLM just made working with Google Drive a lot easier

Google calls NotebookLM an “AI-powered research assistant,” but it also helps you quickly digest complex topics with the help of features like mind maps. No matter what purpose you’re using NotebookLM for, the first step after opening it will be to add sources, which can be a bit time-consuming, depending on where you’re getting them from.

If it’s a file that’s locally stored on your device or a YouTube link, adding the source material is super simple. You can also type the file names to pick the right one. This is a useful trick to quickly import the file from Google Drive to NotebookLM. However, this will not work if you forget the names of the files you want to add. To solve this problem, Google has quietly introduced a new way to import Google Drive files to NotebookLM.

NotebookLM’s Discover sources gets Google Drive integration

For those who aren’t aware, NotebookLM can also find sources from the web, and that’s the purpose of the Discover sources feature in the Sources tab. All you have to do is type what you want to learn, and NotebookLM will pull up relevant information from the web to let you select what you want to import to your notebook.

In addition to web content, NotebookLM’s Discover sources can now help you find what documents or slides you want to add from Google Drive to the notebook (via XDA). So, if you can’t remember the name of the file, you can simply type the topic it covers.

If someone has shared a file in Google Drive and you want to import it, but forgot the name of the file, you can type “Files from [the person’s name].” It’ll also help you import Google Drive files and slides from a specific time frame. However, just like in the case of adding sources from the web, the new Google Drive integration will present up to 10 source recommendations.

You can select the right ones from those 10 recommendations to import to NotebookLM. After importing them to your notebook, you can use features like Briefing Docs, FAQs, Audio and Video Overviews, and mind maps to quickly understand every topic in those files.

As things stand right now, the Google Drive integration lets you find only documents and slides, so you won’t get the result if you’re looking to import anything other than these two file types. Hopefully, this will change in the near future.