Google just made one of Gemini’s most useful features available to everyone. The Notebooks feature, initially rolled out to paid AI subscribers earlier this month, is now available to all free users on the web. If you use Gemini regularly, this is a pretty big deal.
What is Gemini’s Notebooks feature and what can you do with it?
Think of Notebooks as a dedicated project workspace inside Gemini. Instead of starting fresh every time you open the app, you can store your conversations, files, and sources all in one place under a single topic. Gemini then uses everything in that notebook as context when you ask your next question.
The feature shows up as a new Notebooks section in Gemini’s side panel, right between Gems and Chats. Any conversation you have inside Gemini can be saved to a notebook using the three dots menu.
You can also set custom instructions to control the tone, format, and style of responses. If you prefer Gemini to answer without referencing your saved chats, there is also an option to turn off notebook memory entirely.
What makes this genuinely exciting is the NotebookLM integration. These are the same notebooks used in NotebookLM, Google’s standalone research tool. Since the two sync automatically, any source you add in one app instantly appears in the other. That means you can research something in Gemini and then use NotebookLM’s Video Overviews and Infographics features on the same material, without any manual transfers.
How many sources can free Gemini users add to a notebook?
Free users can add up to 50 sources per notebook. If you are on a paid plan, the limits scale up considerably: AI Plus subscribers get 100 sources, Pro users get 300, and Ultra subscribers can go up to 600. The feature currently supports Gemini’s full toolkit, including web search and other AI-powered functions.
For now, Notebooks is live on the web only. It has not yet reached mobile or Mac apps, though broader availability is expected in the coming weeks.