The NotebookLM MCP server is a standards-compliant Model Context Protocol server that gives any MCP-compatible AI assistant — Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, and others — direct, programmatic access to Google NotebookLM. Once connected, your AI can create and manage notebooks, add sources from the web or Google Drive, run deep research, generate studio content (podcasts, videos, slide decks, and more), share notebooks, and handle dozens of other tasks — all through natural language, without you ever opening a browser.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/jacob-bd/notebooklm-mcp-cli/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Server name matters: Always register the server as
notebooklm-mcp (not notebooklm). If you have a legacy browser-automation NotebookLM MCP installed under a different name, remove it first — AI assistants get confused when two servers expose overlapping tool names such as notebook_create or source_add.Quick Setup
Install the package
Install You can also use
notebooklm-mcp-cli from PyPI. The package includes both the nlm CLI and the notebooklm-mcp server binary.pip install notebooklm-mcp-cli or pipx install notebooklm-mcp-cli.Authenticate with NotebookLM
Run the login command. It launches a dedicated browser profile, you sign in with your Google account, and cookies are extracted automatically.Your session persists and auto-refreshes. Run
nlm login --check at any time to verify your auth status.Supported AI Tools
Claude Code
Full MCP support. Use
@notebooklm-mcp to toggle. Register with nlm setup add claude-code or claude mcp add --scope user notebooklm-mcp notebooklm-mcp.Gemini CLI
Full MCP support. Register with
nlm setup add gemini or gemini mcp add --scope user notebooklm-mcp notebooklm-mcp.Cursor
Full MCP support via
~/.cursor/mcp.json. Register with nlm setup add cursor.Windsurf
Full MCP support via
~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. Register with nlm setup add windsurf.GitHub Copilot (VS Code)
Workspace-scoped MCP support via
.vscode/mcp.json. Register with nlm setup add github-copilot.Any MCP-compatible tool
Use
nlm setup add json to generate a config snippet, or point the tool at the notebooklm-mcp binary directly. HTTP and SSE transports are also available.Natural Language Examples
Once connected, you interact with NotebookLM entirely through natural language. Here are some prompts you can say to your AI assistant:- “List all my NotebookLM notebooks and show me their source counts.”
- “Create a new notebook called ‘Competitive Analysis Q3’ and add this URL as a source: https://example.com/report”
- “Do a deep web research on ‘enterprise AI ROI metrics’, wait for it to finish, and import only the cited sources.”
- “Generate an audio podcast in deep-dive format for the notebook I just created, then poll until it’s done and download the MP3.”
- “Query the ‘Product Strategy’ notebook: what are the three most important takeaways?”
- “Make the ‘Public Research’ notebook publicly accessible and give me the share link.”
- “Tag all my research notebooks with ‘ai,research’, then batch-generate briefing docs for all of them.”
- “Run the ingest-and-podcast pipeline on the ‘Weekly Reads’ notebook using https://example.com/article as input.”
Tool Categories
The server exposes 39 tools organized into the following categories. See the Tools Reference for full parameter documentation and examples.| Category | Tools | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Notebooks | 6 | Create, list, get, describe, rename, delete |
| Sources | 7 | Add (URL/text/file/Drive), list Drive, sync Drive, rename, delete, describe, get content |
| Querying | 4 | Ask AI about notebook sources, async query start/status, configure chat behavior |
| Studio | 4 | Create audio/video/reports/quizzes/flashcards/slides/infographics, check status, delete, revise |
| Downloads | 1 | Download any artifact type to a local file |
| Exports | 1 | Export artifacts to Google Docs or Sheets |
| Research | 3 | Start web/Drive research, poll progress, import discovered sources |
| Notes | 1 | Create, list, update, and delete notebook notes (unified tool) |
| Labels | 1 | Auto-label and organize sources into thematic categories (unified tool) |
| Sharing | 4 | Get sharing status, enable/disable public link, invite collaborator, batch invite |
| Auth | 2 | Reload tokens from disk, save cookies manually (fallback) |
| Server | 1 | Version info and auth status |
| Batch & Cross-Notebook | 2 | Batch operations across multiple notebooks, aggregated cross-notebook queries |
| Pipelines | 1 | List and run multi-step automated workflows |
| Tags | 1 | Tag notebooks and smart-select by tag match |