NotebookLM Web Importer: what it does and what it costs
NotebookLM Web Importer is a browser extension that sends the page you are looking at — or a batch of links, tabs, YouTube playlists and RSS feeds — into a NotebookLM notebook, now branded Gemini Notebook. It is made by wong2, trading as Less But Better, LLC, and it is not from Google: its own listing carries the line “not affiliated with Google”, and as of 2026-09-19 Google documents no browser extension of its own — the help centre at support.google.com/gemininotebook covers the web app and the mobile apps and nothing else.
It is the most-installed extension in this category: 300,000 users and 4.7 stars from 255 ratings on its Chrome Web Store listing, version 3.36.0, updated 2026-08-05 (listing read 2026-09-19). A Firefox build of the same version exists too — addons.mozilla.org, updated 2026-08-07, 1,640 users, 4 stars from 4 reviews.
What NotebookLM Web Importer does
From the store listing and notebooklm-web-importer.com, both read 2026-09-19:
- One-click import of the current web page into a chosen notebook.
- Bulk import of multiple links pasted at once.
- All links found on a web page — it reads the page’s links and imports them as sources.
- Open browser tabs, imported as a batch.
- YouTube videos and playlists.
- RSS feeds, plus podcast feed syncing — a feed you subscribe the notebook to, not a one-off import.
- “Enhanced imports” for YouTube, Notion, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, X/Twitter, Medium and Substack — the site’s own term for per-site handling; it does not spell out what is enhanced.
- Notebook management and audio-file downloads alongside the importing.
That is a wider set of web-facing inputs than we ship. If your material is pages, tabs, link lists and feeds, this extension covers it and we do not — we have no RSS, no podcast sync, and no “import my open tabs”.
The Chrome listing’s data disclosure says the developer does not sell your data
and does not use or transfer it for purposes unrelated to the extension’s
function, and states “It will not collect or use your data”. The listing page we
fetched did not print the permission list, so we cannot report Chrome
permissions here; the Firefox build asks for access to browser tabs,
to data on notebooklm.google.com, and to data on
clerk.notebooklm-web-importer.com — the last of those is a hosted
authentication service, which is consistent with the Premium sign-in.
What it costs
Prices from its pricing page, read 2026-09-19. Competitor prices rot; check before paying.
| Tier | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Import the current page, 20 per day. No bulk import of any kind. |
| Premium | $19 per year | Unlimited daily imports, tabs, all links on a page, YouTube playlists, RSS, podcast sync. |
| Lifetime Premium | $39 once (listed as reduced from $59) | Everything in Premium, permanently. |
All paid plans carry a stated 7-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
The free tier is genuinely useful and genuinely limited: everything that makes it a bulk importer sits behind Premium. The pricing page shows a “Sign In” link, but as of 2026-09-19 it does not state whether an account is required for the free tier — only the paid licence clearly involves one.
What it does not do
Only things its listing and site do not mention, as of 2026-09-19. Absence here means “not advertised”, not “proven impossible”.
- Datasets and JSON. No file input of any kind is advertised. Nothing about
taking a
.jsonexport and turning it into sources. - Telegram chat exports. Neither the JSON nor the HTML export format is mentioned. See Export a Telegram chat to NotebookLM for what that job actually involves.
- Splitting a big file under the per-source word cap. NotebookLM rejects a source over 500,000 words; nothing on the site describes measuring or splitting anything. Its inputs are URLs, and a URL’s size is NotebookLM’s problem.
- Whole YouTube channels. Playlists are named repeatedly; channels are not named anywhere we read. If you want a channel’s latest N videos in one action, its listing does not state that it can do it.
Web Importer vs source-lm
Web Importer from its listing, site and pricing page on 2026-09-19; source-lm from our own code.
| NotebookLM Web Importer | source-lm | |
|---|---|---|
| Web pages | Yes — 20/day free, unlimited on Premium | Yes — active tab, a pasted URL, or a list of URLs |
| Multiple open tabs | Yes (Premium) | No |
| YouTube playlist | Yes (Premium) | Yes |
| YouTube channel | Not stated on its listing | Yes — latest N videos, default 50 |
| RSS / podcast feeds | Yes (Premium) | No |
| JSON dataset, Telegram export | Not stated on its listing | Yes — the main thing it is for |
| Word-budget splitting | Not stated on its listing | Yes — 400,000-word budget per file, under the 500,000 cap |
| Price | Free (20 pages/day) · $19/yr · $39 once | Free (5 bulk actions/month) · $29 once |
| Account required | Sign-in for the Premium licence; free-tier requirement not stated | None — no backend of ours, no login |
Two honest notes on that table. Web Importer beats us outright on web breadth: tabs, RSS and podcast feeds are real features we simply do not have. And its $19-a-year entry price is lower than our $29 — though ours is a one-time payment, so the ordering flips in year two.
Which one to install
The rule is short. If your sources are pages, tabs, link lists and feeds, install Web Importer — that is what it is built for, and the free tier will tell you within a day whether 20 imports is enough.
If your sources are a file, a chat export, or a whole YouTube channel, neither its free nor its paid tier covers that, and you want source-lm instead: a JSON or Telegram export split into packed Markdown files under the word cap, or a channel’s latest N videos in one click.
They also coexist fine. Nothing stops you running both, and several people do. For the wider field — twelve extensions, what each gets in and out, and where your data goes — see Best NotebookLM Chrome extensions in 2026.
FAQ
Is NotebookLM Web Importer free?
There is a free tier: importing the page you are on, 20 times a day. Bulk imports — tabs, link lists, YouTube playlists, RSS — need Premium, $19 a year or $39 once (its pricing page, 2026-09-19).
Is NotebookLM Web Importer made by Google?
No. It is a third-party extension by wong2 / Less But Better, LLC, and its own Chrome Web Store listing says it is not affiliated with Google.
Does NotebookLM have an official Chrome extension?
Not as of 2026-09-19. Google’s help centre documents the web app and the mobile apps only and names no extension. The listings whose names begin with “NotebookLM”, this one included, are third-party products that say so themselves.
NotebookLM Web Importer vs source-lm: which adds more sources at once?
It depends on the shape of the source. Web Importer takes more kinds of web input in bulk — open tabs, every link on a page, RSS and podcast feeds. source-lm takes the inputs it does not: a JSON or Telegram export split into files that fit NotebookLM’s 500,000-word per-source cap, and a whole YouTube channel’s latest N videos.
Limits of this article
- Everything about Web Importer here was read on 2026-09-19 from three of its own pages: the Chrome Web Store listing, notebooklm-web-importer.com and its pricing page, plus the Firefox add-on listing. Feature claims are the developer’s own.
- We did not install or test it. No import path was run, no limit was verified by hitting it, and the 20-per-day free cap is the pricing page’s number, not a measurement.
- Chrome permissions are unreported. The listing page we fetched did not print them; the Firefox permissions above are from the Mozilla listing and may differ from the Chrome build’s.
- “Not stated on its listing” is not “cannot do it.” A feature may exist and simply not be advertised. Where we could not confirm, we said so rather than guessing.
- Prices rot, on both sides of that table. Check the linked page.
Not affiliated with Google. NotebookLM and Gemini are Google trademarks; this is an independent extension that automates a signed-in session.
When one page at a time is not enough.
Install source-lm5 bulk actions a month, free. Single sources always free.