Can NotebookLM transcribe a YouTube video?

By Paul, who built Transcript Any Video
Published October 22, 2026

No. When you add a YouTube link, NotebookLM imports the video's existing captions as text and never listens to the audio, so it works on public videos with captions and fails on the rest. It does transcribe audio files you upload yourself, which is the free way around it when the audio is yours.

Below: how to add a video, what NotebookLM really gets from it, and what to do when it says there's no transcript.

How do you add a YouTube video to NotebookLM?

1. Open a notebook you own, or create a new one.
2. On the left, select Add sources.
3. Paste the URL of a public YouTube video.
4. Wait for the video to appear in your list of sources. If you get an error instead, skip to the error section below.

Before you paste, take ten seconds. Open the video on YouTube and click Show transcript in the description. YouTube's help says any video with captions has a full transcript there. No transcript on YouTube means NotebookLM will find nothing to import either.

What does NotebookLM actually take from the video?

Text, and only text. Google's help page says it plainly: “Only the text transcript of the video is imported as a source.” That has three consequences people don't expect.

• It needs captions. Only public videos with captions are supported, whether the creator uploaded them or YouTube generated them.
• It doesn't see the screen. Slides, charts, an Excel formula typed on screen, code in an editor: if the speaker doesn't say it out loud, it isn't in your source.
• It inherits caption mistakes. YouTube makes automatic captions with speech recognition, and its help warns they can misrepresent what was said because of accents, dialects or background noise. A misheard product name in the captions becomes a misheard name in NotebookLM's answers.

Can NotebookLM summarize YouTube videos?

Yes, once the transcript is in. NotebookLM answers from your sources, not from general knowledge, and adds inline citations that show where each point came from. Its help also lists the formats it can build from your sources: study guides, briefings, audio overviews, mind maps and more.

Ask for a summary, then check a citation or two. It's the fastest way to catch a point the video never made, or one that rests on a misheard caption.

You can also put several videos on one topic in the same notebook. Then ask what three tutorials agree on, and where they differ.

Why does NotebookLM say “Transcript not available”?

In January 2025, a Hacker News user posted the message word for word: “This video cannot be imported. Transcript not available.” LilysAI reports the same text in February 2026. YouTLDR quotes another wording: “Failed to add source. This video doesn't have a transcript available.” They all mean NotebookLM found no caption track it could use.

Google lists four common causes, from an invalid link to a missing captions file, plus limits on very new uploads and videos without speech. The check for each one is in the guide to a YouTube transcript not working, so I won't repeat it here.

What do the top guides get wrong?

• “NotebookLM never processes audio.” YouTLDR's fix page says it's “not built to transcribe audio itself”. Google's help says the opposite for files: an audio file “is transcribed at the time of import and its text is saved to use as a new source.” Only the YouTube link skips the audio. That difference is the whole workaround.
• “Find Show transcript in the three-dot menu.” A PostToSource guide from April 2026 still gives that path. YouTube's help now puts the button in the video description.
• “It can't be fixed inside NotebookLM.” LilysAI's guide says so. For the link import, that's true. But copied text and uploaded audio both go into NotebookLM, and both get around it.

Case 1: the video has captions, but the import fails

Bring the transcript in by hand. NotebookLM accepts copied text as a source, and lets you give it a title when you create it.

1. On YouTube, click Show transcript in the description.
2. Select the transcript text and copy it.
3. In NotebookLM, select Add sources and add it as copied text.
4. Give the source the video's title, so citations stay readable.

You lose the link back to the video. You keep the answers with citations, which now point into the text you pasted.

Case 2: the video has no captions

Then no import, extension or copy-paste will find words, because YouTube has none to give. You need a transcript made from the audio.

1. It's your own video. Download it from YouTube Studio, turn it into an audio file such as MP3 or WAV, and upload that to NotebookLM. It's transcribed on import. Uploaded files can be up to 200 MB, and audio with no speech or poor quality may fail.
2. It's someone else's video. The free routes are your computer's live captions or Whisper on your own machine. Both are in the guide on how to get a transcript of a YouTube video without captions, along with what YouTube's terms allow.

FAQ

Sources

• Gemini Notebook Help (NotebookLM), Add or discover new sources for your notebook (YouTube, audio, copied text, 50 sources, 200 MB)
• Gemini Notebook Help (NotebookLM), Learn about Gemini Notebook (answers from sources, inline citations, output formats)
• YouTube Help, View video transcripts
• YouTube Help, Use automatic captioning (speech recognition, accuracy)
• NC State University OIT, NotebookLM changes name to Gemini Notebook (July 2026)
• Hacker News, comment on a NotebookLM YouTube import (January 2025)
• LilysAI, How to Fix “This Video Cannot Be Imported. Transcript Not Available.” in NotebookLM (February 2026)
• YouTLDR, NotebookLM YouTube Transcript Not Available: Fix (verified July 2026)
• PostToSource, How to Add YouTube Videos to Your NotebookLM Knowledge Base (April 2026)