Gemini Notebooks: How to Organize Gemini Chats (2026)

Notebooks in Gemini are project spaces that hold related chats, source files and custom instructions in one place. To create one, open the sidebar at gemini.google.com and select New notebook under "Notebooks." To file an existing chat, click More next to it, then Add to notebook. Notebooks sync with Gemini Notebook, the app Google renamed from NotebookLM in July 2026 (Google Gemini Apps Help, October 2026).

This guide covers how to create a notebook on the web, on Android and iPhone and on Mac, how to add existing chats and sources, the limits per plan, what deleting a notebook does to your chats, and what notebooks do not do yet. Every step comes from Google's Gemini Apps Help and Gemini Notebook Help as read on October 8, 2026, and every gap is labelled as a gap rather than guessed. The last sections compare notebooks with the nested folders that AI Toolbox (formerly Gemini Toolbox) adds to the same sidebar, a Chrome extension with 40,000+ users, a 4.7/5 Chrome Web Store rating, and a free plan.

By Adi Leviim, Co-Founder at Infi Developments. 7+ years building AI productivity tools. Last reviewed October 2026.

What Are Notebooks in Gemini?

A notebook is a dedicated space in the Gemini app for one project: its chats, its source files and its instructions. Google's help page says notebooks "provide a continuous chat experience that remembers your sources, instructions, and ongoing discussions" (Google Gemini Apps Help). When Google launched them, it described notebooks as "personal knowledge bases shared across Google products, starting in Gemini" (Google blog, April 8, 2026).

• Chats: new chats started in the notebook and existing chats you add to it.
• Sources: PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, text and .md files from your device, Google Drive files, websites and copied text.
• Instructions: one set of custom instructions for the notebook, shared with Gemini Notebook.
• Notebook memory: Gemini can use past chats in the notebook when it answers, as long as Keep Activity is on.

Chats inside a notebook can still use web search and the other Gemini tools. That is the main difference from Gemini Notebook itself, where answers are "grounded exclusively in your notebook sources."

Availability: notebooks work at gemini.google.com, in the Gemini mobile app and in the Gemini app on Mac, and Google says it is "gradually making this feature available." In the European Economic Area you connect Gemini Notebook to Gemini manually, by asking in a chat with "@Gemini Notebook" or through Connected Apps settings. At launch Google excluded accounts of users under 18; we found no newer statement on that.

How to Create a Notebook in Gemini

Open the Gemini sidebar and select New notebook under "Notebooks," then name it and start chatting. The steps from Google's help page:

1. Open gemini.google.com (or the Gemini app on Mac) and open the sidebar.
2. Under "Notebooks," click New notebook.
3. Name it: "Give your new notebook a name."
4. Start it: "Enter a prompt to start your notebook."
5. Add files with Add sources.

On Android or iPhone: tap Menu at the top left, then under "Notebooks," tap New notebook. To see every notebook you have made, open the sidebar and choose All notebooks under "Notebooks."

The New notebook menu also offers Study and learn, which creates a study notebook. Study notebooks need Keep Activity on. Google's help page says they are on the web only, while its August 19, 2026 release notes say they are now on mobile, so check your app.

What you see first: when we clicked New notebook on a free Gemini account on October 8, 2026, Gemini opened an "Introducing notebooks" page, "Powered by Gemini Notebook," listing three things a notebook does: "Group chats by topic," "Upload up to 50 sources" and "Set custom instructions," with a Get started button that creates the notebook.

How to Add Existing Chats to a Gemini Notebook

Next to the chat in the sidebar, click More, then Add to notebook, and pick the notebook. This only works when Keep Activity is on.

• Web: open the sidebar, find the chat, click More next to it, select Add to notebook, then choose the notebook.
• Mac app: right-click the chat in the sidebar and select Add to notebook.
• Android and iPhone: tap Menu, then Search chats, tap the chat, then at the top tap More and Add to notebook.

One thing we noticed: on a free account with Keep Activity on and no notebook created yet, the chat menu on October 8, 2026 offered Share conversation, Pin, Rename and Delete but no Add to notebook, so the option appears to need an existing notebook. Create the notebook first, then file chats into it.

New chats you start inside a notebook are saved there automatically, again only with Keep Activity on. Google notes one more restriction: even with Keep Activity on, Gemini itself cannot add chats to notebooks through the Gemini Notebook connected app, so filing is something you do by hand, one chat at a time.

If you are sorting a long history, find the chats first. Gemini's own search returns a flat list of matching chats with no date, role or exact-match filters; the Gemini history search guide covers both that and AI Toolbox's full-text search.

Notebook Sources, Instructions and Memory

Sources give every chat in the notebook the same reference material, and instructions give it the same rules.

• Source types: files from your device (PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, text files and .md files), files from Google Drive, websites and URLs, and copied text. A notebook cannot use another notebook as a source.
• Source size: each source can contain up to 500,000 words, or up to 200 MB for uploaded files (Gemini Notebook Help).
• Instructions: open the notebook, then More, Notebook settings, add your instructions, and Save. The notebook "uses a single set of custom instructions across both Gemini Notebook and Gemini."
• Notebook memory: Gemini can draw on past chats in the notebook when it responds. 9to5Google reported a "Use notebook memory" switch in the notebook's menu at launch.

Limits per plan, from Gemini Notebook's plans page (Gemini Notebook Help, "subject to change"):

Chats in a notebook use the same Gemini allowance as any other chat; the Gemini usage limits guide explains how that allowance refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly cap. Google does not publish a maximum number of chats per notebook.

Want folders inside folders? AI Toolbox (formerly Gemini Toolbox) adds a My Folders tree with unlimited subfolders to Gemini's sidebar, next to notebooks, plus full-text search and export for every chat. Free plan with 2 root folders. 40,000+ users, 4.7/5 on the Chrome Web Store.

Add AI Toolbox to Chrome, free ->

Rename, Pin and Delete a Gemini Notebook

Manage notebooks from the All notebooks page, and be careful with Delete: in the Gemini app it removes the chats inside too.

• Rename: All notebooks, More next to the notebook, Rename. Click the emoji to change it, then Save.
• Pin: pinned notebooks appear at the top of your list of notebooks.
• Delete in the Gemini app: All notebooks, More, Delete. Google's warning: "If you delete a notebook, any sources or chats that you added to that notebook will also be deleted."
• Delete in Gemini Notebook: Gemini Notebook's help page describes a different result there: deleting a notebook "removes the notebook and its sources, but Gemini conversations return to your main Gemini chat list" (Gemini Notebook Help).

Because the two help pages describe different outcomes, treat a notebook delete as permanent for its chats and export anything you need first. The Gemini backup guide covers saving chats as files, and the recovery guide explains what can and cannot come back.

Gemini Notebooks and Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM)

Every notebook you create in the Gemini app also appears in Gemini Notebook, and changes sync both ways. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026 and kept it as a standalone product (Google blog); the old notebooklm.google.com address now redirects to notebook.google.com.

• What syncs: renaming a notebook, adding sources and updating custom instructions in one app carries over to the other.
• Gemini chats are read-only in Gemini Notebook. You cannot edit, rename or remove them there; they are managed in the Gemini app.
• Studio outputs stay in Gemini Notebook. Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, infographics and slide decks from the Studio panel are not generated by Gemini inside a notebook.
• Sharing: notebooks that contain Gemini chats "are private and cannot be shared," and shared notebooks from Gemini Notebook, even ones you own, do not appear in the Gemini sidebar.

Notebooks are separate from Gems and from skills, the feature that began replacing Gems on September 30, 2026. Google has said skills will gain the ability to add notebooks from Gemini Notebook "in the coming weeks"; the Gemini Gems guide covers that transition.

Keep Activity and Privacy in Notebooks

With Keep Activity off you can still chat with a notebook, but most of what makes it a project space switches off. Google lists the features that stop working: auto-saving chats, notebook memory, adding existing chats, Google Drive sources, study notebooks and business notebooks.

On data use, Google's Privacy Hub says chats with notebooks "are saved according to your Keep Activity setting," and that "files you add to your Notebook as a source in Gemini are not used directly for training our generative AI models" (Gemini Apps Privacy Hub). Turning off Keep Activity or deleting Gemini Apps activity does not delete data in Gemini Notebook. Google does not document notebooks for temporary chats; since temporary chats never appear in your chat list and adding a chat needs Keep Activity, expect them to stay outside notebooks.

Gemini Notebooks vs AI Toolbox Folders

Notebooks are for working on a project with shared sources; folders are for filing and finding chats. Many people use both: a notebook for the one project they are actively researching, and folders for everything else in their history.

AI Toolbox's folders live in Gemini's own sidebar as a My Folders tree, and an optional setting hides chats you have already filed from Gemini's Recents list so the list shows only what is left to sort. It also adds "Add to Folder" and, on Premium, "Carry this chat forward" to the menu next to each chat, beside Gemini's own Share conversation, Pin, Rename and Delete. The extension does not change notebooks or move chats into them; the two systems sit side by side.

The Gemini folders guide walks through setting folders up, and Context Mentions explains how to pull an older chat into a new one.

Which to Use: A Simple Setup

• Students: a study notebook per course with the syllabus and readings as sources, and folders by semester for everything else.
• Researchers and analysts: one notebook per active project so every chat sees the same papers or datasets; move finished chats into an archive folder.
• Writers and marketers: a notebook per client with the brand guide as a source and its rules as instructions; folders for one-off drafts.
• Anyone with a long history: start with folders and search to sort what already exists, then create notebooks only for work that needs shared sources.

What Gemini Notebooks Do Not Do (Yet)

Google's help pages, as of October 8, 2026, do not document a way to remove a single chat from a notebook or move it back out, whether one chat can sit in more than one notebook, folders or nesting inside a notebook, or a search box that searches only one notebook. Notebooks with Gemini chats cannot be shared, and Workspace accounts in the EEA were not included in the September rollout. These may change quickly, so check the Gemini sidebar before relying on any of them. AI Toolbox fills the filing and finding gaps but does not add sources or instructions to notebooks, and it cannot recover a chat deleted along with a notebook.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are notebooks in Gemini?

Notebooks are project spaces in the Gemini app that hold related chats, source files and custom instructions. Gemini answers inside a notebook with its sources, instructions and past chats in mind. Notebooks launched in April 2026 and sync with Gemini Notebook, formerly NotebookLM.

How do I create a notebook in Gemini?

At gemini.google.com, open the sidebar and click New notebook under "Notebooks." Give the notebook a name, enter a prompt to start it, and click Add sources to add files. On Android or iPhone, tap Menu, then New notebook under "Notebooks."

How do I add a chat to a Gemini notebook?

In the sidebar, click More next to the chat, then Add to notebook, and choose the notebook. On the Mac app, right-click the chat instead. On mobile, open the chat from Search chats and tap More, then Add to notebook. Keep Activity must be on.

Are Gemini notebooks free?

Yes. Notebooks are available to free Gemini users as well as Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers. Free accounts can create up to 100 notebooks with up to 50 sources each; paid plans raise this to as many as 500 notebooks and 600 sources per notebook.

What happens to my chats if I delete a Gemini notebook?

Deleting a notebook in the Gemini app also deletes the sources and chats you added to it, according to Google's help page. Gemini Notebook's help page says deleting there returns Gemini chats to your main chat list. Export any chat you need before deleting a notebook.

Is Gemini Notebook the same as NotebookLM?

Yes. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026, and it remains a standalone product. Notebooks you create in the Gemini app also appear in Gemini Notebook, and sources, names and instructions sync between the two.

Can I put folders inside a Gemini notebook?

Google does not document folders or nesting inside notebooks. Each notebook is a single space for its chats and sources. If you want a folder tree, AI Toolbox adds folders with unlimited subfolders to Gemini's sidebar, free for 2 root folders.

Bottom Line

Gemini notebooks are the native way to keep one project's chats, files and instructions together, and they are free on every plan. Create them from the sidebar, file chats with Add to notebook, and remember that deleting a notebook in the Gemini app deletes its chats. For nested filing and searching across your whole history, pair them with folders.

Related reading: Gemini Deep Research, Gemini usage limits, organizing Gemini conversations, and the ChatGPT equivalent, ChatGPT projects.

Sources

• Google Gemini Apps Help, Organize your projects with notebooks in Gemini Apps
• Gemini Notebook Help, Notebooks in Gemini Apps
• Gemini Notebook Help, Plans and usage limits
• Gemini Notebook Help, Source limits
• Google, Gemini Apps Privacy Hub
• Google blog, Try notebooks in Gemini (April 8, 2026)
• Google blog, NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook (July 16, 2026)
• Google Workspace Updates, Notebooks in Gemini for schools and organizations (September 2026)
• 9to5Google, Notebooks now available for free Gemini users (April 17, 2026)
• Android Authority, Gemini notebooks expand to mobile (April 30, 2026)

Last updated: October 8, 2026