Is Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) Down?

Quickest ways to check the current status of notebooklm.google.com plus recent known issues and working alternatives if it's out.

Last editorial review: 2026-09-07

How to check right now

Step 1 -- Load the site
Open notebooklm.google.com→

The simplest check. If it loads and you can log in, the tool is up for you.

Step 2 -- Crowdsourced reports
DownDetector: Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)→

User-reported outages aggregated across regions. Good signal for partial or regional outages.

Step 3 -- Live social
Search X for “Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)down” →

Live tweets from other users. Fastest signal for a fresh outage -- often beats status pages by 10-20 minutes.

Step 4 -- Official status page
Find Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)'s status page →

Most vendors publish a status page at status.[domain] or on Statuspage.io. Google-search to find the current URL.

Known issues we've tracked

GOOGLE HAS NOW PUBLISHED A DEDICATED LIMITS DOC -- AND IT REVEALS A WEEKLY CEILING THIS PAGE DID NOT CARRY (new help article found 2026-09-07; the compute-weighted limits themselves took effect 2026-09-02). The 9/05 review recorded the 5-hourly refresh and flagged that Google's help copy still read prospectively. Both of those still hold, but Google has since published a **separate, dedicated article** (support.google.com/gemininotebook/answer/17670842, 'Manage your Gemini Notebook usage limits') that the previous sweep did not have, and it changes the shape of the limit in a way that matters. **THE SENTENCE TO READ TWICE, VERBATIM:** 'If you’ve hit your usage limits, you can come back later as the quota refreshes every 5 hours **until you reach your weekly limit**, or upgrade Gemini Notebook to get higher AI limits.' **SO THERE IS A WEEKLY CAP SITTING ON TOP OF THE 5-HOURLY REFRESH.** That is materially more restrictive than 'limits refresh every five hours' on its own, which is how this change has generally been described -- including on this page until now. The 5-hourly refresh is not an unlimited-if-you-wait mechanism; it is a rate limiter inside a weekly budget. **Google publishes no number for the weekly limit, for any tier.** **THE PLAN MULTIPLIERS, WHICH ARE NEW AND ARE RELATIVE, NOT ABSOLUTE:** no plan = 'Standard limits'; **AI Plus = 2x standard**; **AI Pro = 4x standard**; **AI Ultra = 5x or 20x higher than AI Pro depending on your subscription** (matching the 20 TB / 30 TB Ultra split). Because every figure is a multiple of an unpublished baseline, **you cannot compute what any tier actually gets** -- the ratios are disclosed and the base is not. **WHAT IS ACTUALLY OBSERVABLE IN-PRODUCT:** usage now appears under **Settings > Usage**; the chat footer shows remaining usage and a reset time ('You’re almost at your AI usage limit. Limit resets at 3:00 PM.'); and Studio generation shows an **expected AI usage cost bar** before you commit to a generation. **'Generate later' is confirmed WEB-ONLY** -- 'This feature is currently only available on the web' -- and Google says deferred generations 'may take a couple hours'. **THE CAVEAT FROM 9/05 STANDS, UNCHANGED, AND IS NOW STRANGER:** both help articles STILL read '**Starting on September 2, 2026**' when fetched on 2026-09-07, five days after the date. Worse, the upgrade page (answer/16213268) **still publishes the old flat daily table** -- Chats 50/day, Audio Overviews 3/day, Reports 10/day -- with the footnote 'Daily quotas are reset after 24 hours', which directly contradicts the compute-weighted article sitting one click away. **Google is currently publishing two incompatible limit regimes simultaneously.** **DO NOT READ THAT AS A DELAY** -- there is still no announcement of a postponement and no revised date, and unedited help copy remains the likeliest explanation. But it is now a five-day-old inconsistency across two pages rather than a single stale sentence, so the honest position is unchanged: **treat 2026-09-02 as the effective date, treat the flat daily caps as gone, and verify against your own account before budgeting against any specific number.** **Flag for the next sweep: re-check both articles and drop this caveat once Google reconciles them.**
2026-09-07•Google Support: Manage your Gemini Notebook usage limits (support.google.com/gemininotebook/answer/17670842) and Upgrade Gemini Notebook (answer/16213268) -- both still reading 'Starting on September 2, 2026' and mutually inconsistent when fetched 2026-09-07 via Firecrawl
THE COMPUTE-WEIGHTED USAGE LIMITS DATE ARRIVED (2026-09-02) -- BUT GOOGLE'S OWN HELP PAGE STILL DESCRIBES THEM IN THE FUTURE TENSE (checked 2026-09-05): the 5-hourly, compute-weighted limits announced on 2026-08-28 were scheduled to take effect **2026-09-02**, and that date has now passed. **This page has been flipped to past tense on the strength of the scheduled date, with an explicit caveat: Google's Gemini Notebook support page still reads '<em>Starting on September 2, 2026, there will be changes to your usage limits for Gemini Notebook</em>'** -- prospective phrasing on a date three days gone. **DO NOT READ THAT AS EVIDENCE OF A DELAY.** There is no announcement of a postponement, no revised date, and no vendor statement withdrawing the change; the likeliest explanation by a wide margin is that the help-centre copy simply was not re-edited after the rollout, which is routine. But it is also not positive confirmation that the new limits are live for every account, and this sweep could not obtain one without an authenticated session. **What to do with that if you are budgeting against it: treat 2026-09-02 as the effective date, and treat the old flat daily caps as gone, but verify against your own account before relying on a specific refresh window.** The substance of the change is unchanged from the 8/28 entry below -- flat daily caps replaced by compute-specific limits that refresh every five hours, which helps light users and constrains heavy ones. **Flag for the next sweep: re-check whether Google has updated the support page wording, and downgrade this caveat once it has.**
2026-09-02•Google (support.google.com/notebooklm -- Gemini Notebook usage limits notice, still reading 'Starting on September 2, 2026' when checked) -- fetched 2026-09-05 via curl with browser UA
THE PRODUCT WAS RENAMED TO GEMINI NOTEBOOK ON 2026-07-16 AND THIS PAGE MISSED IT FOR SIX WEEKS (2026-07-16, vendor-primary -- staleness catch, recorded 2026-08-28): Google renamed **NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook**. This review was last checked 2026-07-04, twelve days before the rename, and four subsequent sweeps did not catch it -- the same failure class as the Grammarly/Superhuman miss. **It is explicitly still a standalone product**, not a feature folded into the Gemini app: Google's wording is 'It remains a standalone product focused on being your premier research tool.' What changed alongside the name: **code execution inside notebooks** for deeper data analysis (rolling out to Pro users), a **secure cloud computer** behind it, and **notebooks syncing across the Gemini app and Google Search**. Scale figures Google published at the rename: **more than 30 million people and over 600,000 organizations**. **We keep the /notebooklm URL deliberately** -- the old name still carries the search demand, and the page now serves both queries.
2026-07-16•Google (blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-notebook/notebooklm-gemini-notebook/, on-page 'Jul 16, 2026') -- fetched 2026-08-28 via curl
EXPERT INTELLIGENCE -- PURCHASED BOOKS BECOME NOTEBOOK SOURCES (2026-08-27, vendor-primary): Google launched Expert Intelligence, a cross-Google initiative that lets you pull '**insights from leading authors, publications, and domain experts**' into Gemini Notebook, **including from titles you have purchased**. Concretely: **select ebooks bought from Google Play Books can be added directly to a notebook**, and answers are grounded in that book. This is a genuine change to the sourcing model -- Gemini Notebook has always been strictly bring-your-own-documents, and this is the first time licensed third-party commercial content is a first-class source. **Gemini Notebook is the launch surface, with 'more products from across Google joining soon'** -- so expect this in the Gemini app and Search later. **CAVEAT WORTH KEEPING: it is limited to *select* purchased titles, so it is a publisher-by-publisher licensing rollout, not your whole Play Books library.**
2026-08-27•Google (blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-notebook/expert-intelligence-leading-sources/, on-page 'Aug 27, 2026', RSS pubDate 'Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:30:00 +0000') -- fetched 2026-08-28 via curl
FLEXIBLE, COMPUTE-WEIGHTED USAGE LIMITS -- ANNOUNCED 8/28, ROLLING OUT 9/2 (2026-08-28, vendor-primary): Google is replacing Gemini Notebook's flat daily caps with '**compute-specific**' limits. **The two changes that actually matter to a heavy user point in opposite directions.** (1) **Limits refresh every five hours rather than daily** -- strictly better; you are no longer locked out for a full day after one heavy session. (2) **Your overall limit now factors in prompt complexity, chat length, number of sources, and which features you use** -- so an identical number of prompts can consume materially different amounts of quota, and the ceiling becomes harder to predict than a plain daily count. Google frames this as 'more control over your compute budget'; the honest read is that it is **metering that tracks cost rather than actions**. The notebook surfaces your usage and will suggest cheaper alternative outputs when a request would exceed the limit, and expensive artefacts (**Video Overviews, Slide Decks**) can be **deferred to generate automatically later** with a notification. **DATED WATCH -- these are rolling out to consumer accounts on web and mobile starting 2026-09-02, so as of this review they are announced and not yet live.** Google states all existing features remain accessible.
2026-08-28•Google (blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-notebook/new-flexible-usage-limits/, on-page 'Aug 28, 2026', RSS pubDate 'Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0000') -- fetched 2026-08-28 via curl
NEW FEATURE (2026-07-01): NotebookLM added **Short Video Overviews** -- it generates ~60-second vertical (Shorts/Reels/TikTok-style) videos from your uploaded documents, extending the two-host Audio/Video Overview format into a social-native short clip. Pairs with the June Gemini 3.5 upgrade and the longer Cinematic Video Overviews already in the product. Practical use: turn a source doc into a shareable short without a separate video tool.
2026-07-01•The Verge (theverge.com/tech/959778/google-notebooklm-ai-clips)

Issues here are sourced from our editorial sweeps, not real-time telemetry. Newer issues may exist.

What to use if Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) is down

Top AIToolTier-ranked alternatives in the same category, ordered by our overall score.

A

ChatGPT

8.8

**Oct 16: ChatGPT Slides began rolling out to Pro, Business and Enterprise users with Space access -- build a deck from a chat, files or an outline, co-edit it with teammates in real time, and export to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides -- and GPT-6 Pro in the Chat tab got faster responses, better plugin and tool use, and parallel agents for Pro users.** **Oct 15: GPT-Live-1.1 began rolling out in ChatGPT Voice, Plus and Pro lost the fixed cap on how many Sites you can create, and US academic labs can apply for the Rosalind Academic Plan (up to 30 free Business seats for 12 months); on 10/14 OpenAI gave API developers notice that GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini snapshots leave the API on 2027-01-14.** **GPT-6 reached the Chat tab on 2026-10-07 with Intelligent UI: answers can now be built from interactive components (diagrams, maps, calculators, forms, small games), GPT-6 can start answering while it keeps thinking, and the rollout runs GPT-6 Sol for Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise and GPT-6 Luna for Free and Go (from 10/08). Audio file uploads for transcripts and summaries arrived 10/06 on paid plans.** **Oct 6: OpenAI expanded its Atlassian partnership (GPT-6 family models power Rovo and Atlassian agents; Jira, Confluence and Teamwork Graph plugins for ChatGPT and Codex) and published its first computer-use research partnership, with Ironclad, where GPT-6 Astra scored 55.0% on 11 contracting-software tasks against 41.6% for GPT-5.6 Sol in roughly half the time.** **Custom GPTs are being retired: Dec 11, 2026 for all plans (Feb 11, 2027 for Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral), with new-GPT creation ending Oct 26 -- migrate them to plugins, and note that custom actions do not transfer.** A new Enterprise rate card replaces per-message Chat billing with per-token rates (GPT-6 Pro $10/$50, GPT-5.6 Sol $4/$20 per 1M) and publishes first prices for Daybreak Red and Astra for Law. On 10/05 OpenAI also added a visual ad format inside image generation (US test later this month) and said EU ChatGPT and Codex output will carry an invisible text watermark within weeks, with worldwide API opt-in from today. **DevDay 2026 (2026-09-29) added a model, an agent class and a $500 plan in one day: GPT-6.1 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M with cached input cut to $0.10, dots (always-on agents with their own cloud computer, powered by GPT-6 Astra), and Pro 500 with Astra Ultrafast** -- plus Codex Cloud, Pages and Space, the Meetings plugin, Sign in with ChatGPT across 16 partner apps and a reopened Pro 200. GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches GPT-6 Astra on agentic coding, computer use and professional work at one-fifth of Astra's token prices, but like GPT-6 Sol it runs in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API and is 'not yet available in Chat'. Then on 9/30 OpenAI said it had disrupted a coordinated model-distillation campaign it attributes to individuals associated with Moonshot AI, and on 10/01 it put tts-1, tts-1-hd and gpt-4o-mini-tts on a 2027-01-06 API removal list and GPT-5.3-Codex, GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.4-Nano on a 2027-04-01 list. Virtual try-on shopping (10/01) and Finances for Free and Go (10/02) round out the window.

A

Perplexity AI

8.5

**Perplexity Computer gained Automations on 2026-09-29 -- long-running agents that run on a schedule or when an event fires in Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Linear or GitHub, remember prior runs instead of starting from scratch, and replace Scheduled Tasks** -- followed on 10/01 by a curated set of ten business Skills for US American Express Business Card Members on a Perplexity Enterprise subscription (cash flow forecasting, tax prep, vendor benchmarking; Skills consume Computer Credits). Earlier: **Perplexity names its local models at last: Portable Computer reached AMD Ryzen AI Max PCs on 2026-09-24 running PPLX 27B (Perplexity's own post-trained model) or Qwen 3.8 27B**, 24 GB of GPU-accessible memory minimum, Windows 10/11, ~20 GB disk, Pro and Max on individual and enterprise plans -- and local inference does not consume Computer credits. On 2026-09-28 the **Agent API gained reusable agents**: versioned Profiles (model, instructions, tools, run settings under one ID), versioned Skills and managed connectors (GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, Datadog, Linear, Notion in preview). Its 9/23 'Escaping SPACE' report red-teamed the sandbox behind Computer: no VM-to-host escape in 108 runs, but four models bypassed network confinement via DNS spoofing or shared-IP routing before defenses were fixed. The 9/21 GLM 5.2 disclosure stands.

A

Alexa+

8.3

Amazon's reborn consumer AI assistant -- rolls out to every Alexa device with memory, multi-turn agent tasks, and Fire TV navigation

B

Microsoft Copilot

7.5

Microsoft's answer to ChatGPT -- free GPT-4 access with Bing search built in, but it feels like a corporate product

B

Poe

7.5

One subscription, every major AI model -- Quora's multi-model chatbot lets you switch between GPT-4, Claude, and more

About Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

Tier B (7.8/10). Google's free research assistant that turns your documents into an AI you can query -- and a podcast you can listen to. **Renamed from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on 2026-07-16**, still a standalone product, now with in-notebook code execution and syncing across the Gemini app and Search. **Expert Intelligence (2026-08-27) makes purchased Play Books ebooks a first-class source**; compute-weighted usage limits took effect 2026-09-02 -- they refresh every 5 hours **but sit under an undisclosed weekly cap**, with AI Plus at 2x standard, AI Pro 4x and AI Ultra 5x or 20x above Pro (Google's help pages still read prospectively and still publish the old daily table -- no delay announced)

Read the full Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)review →