Can NotebookLM analyze videos?

NotebookLM can analyze YouTube videos that have a transcript — either auto-generated captions or manually added subtitles. Paste the YouTube URL as a source, and NotebookLM extracts the text. You can then query, summarize, and cross-reference the content against your other sources.

It cannot analyze raw video or audio files (MP4, MOV, AVI). It also cannot process YouTube videos with captions disabled — if the source shows as empty after adding, the video likely has no accessible transcript. For non-YouTube videos, transcribe externally using a tool like Whisper or Otter.ai, then upload the resulting transcript as a text file. NotebookLM will process it like any other document source.