A native desktop app for Google NotebookLM — Ghost Mode, Quick-Clip, multi-pane research, dark mode. Now on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Note
🎉 Thank you for 5,000+ downloads. From a frameless Electron wrapper in February to a cross-platform research studio in May — every bug report, feature request, and 20-rupee Buy Me A Chai (UPI supported) shaped what landed in v3.0. The project is now openly accepting contributions — see the Roadmap below for good first issue work that could ship in the next release.
What. A native cross-platform desktop wrapper for Google NotebookLM, built on Electron, that turns the web app into a deeply integrated research utility — with transparency, customizable global hotkeys, multi-pane research (up to 3), dark mode, Markdown export, URL drop capture, and a mini Quick-Clip overlay.
Who. Built solo by Gyanesh Samanta (@GyaneshSamanta) — now openly accepting community contributions.
When. Active from February 8, 2026 onwards — v1.0 (wrapper), v2.0 (Ghost Mode + Quick-Clip + Split View), v2.1 (installer + auto-update), v3.0 (cross-platform + power-user features + open-source foundation).
Where. A nights-and-weekends project now in the hands of 5,000+ researchers, students, and analysts on Windows, macOS, and Linux who wanted NotebookLM to behave like a first-class desktop app.
Why. NotebookLM is a phenomenal research tool — but living in a browser tab means you lose half its leverage. No global hotkey to capture a clipping. No transparency to reference a PDF underneath. No way to compare two notebooks side-by-side without two browser windows. This app fixes all of that.
It started as a simple Electron wrapper around notebooklm.google.com — a frameless window with a custom title bar, persistent login, and Windows toast notifications when an Audio Overview finished generating. Useful, but still mostly a tab-with-extra-steps. The first download numbers (a few hundred) suggested people wanted more than a wrapper.
Version 2.0 was the leap. Ghost Mode added an opacity slider to the title bar, so the entire window can fade to translucent — perfect for transcribing from a video underneath or copying from a PDF without the constant Alt-Tab dance. Quick-Clip registered a global Ctrl+Alt+N hotkey: copy text from anywhere, hit the chord, and NotebookLM jumps to the foreground and pastes the clipping into the active note instantly. Split View turned the single window into a two-pane research studio sharing the same login session — one notebook on brain-activity research, another on the Q3 earnings call, side-by-side without juggling tabs. Native drag-and-drop lets you fling PDFs, TXT, and Markdown straight onto the window to trigger NotebookLM's upload pipeline. Every one of these features answers a complaint I had personally — and apparently most of the 2,000+ downloads so far had it too.
Version 2.1 was the boring-but-important release: a real NSIS installer, an electron-updater pipeline that ships updates in the background, and a portable .exe for users who don't want anything touching their registry. The whole stack stays delightfully thin — Electron 34, vanilla JS/HTML/CSS, two runtime deps (auto-launch, electron-updater).
Version 3.0 is the 5,000-download milestone release. It's the leap from "a Windows app for me" to "a research tool worth contributing to." A unified settings system with a real preferences panel. Dark mode with a proper CSS-variable palette. Customizable global hotkeys so power users can rebind Quick-Clip to whatever fits their muscle memory. Always-on-top for reference workflows. Three-pane multi-view for the research geeks. A mini Quick-Clip overlay that pops up at the cursor when the main window is hidden — no more forced foregrounding. Markdown export of your notes. URL drop capture so dragging a link from the browser pushes it as a source. And — finally — macOS and Linux builds via a cross-platform CI pipeline, with issue templates and a curated good first issue backlog so anyone reading this can ship the next feature.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| 🌐 macOS + Linux | First-class builds for Mac (.dmg / .zip) and Linux (AppImage / .deb) via cross-platform CI. |
| 🌙 Dark Mode | Full dark theme with CSS variables. Follows system or pick light / dark manually. |
| ⚙ Settings Panel | Unified preferences modal — theme, hotkey, always-on-top, default pane count, all in one place. |
| ⌨ Customizable Hotkey | Rebind Quick-Clip to any combo. Conflict-detected; reverts gracefully. |
| 📌 Always-on-Top | Pin the window above everything else — perfect for reference workflows. |
| 🪟 3-Pane View | Cycle 1 / 2 / 3 panes. Active-pane tracking routes Quick-Clip to where you're looking. |
| ✨ Mini Quick-Clip Overlay | When the main window is hidden, the hotkey shows a small overlay at the cursor — Enter to clip, Esc to cancel. |
| ⬇ Markdown Export | One click to export the current notebook's notes as a clean .md file. |
| 🔗 URL Drop Capture | Drag a link from your browser onto the window — it auto-fills NotebookLM's Add URL field. |
| 🩹 Error / Retry UI | When NotebookLM fails to load, you get a Retry button — not a blank pane. |
| 🤝 Open to Contributors | Issue templates, labels, CI, smoke tests, and a Roadmap of good first issue work. |
- Grab the latest release from the Releases page.
- Pick your flavour:
- Installer (
-Setup.exe) — recommended. Adds shortcuts and enables background auto-update. - Portable (
.exe) — just download and run, nothing touches your system.
- Installer (
- Run it. That's the whole setup.
Tip: Pin
NotebookLM-for-Windows.exeto your taskbar for one-click access.
Warning
Upgrading from < v2.1? Switch to the Installer build — that's where automatic background updates kick in.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| 👻 Ghost Mode | Custom opacity slider to see through the window |
| ⚡ Quick-Clip | Global Ctrl+Alt+N hotkey for clipboard → note |
| 🪟 Split View | Two notebooks side-by-side, one session |
| 📥 Drag & Drop | Drop files natively onto the app |
| 🖥️ Native App | Frameless window, custom controls |
| 🔐 Persistent Login | Stay signed in via secure AppData storage |
| 🔔 Notifications | Windows toast on Audio Overview / source / note events |
| 📌 System Tray | Minimize-to-tray for quick access |
| 🚀 Auto-Launch | Start quietly when Windows boots |
| ☕ Support | Buy Me A Chai — UPI supported |
Help shape the next release. Every item below is a tracked issue — pick one and ship it.
- Webview crash recovery (
render-process-gone) —good first issue - Visual regression tests for theme + layouts
- Workspace / profile switcher (multi-Google-account)
- 4+ panes / configurable grid layout
- "What's New" panel on first launch after update —
good first issue
- Programmatic drag-and-drop file upload —
help wanted(hard) - Screenshot → OCR → push as source
See all open issues · Read CONTRIBUTING.md first.
Three-pane multi-view — research three notebooks at once, all sharing the same login session.
Split view — two notebooks side-by-side.
Settings panel — theme, customizable hotkey, always-on-top, and default pane count, all in one place.
Light mode — the classic deep-purple chrome.
Dark mode — quieter palette for late-night research.
The app monitors NotebookLM for completion events through a webview-preload.js shim and surfaces a native Windows toast when one fires.
Detected events:
- Audio Overview generated
- Source added
- Note saved
- Electron 34 — desktop runtime
- auto-launch — startup integration
- electron-updater — background auto-update channel
- electron-builder — NSIS / portable / DMG / AppImage /
.debpackaging - Playwright — smoke tests for Electron lifecycle and IPC
- GitHub Actions — Windows + macOS + Linux build matrix on every tag
- Vanilla JS / HTML / CSS — no framework, no bundler, no bloat
NotebookLM-for-Windows/
├── assets/
│ ├── icon.png # App icon
│ ├── split-view-1.png # Marketing screenshots
│ └── split-view-2.png
├── src/
│ ├── main.js # Electron main process — windows, hotkey, tray
│ ├── preload.js # Secure IPC bridge (contextIsolation)
│ ├── renderer.js # UI logic — title bar, opacity slider, split view
│ ├── webview-preload.js # In-page hook that detects NotebookLM events
│ └── index.html # App container
├── PRD/ # Product specs
├── package.json # Electron 34 + 2 runtime deps
├── build_installer.bat # One-click local build
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
└── LICENSE # GPL-3.0
git clone https://github.com/GyaneshSamanta/NotebookLM-for-Windows.git
cd NotebookLM-for-Windows
npm install # install Electron + builders + Playwright
npm start # run in dev mode
npm test # run Playwright smoke tests
npm run dist:win # Windows: installer + portable .exe
npm run dist:mac # macOS: .dmg + .zip (run on macOS)
npm run dist:linux # Linux: AppImage + .deb (run on Linux)Built artifacts land in dist/ as:
NotebookLM-for-Windows-v<version>-Setup.exe(NSIS installer)NotebookLM-for-Windows-v<version>.exe(portable)
npm run dist- Repo → Releases → Draft a new release
- Create a tag (e.g.
v2.1.0), upload the.exes fromdist/, publish. electron-updaterpicks the release up automatically on existing installs.
# 1. Fork on GitHub
git clone https://github.com/<you>/NotebookLM-for-Windows.git
cd NotebookLM-for-Windows
git checkout -b feat/your-feature
# 2. Hack, test
npm install && npm start
# 3. Commit, push, PR
git commit -m "feat: short description"
git push origin feat/your-featureSee CONTRIBUTING.md for the full workflow.
GPL-3.0 © 2026 Gyanesh Samanta.
Want to be in this list? Pick a good first issue and open a PR.
- Gyanesh Samanta — author, maintainer, designer (LinkedIn · @GyaneshSamanta)
- And 5,000+ downloaders whose bug reports and feature requests shaped v2.0, v2.1, and v3.0.
Built with care for the Windows research community.