NotebookLM Study for Obsidian

Bring the study material NotebookLM generates — flashcards, quizzes and mind maps — into your vault, and study it there with a built-in FSRS spaced-repetition scheduler.

Features

NotebookLM, from inside Obsidian (desktop, through the nlm CLI)

• Generate from notes and PDFs: right-click a note, a PDF (also Word, PowerPoint or audio) or a folder → Generate with NotebookLM. The files are uploaded as sources (an unchanged file is never uploaded twice) and NotebookLM creates flashcards, a quiz, a mind map, an audio overview, a study guide or an infographic, which are then imported automatically. Generated notes link back to their PDF, and the toolbar has an Open PDF button to study side by side.
• Your own cards from PDFs: select text in a PDF and click the floating Card button (or right-click selected text in a note → Make a card from this). The side panel fills in the answer; type the question, or let NotebookLM Suggest a question. Basic, both-ways and cloze cards are saved to a companion note next to the PDF (Lecture 3 - cards.md) with a link back to the exact page, in the same deck as the course's notebook.
• Ask: chat with any notebook from the side panel. Answers come with citations; insert them into a note or save them as a flashcard. Select text in a note → right-click → Ask NotebookLM about this; in the PDF viewer, select text and run Ask NotebookLM about the selected text.
• Sync: browse notebooks and import what you need: flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, audio overviews (with a player), reports, infographics and slide decks. Automatic sync can bring in anything new every few hours or at startup.

Study

• Everything lives in your Markdown. Flashcards, cloze cards and quiz questions are ordinary callouts that read fine without the plugin, and you can write them in any note.
• FSRS spaced repetition (via ts-fsrs) with interval previews, daily limits and undo. An optimizer fits FSRS to your own review history.
• Cloze deletions ({{answer}}, {{c2::answer::hint}}) and reversible flashcards (studied in both directions).
• Quizzes everywhere: answer them inside the note, practice a whole quiz, review the questions with spaced repetition, or take a mock exam: questions from several quizzes, a time limit, a score per topic and retry mistakes.
• Card browser: search, filter and sort every card; see its history, stability and recall; suspend, reset or study it.
• Dashboard: card states, 14-day forecast, activity heatmap, retention per deck, recent exams and the topics to reinforce.

Interface

• Side panel, a toolbar on study notes, a status-bar counter. There are no pop-ups.
• English and Spanish: follows Obsidian's language, or choose it in the settings.
• Mind maps: collapsible tree with zoom, drag and full screen, plus the cards related to each node. They are also exported as an Obsidian Canvas and as a Markmap-compatible outline.

Note format

> [!flashcard]- What is ATP?
> The cell's energy currency.
> Answers can span several lines, with lists, code, math…

> [!quiz]- Which organelle produces ATP?
> - [ ] Ribosome
>     - Ribosomes synthesise proteins.
> - [x] Mitochondrion
>
> **Hint:** Think "powerhouse".

> [!cloze] Cell biology
> The {{mitochondrion}} makes {{c2::ATP::energy molecule}}.

> [!flashcard|reverse]- Mitochondrion
> Organelle that produces ATP.

• The - after the type folds the callout, so the answer stays hidden until you open it.
• Wrong and right options are - [ ] / - [x]. An indented bullet under an option is its explanation, shown after you answer.
• Each item gets a stable id from its content. Notes created by the plugin store it in the callout metadata (> [!flashcard|fc-1a2b3c4d5e]), which Obsidian hides; review history is keyed on that id.
• Notes imported from NotebookLM wrap the synced items between %% nlm:start %% and %% nlm:end %%. Updating replaces only that region. Anything you write outside it is kept. Add nlm-lock: true to the frontmatter to stop a note from being updated.
• In a [!cloze] callout, each {{…}} is a card; {{cN::…}} groups deletions into one card, and a third part is a hint. Select text and choose Turn into cloze card to make one: bold and ==highlighted== text become the gaps.
• |reverse in the callout metadata also creates the back-to-front card.
• Use the Insert flashcard, Insert reversible flashcard, Insert cloze card and Insert quiz question commands to add new items from a template.

Mind maps are an indented list in an nlm-mindmap block:

```nlm-mindmap
- Neural networks
  - Perceptron
  - Backpropagation
```

Notes created by 2.0.0 (code-block format) keep working; run Convert current note to callout format, or click the button shown on the block, to switch them over.

Commands

Command
Open panel	Also the ribbon icon (graduation cap)
Open study dashboard / Open card browser
Study all due cards	Also the status-bar counter
Study current note / Practice quiz in current note	Also the note toolbar
Start an exam
Insert flashcard / reversible flashcard / cloze card / quiz question
Generate study material from current note	Desktop; also right-click a note or folder
Ask a notebook	Desktop; also right-click selected text
New card from selected text	Works in notes and PDFs; also the floating Card button in PDFs
Add from NotebookLM / Check NotebookLM for new items	Desktop
Update current note / all synced notes from NotebookLM	Desktop
Import CSV / JSON export
Convert current note / all notes to callout format	For notes created by 2.0.0

Review shortcuts: Space shows the answer (or accepts the suggested grade), 1–4 grade the card, A–H answer a quiz question, Enter moves to the next quiz question, U undoes the last grade, and in an exam ←/→ move between questions.

Setting up NotebookLM sync

1. Install the CLI: uv tool install notebooklm-mcp-cli (or pipx install notebooklm-mcp-cli).
2. Run nlm login once in a terminal.
3. In Obsidian, open the side panel and expand NotebookLM. If the plugin can't find nlm, set its full path in the settings (for example C:\Users\you\.local\bin\nlm.exe) and click Test.

Generate flashcards, quizzes or mind maps in NotebookLM's Studio panel first. The plugin only downloads what already exists.

Installation

BRAT (recommended)

1. Install BRAT.
2. Run BRAT: Plugins: Add a beta plugin for testing and enter https://github.com/FranciszekaMateu/obsidian-notebooklm-study.
3. Enable NotebookLM Study.

Manual

Copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into .obsidian/plugins/notebooklm-study/, then enable the plugin.

Coming from NotebookLM CSV Importer

This plugin replaces obsidian-notebooklm-flashcards (NotebookLM CSV Importer), which is now archived. It is installed as a separate plugin: install this one, then disable and remove the old one. Notes created by the old plugin use the Spaced Repetition plugin's format and keep working with that plugin. To move a deck into this plugin's scheduler, import its CSV again.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm run build   # type-check + production build
npm test        # parser, note-format, mind map and scheduler tests

License

MIT