Gemini Notebook Connected App: Actions, Setup and Availability

Google announced Gemini Notebook as a Connected App on October 23. Gemini can now manage notebooks and their sources from a chat, alongside answering questions about them. For someone maintaining research across conversations, the useful change is being able to update the collection without leaving the discussion.

What the Gemini Notebook Connected App does

The official announcement covers creating, editing and deleting notebooks, adding or changing sources, listing source collections and retrieving information. Google also describes saving notes. Type @Gemini Notebook to name the app explicitly; Gemini can detect relevant requests automatically too.

Notebooks already existed inside Gemini, with changes syncing to the standalone Notebook app. The new layer is conversational management. Seeing a notebook in a sidebar and asking an assistant to change its contents are different workflows.

Consider a developer collecting documentation for an API migration. Asking what the notebook says about authentication is one task. Asking it to add a revised specification changes the material future answers will draw from. That makes checking the selected notebook and source more important than simply checking whether the answer sounds right.

How to enable it

Google says the integration is available to personal Google accounts, Workspace Individual subscribers and all Workspace customers. It is on by default outside the European Economic Area; users in the EEA need to enable it. Workspace administrators must enable both Gemini and Gemini Notebook for the user's group or organizational unit.

The announcement points to Settings > Connected Apps. Google's current Connected Apps instructions also describe a Customize > Connectors route on the web, with Customize sometimes under More. Open the app's details to inspect its supported actions, and follow any connection prompts.

These labels may differ across interfaces. The useful check is whether Gemini Notebook is connected in the account being used, rather than whether a notebook happens to appear elsewhere in the product.

Platform limits and chat handling

Google's notebook help page currently lists the Connected App for web and mobile, with gradual availability. It says notebooks work on Mac, but the Connected App is not available there yet. The broad launch announcement should not be read as identical support in every client.

The help page also says the connector cannot add existing chat threads to notebooks, even with Keep Activity enabled. The launch post gives an example of adding a copy of a chat as a source. Those descriptions should not be treated as a promise that the connector can move the original conversation. Use the separate Add to notebook control when that is the intended operation.

Notebook memory and several other notebook features depend on Keep Activity. Review that setting before assuming every project feature will work in the same way.

The useful change is keeping research current

A research collection becomes less useful when updating it requires enough effort that people stop doing it. Conversational source management could reduce that friction, particularly during ongoing technical work.

The tradeoff is that a convenient request can now alter the evidence behind later answers. A clear notebook name, a deliberate source selection and a quick check of the result are worth keeping in the workflow. Easier maintenance only helps if the collection remains trustworthy.

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