If you are an AI agent, LLM, or automated tool, a clean Markdown version of this page is available at https://www.kortex-notebooklm.com/use-cases/researchers.md

Keep every source. Search them all.

Kortex brings papers, reading lists and AI research threads into Gemini Notebook, labels what each source is, and exports it all when you start writing.

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An example Workspace for a thesis, with a Perplexity deep-research thread just saved to the methods notebook.

How do researchers use Kortex?

Researchers use Kortex, a Chrome extension for Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM), to bring papers, reading lists and AI deep-research threads into notebooks, label each source by its role, and search across every notebook at once. When the writing starts, they export sources and notes as Markdown or PDF for Obsidian, Notion or their reference manager.

Where research gets lost

Gemini Notebook is good at reading. Kortex handles the filing and moving around it.

The reading list lives in a spreadsheet, a journal feed and forty open tabs.

Bulk Import takes a list of links, your open tabs, a CSV or an RSS feed, and each page becomes its own source.
Deep research happens in Perplexity, ChatGPT and Claude, and the trail disappears.

Send the whole thread to a notebook with its prompts and replies labelled. Perplexity threads come with their citations.
Ten notebooks in, you can’t remember which one had that paper.

Search everything looks through every notebook, source, note and artifact at once, and source tags say what each source is: primary data, method, secondary source.
Two notebooks on the same question have drifted apart.

Compare shows the sources both share and the ones only one has, copies across what’s missing, and merges them without duplicates.
When it’s time to write, your notes are stuck in one app.

Download every source in a notebook as Markdown, PDF or text, or one ZIP, and export Studio notes and chats the same way.

Four workflows, step by step

From the reading list to the draft.

Turn a reading list into a notebook

Sixty links in, sixty sources out, without sixty rounds of copy and paste.

Open Bulk Import in the Workspace and choose the notebook. Paste links one per line, pick from your open tabs, or upload a CSV.
Or import the latest posts from a journal’s or lab blog’s RSS feed.
Add a Domain Router rule so links from arxiv.org always go to your Papers notebook.
Ask Gemini Notebook for a themed synthesis with the literature review prompt, and check each claim against the source it cites.

The Bulk Import page in the Kortex Workspace: a target notebook picker, tabs for Links, Browser Tabs, RSS Feed, CSV Upload and Web Crawler, a box for one link per line, and Import Links and Domain Router buttons. — The real Bulk Import page in the Kortex Workspace.

Keep the AI research trail

Every deep-research thread sits beside the papers it summarised.

Run your deep research in Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
Click the Kortex button on the thread and send it to the project’s notebook, with your prompts and the replies labelled.
Ask Gemini Notebook where the AI summary and your papers disagree. Its answer cites both.
When the thread grows, send it again and Kortex updates the source rather than adding a copy.

Label every source by its role

A 40-source notebook filtered down to the six you need.

Give sources their own tags, like Primary data, Method or Secondary source. Tag several at once.
Filter the notebook by tag, or by type to see only PDFs or only web pages.
Save the filter as a source view and switch back to it in one click.
Highlight the sources that matter most and add a note to each.

A Jazz Music notebook in the Kortex Workspace. Each source, such as Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker on Wikipedia, carries tags like Person, Concept and Secondary Source. — A real notebook in the Kortex Workspace, with tags on each source.

Export notes to where you write

Your sources and notes as files you keep.

Above the sources panel, download every source as Markdown, PDF or text, or one ZIP of all of them.
Export the Studio’s notes and artifacts at once, or one note as Markdown.
Export a chat with only the replies you tick, as Markdown, PDF or JSON.
Drop the Markdown into Obsidian or Notion. The Obsidian and Notion guide has the details.

What reviewers say about these features

Quoted word for word and linked to where they were posted. Reviewers don’t say what they do for a living, so we picked reviews about the features on this page.

“Kortex turns NotebookLM into an actual knowledge base instead of a fancy note dump. Highlighting text from any webpage and sending it straight in feels borderline magical.”

Suhani, on Chrome Web Store

“The source downloader feature is stupidly good. Exporting entire notebooks into Markdown in one zip? That alone makes this extension worth it. I wish I had this months ago.”

Saloni, on Chrome Web Store

Prompts, tools and reading

Prompts to copy

Free tools

What researchers ask

Something we missed? Ask us.

Does Kortex work with Zotero?

Not directly. Kortex doesn’t connect to Zotero, but you can export a collection’s links from Zotero as a CSV and bring them in with Bulk Import, or add the PDFs in Gemini Notebook. The Zotero guide walks through both.

Can I search across all my notebooks?

Yes. Search everything in the Kortex Workspace looks through notebooks, sources, notes, artifacts, collections and tags at once. Press / to open it.

What do I do when a notebook hits its source limit?

Gemini Notebook caps the sources in one notebook, so split a big topic by theme. Kortex helps both ways: pick sources from anywhere and start a new notebook with them, or merge notebooks with duplicates removed.

Are AI chats and web pages citable once they’re sources?

They are sources like any other, so Gemini Notebook cites them in its answers. Highlights you send keep the page link and the date, and chats keep your prompts and the replies labelled, so you can trace a claim back to where it came from.

Is my unpublished work safe?

Kortex doesn’t store your chats or the contents of your sources; imports go from your browser to your own Gemini Notebook account. What Google does with notebook contents is covered in is Gemini Notebook safe and private?

Bring your reading list in.

Add Kortex to Chrome and send your first paper or AI thread to a notebook.