I use NotebookLM quite a bit, and it would be great if it were easier to download a batch of PDFs from Paperpile directly to my computer. This would make it much easier to spin up a NotebookLM instance and drop in a bunch of papers as sources.
Perhaps the most intuitive way would be to integrate a “PDF” option into the existing Export menu – instead of exporting citations in BibTeX, CSV, etc, it would export a zipped file of PDFs.
Thank you for sharing the details of your use case for the need for bulk download for PDFs directly from Paperpile, @bryanbriney. I’ve added your +1 to this request on our internal feature tracker for consideration at a later date.
The workaround for now is to sync your files to Google Drive, and you can download a batch of PDFs from there. In Google Drive, files are organized in subfolders sorted alphabetically by the first author’s last name. For easier export, you can change how files are organized and named via Settings > General, and under File and Folder names, click Set file and folder name pattern.
Just chiming in here to add to Suzanne’s helpful response on what can be done in the product today.
How to more easily get full-text PDFs into apps like NotebookLM is a user flow we are actively working on (like, devs on keyboards this week building stuff).
We’re always looking to get more signal on the ways of working & problems researchers are actually trying to solve. If you ever have a minute, I’d love to hear your response to a few leading questions. (Alternatively, I’m happy to set up a Zoom call – https://pprpl.co/meet-with-greg to grab time.)
We appreciate your input. I hope to be able to share our team’s progress on this front soon!
Chiming in as I am also looking for this feature for bulk pdf downloads. I would not be using with NotebookLM.
Typically, I’d like to download all papers cited in a manuscript in progress, typically around 50 - 100 papers. This would be to give to a co-author for when they review the manuscript away from internet.
I’ve added your +1 for bulk PDF downloads directly from your library to our internal feature tracker, @anna. As an alternative to bulk downloading, you can share papers with a co-author by selecting all the references in the folder and clicking the share button in the toolbar:
This will generate a unique sharing link that you can send to your co-author — whether or not they use Paperpile. Make sure to choose the Share PDFs and other files option:
The share link opens a webpage where they can view and download each PDF individually by clicking the PDF button, or they can add them to their library by clicking the plus button if they are a Paperpile user.
Alternatively, if they are a Paperpile user, you can choose to share the folder with them by clicking the 3 dots button next to the folder title in the sidebar, and selecting Share.
Hi Greg – thanks for the quick response.
Generally about 20-25 (just enough to be a hassle to download individually!), but I think NotebookLM will accept up to 50 sources. Often I’m looking to download the entire contents of a folder or tag in my Paperpile library.
I mainly use NotebookLM for factually grounded question/answer chat when writing grants or manuscripts. It’s huge timesaver for those “I know I read this somewhere but I can’t remember which paper to cite” type of things.
Usually to build my own knowledge of a new topic or to quickly find the right paper to cite.
Thanks again for the quick reply, and keep up the good work!
I’ve just started exploring using NotebookLM in some of my work and agree largely with bryanbriney. I’ve found it’s very useful for finding the “where did I read this” source in a pile. I’m currently working on a review article with 200+ sources, and I know that I’m missing some because I didn’t feel like doing a bulk download/upload.
For me, this workflow could either be something like: Google Doc > generate folder in paperpile > bulk download > upload to NLM. I guess there could be smoother integration, but even something like this would make things flow much more smoothly.
Related, I don’t know how other people write, but I don’t organize into folders and then write. I write and cite as necessary (this may be a difference between science and other fields?). I only put things into folders for sharing (and maybe this use), but I wish there was an easy way in google docs to just say “make a paperpile folder from references in this document.” Right now, I export Bibtex and then make a folder and then upload the bibtex.
Welcome to our forum, @green67, and thanks for laying out your workflow so clearly. Here’s what we have in the works to make this smoother:
And for the related “write first, organize later” approach in Google Docs, the team is working on:
Wow, this is all great news. I’m looking forward to all of these things. Can’t wait to see them deployed!
Batch PDF downloads are now available in the web app. You can download PDFs from folders, labels and libraries in bulk:
You can read more about the latest updates in our recent blog post: October updates: PDF night mode, bulk downloads, and streamlined navigation - Paperpile
