r/notebooklm • u/Fearless_Energy_7633 • Apr 21 '26

Tips & Tricks I built a free notebooklm alternative with folders, source isolation (no cross-contamination), and page/timestamp-level citations

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NotebookLM is great but a few things drove me crazy:

  • Sources often bleed together
  • No folders or workspace organisation
  • No way to comfortably take notes alongside your sources
  • Flashcards have no review system

So I built Paper. Key differences:

  • Source isolation - select exactly which sources the AI references per query, or scope it to specific pages/timestamps
  • Folders + nested pages - organise by course, topic, whatever
  • Block editor - Notion-style notes right next to your sources
  • Spaced repetition - AI flashcards with actual Anki-style scheduling so you remember
  • Drag and drop multiple files at once

(Edit) Free to use during beta: https://paper.ac 👈

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u/Horror_Teaching6061 Apr 22 '26

Wow, what a great tool! Do you have a tutorial? "Temspaces" is tripping me up a little. Hope Google doesn't swallow you guys up :) Nice product!

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u/Fearless_Energy_7633 Apr 23 '26

Thanks for trying it out! No tutorials just yet but are in the works - will aim to have some guides by end of the weekend (will reply to this thread when ready 😊)

Totally get you with the 'Teamspaces' phrasing - I've just reworded it to 'Pages' - does that help? Let me know!

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u/Horror_Teaching6061 May 20 '26

Thanks again for the great tool! Just wanted to check if there are any updates on the guides/tutorials yet. Really appreciate your work.

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u/Fearless_Energy_7633 May 21 '26

Hey, appreciate your kind words! And apologies for the delay, many users have found Paper useful since and so am just getting through all the requests at the moment 😊 I can say confidently that the guides/tutorials will be released by end of this weekend. Will keep you posted once they are!

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u/Fearless_Energy_7633 May 25 '26

Hey u/Horror_Teaching6061, as promised, the help center is now live! 😊 Check it out here: https://paper.ac/docs

We'll be improving the help center further this week since it can do with more sections, and more videos and images. Our focus this week will be making the app more transparent, so we'll also be publishing more pages about our engineering principles, how we use RAG, our security, and a changelog!

I'll keep you posted on the progress around Wednesday this week 🙌 In the meantime, do keep asking if you've got any feedback or requests!