{"id":14915,"date":"2026-06-13T15:03:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=14915"},"modified":"2026-06-13T15:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:03:36","slug":"googles-pinpoint-is-the-free-research-tool-you-should-know-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=14915","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s Pinpoint is the free research tool you should know about"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This article is republished with permission from&nbsp;<\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/wondertools.substack.com\/\">Wonder Tools<\/a><em>, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google\u2019s&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/\">Pinpoint<\/a>&nbsp;is now open to everyone. It\u2019s a surprisingly powerful free tool for making sense of giant piles of digital stuff. (Before June 3, it was restricted to journalists and academics). Read on to learn more about creative ways to use Pinpoint; its new AI features and their limitations; and how Pinpoint differs from NotebookLM.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-how-nbsp-pinpoint-nbsp-works\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How&nbsp;Pinpoint&nbsp;Works<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pinpoint lets you store and analyze hundreds of thousands of files so you can find tiny needles in gigantic digital haystacks.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pinpoint can transcribe hundreds of hours of audio and video.<\/li>\n<li>It makes your handwritten text, scans, and PDFs searchable, like my enormous collection of scanned handwritten notes and whiteboards.<\/li>\n<li>Once Pinpoint processes your files you can search, summarize, and organize your collections.<\/li>\n<li>Pinpoint makes it easy to query, label, and extract data from hundreds or thousands of documents. It\u2019s simple to use. No complex menus or commands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-getting-started\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Gz6n!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2d5dd801-ae0f-466d-98e0-eeb28c49f703_2096x1014.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><strong>Getting Started<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Upload PDFs, emails, audio and video files, handwritten notes, or other\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/11991982?sjid=17303508964625684243-NA\">file types<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Each collection can have up to&nbsp;<strong>200,000 files<\/strong>. You can have an unlimited number of collections, which function like folders.<\/li>\n<li>Journalists and academics can\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/requestaccess\">request<\/a>\u00a0\u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/17006598?hl=en&amp;ref_topic=11948319&amp;sjid=13481767996761250701-EU\">Pinpoint for Professionals<\/a>,\u201d which provides 100 gigabytes of storage. Others start with 1GB.<\/li>\n<li>Audio and video files can be up to\u00a0<strong>2 hours long and 8GB<\/strong>. The limits are much more generous than what&#8217;s offered by other AI tools, like NotebookLM.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pro tip:&nbsp;<\/strong>Create separate Pinpoint accounts for each of your Google accounts. That gives you more storage. It\u2019s also how I keep personal projects separate from work. You can always download files you\u2019ve previously uploaded. And request additional storage if you reach your limit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-pinpoint-features-to-try\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Zem7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F66c89768-b0f2-424d-af54-5a0e47292f51_1568x700.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><strong>Pinpoint Features to Try<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Export important Gmail folders&nbsp;<\/strong>with<strong>&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/takeout.google.com\/\">Google Takeout<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;in .mbox format. Takeout lets you export and back up anything Google hosts. You can then upload your email collection to Pinpoint to find patterns, or locate references to specific people, places, or organizations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Scour through audio recordings<\/strong>&nbsp;to locate key moments. Pinpoint transcribes in more than 100 languages. Upload and transcribe your recorded presentations to review how you frame a particular topic. Or how water pollution is described in local council meetings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Explore text within images and handwritten notes.&nbsp;<\/strong>I\u2019ve scrutinized my old handwritten notes for ideas and checked whiteboard photos for explanations I can improve.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Share a document collection.&nbsp;<\/strong><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/11955480?sjid=11726207674749051371-NA#share_collection\">Invite individual collaborators<\/a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/11955480?sjid=11726207674749051371-NA#publish_collection\">publish<\/a>&nbsp;a collection for public exploration. Giving readers access to source material can be a valuable form of&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/edited-volume\/61798\/chapter-abstract\/546234724?redirectedFrom=fulltext#546234724\">transparency in journalism<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Analyze an email or document archive.&nbsp;<\/strong>Assess a public email trove or document collection, like&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/archive\/index-enron.html\">files from the Enron trial<\/a>, for connections between politicians and companies, or financial impropriety.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Focus your research on<\/strong>\u00a0particular people, organizations, locations, or date ranges. Pinpoint automatically lists a collection\u2019s most frequently mentioned entities. Click on an entity to jump to exactly where it\u2019s mentioned.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-public-collections\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Public Collections<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Pinpoint\u2019s \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore\">Explore<\/a>\u201d section<\/strong>\u00a0lets you examine document collections from more than 200 news organizations, ranging from\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore?organizations=the_new_york_times\"><em>The New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore?organizations=wapo\"><em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore?organizations=the_hindu\"><em>The Hindu<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore?organizations=zeitung_dossier\"><em>S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung<\/em><\/a>. Test out the searching and filtering features before uploading anything.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Notable document sets<\/strong>\u00a0include\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/explore?query=jfk\">JFK assassination records<\/a>,\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/search?collection=0f1bd53b4da512b3\">Mueller court filings<\/a>, and 80 years of U.S.\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/journaliststudio.google.com\/pinpoint\/search?collection=0e02bc61daad782b\">foreign agent registrations<\/a>\u00a0(86,018 documents) uploaded by the Center for Public Integrity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-new-ai-capabilities\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>New AI Capabilities<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pinpoint has a bunch of new AI features in beta available in&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/14338615?hl=en#support_countries\">more than 80 countries<\/a>. In my testing, not all of the AI capabilities work reliably yet, but you can&nbsp;<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLSd2owbRY5gLj6iXDSgPrPapsPoFo4xD2VLmrAhJ24d-Isq1xQ\/viewform\">request early access<\/a>. Pinpoint\u2019s AI features are designed to help you analyze your files, not generate original content as you might with Gemini or NotebookLM.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Explain words or phrases<\/strong>&nbsp;in any file. Highlight any text and ask Pinpoint to put it in context. I like the short, useful explanations based on what else is in a document.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google words or phrases<\/strong>&nbsp;inside your text to learn more from Google. In my tests, this beta feature consistently yields error messages.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Summarize Collections.&nbsp;<\/strong>I like how Pinpoint gives me an AI-generated overview of every file I upload. It can also summarize an entire collection.<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!y0Ae!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc766b5f3-66a7-450e-8ec9-2bbbf6ab7f51_1672x941.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Extract data into spreadsheets<\/strong>. Pull info from up to 100 documents at once and deliver it as a sheet, with links back to the source text for each data point. That\u2019s handy for tracking mentions or doing comparative research. Try this feature for analyzing public government contracts or other information in PDF form that would be easier to work with in a spreadsheet.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Automatically label<\/strong>&nbsp;hundreds of your files in a collection. Let\u2019s say you have a public email dataset. You may want to evaluate just those written by a particular person, or just those discussing a particular stock. Instruct Pinpoint and it will label your collection for you.&nbsp;<strong>Limitation:&nbsp;<\/strong>Pinpoint can label 1,000 files at a time. In my tests, the interface only let me select 100 files. If you\u2019re working with tens of thousands of files, labeling may be tedious.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Transcribe audio quickly.<\/strong>\u00a0Pinpoint now claims to give you high-quality transcribed text 20 times faster than it used to. I couldn\u2019t verify that specific metric, but it\u2019s generally fast. Each file is helpfully time coded. Click on any section of text to hear the corresponding audio.\u00a0<strong>Limitation:\u00a0<\/strong>Unlike\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/ref.wisprflow.ai\/jeremy-caplan\">Wispr Flow<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/letterly.app\/?ref=jcwt\">Letterly<\/a>, which I use for my personal dictation, Pinpoint sometimes mangles names, and doesn\u2019t learn from its errors.<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!MT-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe4d80877-43a4-4122-98bd-87166fafb8c4_1672x941.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Compare any two or three files.&nbsp;<\/strong>See what changed in multiple versions of a document, or how three different people addressed the same subject.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Query your collection with ordinary language.<\/strong>&nbsp;Results are often fast, useful, and linked back to the original document. Expect occasional errors, though. One search I tried, for example, returned a document mentioning someone with a similar but different name from the one I was searching for.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Create a timeline.&nbsp;<\/strong>If you\u2019re looking at how something developed over time, you can pick up to 100 files and generate a timeline. You can optionally specify a topic for the timeline. This might be useful if your dataset has dated transactions, for example, or multiple reports you want to put in order.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-pinpoint-vs-notebooklm\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Pinpoint vs. NotebookLM<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>What\u2019s similar:<\/strong>&nbsp;Both NotebookLM and Pinpoint are free Google services that allow you to efficiently summarize and search though large documents.<\/li>\n<li><strong>What\u2019s different:<\/strong>&nbsp;NotebookLM&nbsp;<strong>synthesizes<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>generates<\/strong>&nbsp;(slides, infographics, video and audio podcasts, and reports). Pinpoint, on the other hand, focuses on&nbsp;<strong>finding patterns<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>organizing<\/strong>&nbsp;a wider array of file types in much larger collections of email, multimedia, and scanned images.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>NotebookLM allows\u00a0<strong>50 files<\/strong>\u00a0per notebook for free users. (See my\u00a0<strong><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/wondertools.substack.com\/p\/notebooklm-the-complete-guide\">guide<\/a><\/strong>). <\/li>\n<li>Pinpoint lets you upload\u00a0<strong>200,000 files<\/strong>\u00a0into each collection.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Combine the two:&nbsp;<\/strong>If you have a large collection of documents, consider gathering, storing, organizing, and transcribing in Pinpoint. Then move the most important files into NotebookLM for further analysis and to generate artifacts like reports, slides, infographics, flashcards, audio, and video.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-privacy\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!YVEV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8a29cf5a-7a4c-43fb-b138-ce93157c6fef_1672x941.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><strong>Privacy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Your documents are private.<\/strong>&nbsp;Nothing you upload is public unless you publish a collection. Read&nbsp;<strong><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/17007004\">Google\u2019s Pinpoint privacy details<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your files are not used to train AI models.<\/strong>\u00a0Google explicitly notes that documents you upload won\u2019t be used to train large language models. Read\u00a0<strong><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pinpoint\/answer\/14338615\">Google\u2019s statement<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The bottom line:<\/strong>\u00a0I trust Pinpoint for nonsensitive document work. But because uploads are processed on Google\u2019s servers, Pinpoint may not be a fit for everything or everyone. Here are additional\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/176zn7v56SjMp5ecQYzulEFg0a7Jz6RqFzBjq0VmB-e4\/edit?usp=sharing\">privacy details<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"h-limitations\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Limitations<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AI features aren\u2019t error free. No AI implementation is.<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!8Yl3!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b4a750-03b3-4646-b36f-8e830aa22773_1672x941.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li>No mobile app. You can view docs on a phone browser, but not all features work.<\/li>\n<li>No NotebookLM integration yet. You can\u2019t easily move files from one service to the other.<\/li>\n<li>Storage caps. On a 1GB account, you may hit storage limits with large files.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This article is republished with permission from&nbsp;<\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/wondertools.substack.com\/\">Wonder Tools<\/a><em>, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91558438\/googles-pinpoint-is-the-free-research-tool-you-should-know-about\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is republished with permission from&nbsp;Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Google\u2019s&nbsp;Pinpoint&nbsp;is now open to everyone. It\u2019s a surprisingly powerful free tool for making sense of giant piles of digital stuff. (Before June 3, it was restricted to journalists and academics). Read on to learn more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brand-spotlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}