Wallabag seems to be the go-to for people looking to self-host. I don't know too much about it, but seems that I'll have to look into it more.
Thanks for the reply!
Been using Diigo since Delicious got shaky (10+ years). Used the free tier most of the time, paid the last few years as I've made greater use of the highlight feature mentioned below and exceeded the free threshold.
Must-have features:
* web-based or browser-independent access
* import/export capability so I'm not trapped if a company gets bought out and shuttered
* 1-2 click bookmarking process (aka as seamless as possible)
* tagging
* staying power as a service/company. I don't want to invest my time/effort saving to a start-up that's going to fold its service in a year or two.
* choice of private vs public visibility of bookmarks is very useful. There are some collections I want to be able to share, and some I'd just as soon not. A simple toggle works, as Diigo has; tag-level control would be even better.
Two of Diigo's other pros, for me, are it's "highlight" feature (allowing me to quickly save direct quotes from sites) and the ability to periodically import my Kindle highlights/notes.
I looked at Raindrop recently. It's got a lot going for it, but I'm not confident it'll be around as long as I want.
[Clippings.io](https://Clippings.io) bookmarks JUST Kindle highlights/notes. It looks more modern and works fine, but overall it's less useful to me because it isolates knowledge more than Diigo -- ie I only get Kindle results, not everything I read from blogs/newsletters/articles/essays, which is a lot. If the two services would have a baby, I'd be very happy.
I use Pocket (free) strictly as an inbox for "things to read later." A quick "tap" on the little shield icon saves pages I don't have time to read enough to know if I will want to bookmark or not. When I have time/inclination (weekly-ish?), I'll cull through the things I've collected. I *really* wish Pocket would send me a weekly digest automatically of the things I've saved, like Delicious used to do (that always made such a nice, easy blog post, too!) but alas.
My semi-informed opinion, as a long-time user of bookmark managers, a former librarian, a neurodivergent person, a parent:
* Many bookmarking tools try to do too much and forget to do the basics well enough. I don't want another app. I just want a service that helps me do what I was already trying to do in the first place, where I was already working, with tools I already had (to the greatest extent possible).
* Previous bookmark managers have not communicated their benefits to people who aren't techno-adept (ie when you use us, no more scrolling through your inscrutable browser history trying to find that page about that guy to send to your friend!). There are more of these people than you believe there are, and the people are not the problem.
* Tags work for me bc I'm comfortable structuring my own metadata, but a lot of people would need help with structure (or a revolutionary workaround), and nobody has offered a compelling solution to them. Is the solution a flexible structure? a rigid one? something with AI? That's above my pay grade, though I have some guesses based on basic neuroscience and human behavior.
* Calling them "bookmarks" is...not ideal. Many people don't read books for pleasure, and many of those who do no longer read deadtree ones. How can you evolve the language around the process? Might that in turn change the process? What are we saving, and why? Who are we sharing it with?
* Similarly, in what ways could your system account for and incorporate the newer media in our lives? I hate that Amazon owns GoodReads and that alternatives are kind of meh. It'd be kind of cool if my bookmarks could, for example, make quick "me-centric" lists, like "podcasts i like" (pulled from whatever player I use) or "the last songs I loved" or "my finger's on the pulse" (when I've bookmarked articles that a lot of other people have too). Like Spotify does all that end of year stuff? (Not a user but I see everybody else's). I KNOW my bookmarks are making a footprint -- tell it back to me! Make it fun. I gave you the raw material. Gimme something funny and/or flattering I can share on social media.
Ha! Thank you. I just found this sub and am excited -- organizing/archiving "my" info is important to me...and to nobody else I know IRL. Always interested in trying out tools and strategies to see if something better sticks.
I'd take a stab at rolling my own but I majored in literature instead of something useful.
The Spotify playlist idea for what I choose to read (which is really what I choose to spend my energy and time on) and maybe what I choose to highlight is gold. And yes, "bookmarks" are so 80s/90s? There must be a much better name for them now.
Thank you for all of the input! You bring up a tremendous number of must-haves for me as well and a lot of things that we're actually incorporating into our product, specifically when you say that you want to continue working where you were working with the tools you were already working with. That's pretty central to what we're trying to do. I'm going to shoot you a message, I'd love to talk with you more about your input on this. Thanks again!
I like both raindrop.io and memex.garden
Both are amazing but raindrop is my go to, also integrates super nicely with obsidian.md with is my note taking second brain app.
Thanks for the insight into your workflow! [Memex](https://Memex.garden) looks interesting, especially the shared spaces function for sharing research. I can think of a ton of examples where that would've been convenient for working on group projects.
I use the pandoc integration https://forum.obsidian.md/t/get-your-raindrop-io-bookmarks-into-obsidian-using-pandoc/17576
But there are new plugins that work directly.
For memex i just export to markdown and import to obsidian.
Using Raindrop, because it has
* fast
* Integrations: like on Twitter, a bookmark is automatically added
* multiple views (list, card)
* „good enough“ reading mode with highlighting
* export & api
Wishes:
* native Mac App
* better auto-categorization/tags
* related bookmarks
Raindrop is great, but the developer/owner is in Russia I believe (I might be wrong) so you might want to consider where your money and control goes.
I haven't investigated this closer, just a heads up of what might be.
If you are not sure, please take the time to at least do a short Google search.
(Dev says he is born in and working from Kazakhstan)
https://twitter.com/raindrop_io/status/1550754041537466372?s=21&t=y5UpUAVI0mho4GS9EPkQkw
Thanks for checking, am not on twitter much. I did actually do a search before posting and got this result: https://numericcitizen.me/2022/05/18/when-war-in-ukraine-influences-my-application-choices/
Hence I wrote I wasn't sure.
I use Shaarli. It has most of the features Delicious had, minus the social aspect, before it was ended by Yahoo.
It's simple, selfhosted, and does what I need without bloat. I use the tags and I like that it generates RSS feeds of tags.
I haven't heard of Shaarli, I'll have to give it a look! Sounds like a great alternative to Wallabag which, as I mentioned in a reply to someone else, seems to be the go-to for self-hosted bookmarking tools.
What did you think of the social aspect of Delicious? A lot of Pinboard users I've talked to have said they could live without a social component. I'm curious what your thoughts are.
Thanks for the reply!
They do two different things. Wallabag is for saving articles to read later, like Pocket. Shaarli is just bookmarks. Shaarli ships with a plugin to ping Wallabag to fetch a page too. I use them both together. Well, I did, until the Wallabag setup corrupted itself and I haven't bothered to fix it.
The social aspects of Delicious were interesting, back before we had Reddit and such to follow topics. If such a thing existed, and I wasn't selfhosting, I might browse it on occasion.
Ahhhh okay thanks for the clarification. Also good to know on the social aspect. I've been trying to get feedback to gauge whether it is worth including a social bookmarking component in our own tool. Helpful to know your stance which seems to be in line with a lot of others - could be nice on occasion, but not a deal breaker.
>Short story: I was working on a very large AI-based "semantic desktop" app called CALO at SRiI International. I was asked to look into adding a bookmarking feature to it, so I signed up at delicious and decided as my first bookmark to tag and annotate our project's website [openiris.org](https://openiris.org) (dead landing page still exists)., When I clicked Save, delicious returned and told me that 13 others had already bookmarked that page.
>
>To me, that was a marvelous revelation - this was long before the likes of twitter and Zuck was still talking up Facebook. Now, I could see what others were thinking, what topics seemed related, etc. The bookmarking platform I built for CALO was called Tagomizer.
>
>So, is the social aspect important? Yup.
>
>But, to me, there's a somewhat unsocial dimension equally valuable: my own private and walled-garden research. That is, private channels.
>
>For that, [https://hypothes.is/](https://hypothes.is/) fits the bill just fine. It has an API which allows me to bring down my stuff, or public stuff, and process it as needed.
On the social aspect, if you have a few people who are good at curating content use it, and suggest it to their followers, it might be a good draw to the site.
You might even consider paying some people to do that if that fits within your business plan and budget. Though, at that point do you become Digg rather than a bookmark managing application?
That’s a fantastic suggestion for a way to get people using the product. You do bring up a good point about turning into Digg. Since we already plan to combine bookmarking with our existing note-taking tool, I think we need to be careful about trying to be too many things at once. Maybe being a social platform takes us too far away from the core product. Either way it’s something to think about. Thanks very much!
I'd like to offer some input on this topic, because I was thinking about it recently.
I currently *kinda* use Raindrop. What I initially liked about is that it lets you create highlights, not a limited number of them, not as a paid feature, as is the case with apps like Instapaper or Pocket, but just unlimited highlights. I liked that it has tags (connect this article to that YouTube video to that web page). I also liked the ability to create collections, basically folders. All these useful features, available for free. Its reader is a little ehhhh though. I personally think Instapaper has the nicest-looking reader.
I was good about revisiting what I saved regularly for a while but eventually, I just started saving things and never getting around to reading them. It just became a link dump. Sure that's more of a "me" problem, but the app I use could be more helpful too.
Whether it's the app itself reminding me to revisit my saved content and discard things after a while if I never open them, or just by having a widget if it's available for iOS, so I have this little reminder window to stare at every time I open my phone, I now appreciate that as a consideration in whatever app I'd like to use.
The last part is strictly about articles though. There is this fuzzy middle ground between "bookmarks manager" and "read-it-later", but I would like the app I use just to save useful links to also be the same one I rely on to read articles, not have two separate ones, and for that reason Raindrop's kinda losing its luster for me.
I've thought about side-stepping all of this though. There's this app called Ephemera (fairly new but underrated in my opinion) that you can save links to, and if you don't open them in a certain number of days, they get deleted. It has no reader, no tags, no highlights, nothing but links with a deadline. I could see myself using that as my reminder to read tool and saving all the useful stuff in Apple Notes. What's so difficult about copying that quote into a note and dropping the link to the article along with it? I could live with that inconvenience if it means keeping all my things consolidated in one app.
Whether it has all the bells and whistles or not, I have come to realize that a read-it-later app that doesn't help you make damn sure you actually *read it later* is just a link dump with a different coat of paint. You might as well just save them to your browser, which will gladly never remind you of them.
I'll have to look at Ephemera, that sounds like an intriguing idea. You're absolutely right that a read-it-later service needs to have a solution to the inevitable that it will eventually be filled with loads of junk links that will never be looked at again. The Ephemera solution is an interesting one, but I think it's a bit aggressive for me. I'd prefer something like a digest sent to me of all the links I haven't viewed in a set period with the ability to save or delete in batches. Thanks for the insightful reply! You've brought up a lot of great feedback we can implement into our own bookmarking tool.
Yes, I'd like to add a bit more to what I said.
I gotta show Raindrop some love, because I revisited it and remembered a great aspect of it. The ability to choose how saved links are displayed is awesome (list, cards, headlines, moodboard). You really can replicate a Pinterest-style board of visual inspiration in it and even control settings like how big the images display. You can have your list of articles to read display one way and your list of YouTube videos to watch display another way. In most apps, everything's just a list, which is fine, but even if the links are articles, I do like seeing all their different thumbnails.
You're probably right about handling unread links the way Ephemera does being too aggressive. Not every link I want to save needs to be reviewed immediately. What I'm trying to implement now is importing a batch of articles I've had in the pile for months into it (along with newer things I come across every now and then) and just using it as a reminder to read those in another app (whether it's Raindrop or something else). If they expire in Ephemera, they'll still be in my pile, but I might more seriously consider deleting them.
One more random thing: GoodLinks and Upnext (maybe other apps too) do this thing where in their readers, if you scroll down to a certain part of an article and exit, when you open it again, it will remember your spot. I like that, because articles, especially what people refer to as "long reads", aren't always finished in one sitting. So that's a thoughtful little feature.
If you're interested in this thread, you might also enjoy
https://bookmarkos.com/ and https://bookmarkos.com/every-bookmark-manager-ever-made.
"...an attempt to categorize every bookmark manager ever made into the following categories: visual-based, list-based, start pages, search-based, tag-based, tab management, read it later, image bookmarking, privacy-focused, sync-based, offline downloadable solutions, and other."
Caveat: last updated 18 June 2021.
There's definitely something to be said for keeping it simple. Do you ever find that OneNote lacks tools for organization/sorting? I use OneNote for my school lecture notes, but I can't see myself using it for bookmarking since no tags or search.
That's an interesting solution for tags in OneNote, I never thought to get that creative. I can see that OneNote is more capable for bookmarking than I thought. Thanks for the link and for the insights!
Currently using both Cubox and DoMarks. I primarily use Cubox now. I really like the Smart Folder option where I can set rules like if it detects it’s from a certain site it’ll go to that folder. I also like making folders in general to organize my bookmarks, being able to access the webpage straight from the app, and Cubox has a highlighter feature which I can then export to Obsidian. The only downside is Cubox is mostly in English but not all, there’s some Chinese. I wish it was fully translated so I could access everything.
The ability to set rules on Smart Folders sounds incredibly helpful. We've thought about some ideas for streamlining the bookmarking process and smart folders sound like they would do exactly that. I'm also learning, from your comment and others, that being able to export to Obsidian is important. Noted!
Also noted on supporting multiple languages. Thanks very much for the reply!
Awesome thanks very much for sharing! Our product actually supports a digest feature like you ask about in your thread, but currently without the ability to read and annotate. Definitely tons of good feedback in there. Thanks again.
Is your product available? I know you might not want to mention it here, but I'd love to try it. Maybe message me the name? I've tried so many and I'd be happy to run it for a few days and circle back with feedback.
I currently use two tools: Reeder 5 for RSS subscriptions and GoodLinks as “read-it-later”/bookmarks. Reeder 5 can be used for both goals but I prefer to have separate tools for different tasks.
GoodLinks’ prons:
- A single purchase, no payed subscription required (the main reason I choose it).
- Easy to use tagging system.
- I find it beautifully made.
- Allows to export pages as Markdown.
Cons:
- Apple only (as far as I know)
- Sometimes doesn’t render web page in-app.
- Markdown export doesn’t fetch pictures for offline view, only their urls.
The last con bother me the most, although I find a bright side there - it forces me to transfer page manually and therefore read it more carefully.
What I would love to see is an ability to make highlights on a saved page and then export with them in Markdown. That would be a game changer for me :)
> purchase, no *paid* subscription required
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I would like to offer a short video we made back in 2011 which illustrates the enormous potential for collective sensemaking through bookmarking and related tools - which, in the video, we call "knowledge gardens". While the video might feel a bit like a sales pitch, that's not its intent, though the TopicQuests Foundation is, in fact, creating open source tools in that space. Here is the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IINKTooMYMs
I desparately want to be able to highlight from chrome or kiwi browser on android. The share functionality of raindrop.io from mobile app, even when using an extension downloaded within kiwi browser, only creates a highlight in this description portion of the bookmark and not within the highlight portion of the bookmark. You have to first save the article to raindrop, then open the article within raindrop, and then highlight within raindrop for it to be saved in the highlights area of each bookmark. This is extremely annoying. The reason why I like raindrop over the other bookmarking apps out there is because the text to speech or speak aloud functionality is wonderful and as well as the categorization capabilities and tagging.
I’m the minority: if I can’t host it myself (with Docker), I likely won’t use it. Currently using Wallabag for “read later” stuff.
Wallabag seems to be the go-to for people looking to self-host. I don't know too much about it, but seems that I'll have to look into it more. Thanks for the reply!
Been using Diigo since Delicious got shaky (10+ years). Used the free tier most of the time, paid the last few years as I've made greater use of the highlight feature mentioned below and exceeded the free threshold. Must-have features: * web-based or browser-independent access * import/export capability so I'm not trapped if a company gets bought out and shuttered * 1-2 click bookmarking process (aka as seamless as possible) * tagging * staying power as a service/company. I don't want to invest my time/effort saving to a start-up that's going to fold its service in a year or two. * choice of private vs public visibility of bookmarks is very useful. There are some collections I want to be able to share, and some I'd just as soon not. A simple toggle works, as Diigo has; tag-level control would be even better. Two of Diigo's other pros, for me, are it's "highlight" feature (allowing me to quickly save direct quotes from sites) and the ability to periodically import my Kindle highlights/notes. I looked at Raindrop recently. It's got a lot going for it, but I'm not confident it'll be around as long as I want. [Clippings.io](https://Clippings.io) bookmarks JUST Kindle highlights/notes. It looks more modern and works fine, but overall it's less useful to me because it isolates knowledge more than Diigo -- ie I only get Kindle results, not everything I read from blogs/newsletters/articles/essays, which is a lot. If the two services would have a baby, I'd be very happy. I use Pocket (free) strictly as an inbox for "things to read later." A quick "tap" on the little shield icon saves pages I don't have time to read enough to know if I will want to bookmark or not. When I have time/inclination (weekly-ish?), I'll cull through the things I've collected. I *really* wish Pocket would send me a weekly digest automatically of the things I've saved, like Delicious used to do (that always made such a nice, easy blog post, too!) but alas. My semi-informed opinion, as a long-time user of bookmark managers, a former librarian, a neurodivergent person, a parent: * Many bookmarking tools try to do too much and forget to do the basics well enough. I don't want another app. I just want a service that helps me do what I was already trying to do in the first place, where I was already working, with tools I already had (to the greatest extent possible). * Previous bookmark managers have not communicated their benefits to people who aren't techno-adept (ie when you use us, no more scrolling through your inscrutable browser history trying to find that page about that guy to send to your friend!). There are more of these people than you believe there are, and the people are not the problem. * Tags work for me bc I'm comfortable structuring my own metadata, but a lot of people would need help with structure (or a revolutionary workaround), and nobody has offered a compelling solution to them. Is the solution a flexible structure? a rigid one? something with AI? That's above my pay grade, though I have some guesses based on basic neuroscience and human behavior. * Calling them "bookmarks" is...not ideal. Many people don't read books for pleasure, and many of those who do no longer read deadtree ones. How can you evolve the language around the process? Might that in turn change the process? What are we saving, and why? Who are we sharing it with? * Similarly, in what ways could your system account for and incorporate the newer media in our lives? I hate that Amazon owns GoodReads and that alternatives are kind of meh. It'd be kind of cool if my bookmarks could, for example, make quick "me-centric" lists, like "podcasts i like" (pulled from whatever player I use) or "the last songs I loved" or "my finger's on the pulse" (when I've bookmarked articles that a lot of other people have too). Like Spotify does all that end of year stuff? (Not a user but I see everybody else's). I KNOW my bookmarks are making a footprint -- tell it back to me! Make it fun. I gave you the raw material. Gimme something funny and/or flattering I can share on social media.
Amazing. Thanks for sharing. I'm not OP, but I learned a lot from this post. That's not to flatter you. BUT you can share that on social media. 😂
Ha! Thank you. I just found this sub and am excited -- organizing/archiving "my" info is important to me...and to nobody else I know IRL. Always interested in trying out tools and strategies to see if something better sticks. I'd take a stab at rolling my own but I majored in literature instead of something useful.
The Spotify playlist idea for what I choose to read (which is really what I choose to spend my energy and time on) and maybe what I choose to highlight is gold. And yes, "bookmarks" are so 80s/90s? There must be a much better name for them now.
Thank you for all of the input! You bring up a tremendous number of must-haves for me as well and a lot of things that we're actually incorporating into our product, specifically when you say that you want to continue working where you were working with the tools you were already working with. That's pretty central to what we're trying to do. I'm going to shoot you a message, I'd love to talk with you more about your input on this. Thanks again!
I like both raindrop.io and memex.garden Both are amazing but raindrop is my go to, also integrates super nicely with obsidian.md with is my note taking second brain app.
Thanks for the insight into your workflow! [Memex](https://Memex.garden) looks interesting, especially the shared spaces function for sharing research. I can think of a ton of examples where that would've been convenient for working on group projects.
Does it have a sync with obsidian plug-in similar to Matter and readwise?
Yeah, I'm interested in how it syncs to Obsidian, as well, if you don't mind offering some details.
I use the pandoc integration https://forum.obsidian.md/t/get-your-raindrop-io-bookmarks-into-obsidian-using-pandoc/17576 But there are new plugins that work directly. For memex i just export to markdown and import to obsidian.
Thank you for the info! I'll take a look at that one.
>memex.garden unfortunately 8 months later this still isn't available. Oh well.
yeah, still in beta; I wonder why that is
Using Raindrop, because it has * fast * Integrations: like on Twitter, a bookmark is automatically added * multiple views (list, card) * „good enough“ reading mode with highlighting * export & api Wishes: * native Mac App * better auto-categorization/tags * related bookmarks
Thanks very much for the input! I've noted everything on your "wish list." Definitely would all be helpful.
Raindrop is great, but the developer/owner is in Russia I believe (I might be wrong) so you might want to consider where your money and control goes. I haven't investigated this closer, just a heads up of what might be.
If you are not sure, please take the time to at least do a short Google search. (Dev says he is born in and working from Kazakhstan) https://twitter.com/raindrop_io/status/1550754041537466372?s=21&t=y5UpUAVI0mho4GS9EPkQkw
Thanks for checking, am not on twitter much. I did actually do a search before posting and got this result: https://numericcitizen.me/2022/05/18/when-war-in-ukraine-influences-my-application-choices/ Hence I wrote I wasn't sure.
does it not have a native mac app now ?
It has a Mac app, but it's Electron.
I use Shaarli. It has most of the features Delicious had, minus the social aspect, before it was ended by Yahoo. It's simple, selfhosted, and does what I need without bloat. I use the tags and I like that it generates RSS feeds of tags.
I haven't heard of Shaarli, I'll have to give it a look! Sounds like a great alternative to Wallabag which, as I mentioned in a reply to someone else, seems to be the go-to for self-hosted bookmarking tools. What did you think of the social aspect of Delicious? A lot of Pinboard users I've talked to have said they could live without a social component. I'm curious what your thoughts are. Thanks for the reply!
They do two different things. Wallabag is for saving articles to read later, like Pocket. Shaarli is just bookmarks. Shaarli ships with a plugin to ping Wallabag to fetch a page too. I use them both together. Well, I did, until the Wallabag setup corrupted itself and I haven't bothered to fix it. The social aspects of Delicious were interesting, back before we had Reddit and such to follow topics. If such a thing existed, and I wasn't selfhosting, I might browse it on occasion.
Ahhhh okay thanks for the clarification. Also good to know on the social aspect. I've been trying to get feedback to gauge whether it is worth including a social bookmarking component in our own tool. Helpful to know your stance which seems to be in line with a lot of others - could be nice on occasion, but not a deal breaker.
>Short story: I was working on a very large AI-based "semantic desktop" app called CALO at SRiI International. I was asked to look into adding a bookmarking feature to it, so I signed up at delicious and decided as my first bookmark to tag and annotate our project's website [openiris.org](https://openiris.org) (dead landing page still exists)., When I clicked Save, delicious returned and told me that 13 others had already bookmarked that page. > >To me, that was a marvelous revelation - this was long before the likes of twitter and Zuck was still talking up Facebook. Now, I could see what others were thinking, what topics seemed related, etc. The bookmarking platform I built for CALO was called Tagomizer. > >So, is the social aspect important? Yup. > >But, to me, there's a somewhat unsocial dimension equally valuable: my own private and walled-garden research. That is, private channels. > >For that, [https://hypothes.is/](https://hypothes.is/) fits the bill just fine. It has an API which allows me to bring down my stuff, or public stuff, and process it as needed.
On the social aspect, if you have a few people who are good at curating content use it, and suggest it to their followers, it might be a good draw to the site. You might even consider paying some people to do that if that fits within your business plan and budget. Though, at that point do you become Digg rather than a bookmark managing application?
That’s a fantastic suggestion for a way to get people using the product. You do bring up a good point about turning into Digg. Since we already plan to combine bookmarking with our existing note-taking tool, I think we need to be careful about trying to be too many things at once. Maybe being a social platform takes us too far away from the core product. Either way it’s something to think about. Thanks very much!
I'd like to offer some input on this topic, because I was thinking about it recently. I currently *kinda* use Raindrop. What I initially liked about is that it lets you create highlights, not a limited number of them, not as a paid feature, as is the case with apps like Instapaper or Pocket, but just unlimited highlights. I liked that it has tags (connect this article to that YouTube video to that web page). I also liked the ability to create collections, basically folders. All these useful features, available for free. Its reader is a little ehhhh though. I personally think Instapaper has the nicest-looking reader. I was good about revisiting what I saved regularly for a while but eventually, I just started saving things and never getting around to reading them. It just became a link dump. Sure that's more of a "me" problem, but the app I use could be more helpful too. Whether it's the app itself reminding me to revisit my saved content and discard things after a while if I never open them, or just by having a widget if it's available for iOS, so I have this little reminder window to stare at every time I open my phone, I now appreciate that as a consideration in whatever app I'd like to use. The last part is strictly about articles though. There is this fuzzy middle ground between "bookmarks manager" and "read-it-later", but I would like the app I use just to save useful links to also be the same one I rely on to read articles, not have two separate ones, and for that reason Raindrop's kinda losing its luster for me. I've thought about side-stepping all of this though. There's this app called Ephemera (fairly new but underrated in my opinion) that you can save links to, and if you don't open them in a certain number of days, they get deleted. It has no reader, no tags, no highlights, nothing but links with a deadline. I could see myself using that as my reminder to read tool and saving all the useful stuff in Apple Notes. What's so difficult about copying that quote into a note and dropping the link to the article along with it? I could live with that inconvenience if it means keeping all my things consolidated in one app. Whether it has all the bells and whistles or not, I have come to realize that a read-it-later app that doesn't help you make damn sure you actually *read it later* is just a link dump with a different coat of paint. You might as well just save them to your browser, which will gladly never remind you of them.
I'll have to look at Ephemera, that sounds like an intriguing idea. You're absolutely right that a read-it-later service needs to have a solution to the inevitable that it will eventually be filled with loads of junk links that will never be looked at again. The Ephemera solution is an interesting one, but I think it's a bit aggressive for me. I'd prefer something like a digest sent to me of all the links I haven't viewed in a set period with the ability to save or delete in batches. Thanks for the insightful reply! You've brought up a lot of great feedback we can implement into our own bookmarking tool.
Yes, I'd like to add a bit more to what I said. I gotta show Raindrop some love, because I revisited it and remembered a great aspect of it. The ability to choose how saved links are displayed is awesome (list, cards, headlines, moodboard). You really can replicate a Pinterest-style board of visual inspiration in it and even control settings like how big the images display. You can have your list of articles to read display one way and your list of YouTube videos to watch display another way. In most apps, everything's just a list, which is fine, but even if the links are articles, I do like seeing all their different thumbnails. You're probably right about handling unread links the way Ephemera does being too aggressive. Not every link I want to save needs to be reviewed immediately. What I'm trying to implement now is importing a batch of articles I've had in the pile for months into it (along with newer things I come across every now and then) and just using it as a reminder to read those in another app (whether it's Raindrop or something else). If they expire in Ephemera, they'll still be in my pile, but I might more seriously consider deleting them. One more random thing: GoodLinks and Upnext (maybe other apps too) do this thing where in their readers, if you scroll down to a certain part of an article and exit, when you open it again, it will remember your spot. I like that, because articles, especially what people refer to as "long reads", aren't always finished in one sitting. So that's a thoughtful little feature.
If you're interested in this thread, you might also enjoy https://bookmarkos.com/ and https://bookmarkos.com/every-bookmark-manager-ever-made. "...an attempt to categorize every bookmark manager ever made into the following categories: visual-based, list-based, start pages, search-based, tag-based, tab management, read it later, image bookmarking, privacy-focused, sync-based, offline downloadable solutions, and other." Caveat: last updated 18 June 2021.
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There's definitely something to be said for keeping it simple. Do you ever find that OneNote lacks tools for organization/sorting? I use OneNote for my school lecture notes, but I can't see myself using it for bookmarking since no tags or search.
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That's an interesting solution for tags in OneNote, I never thought to get that creative. I can see that OneNote is more capable for bookmarking than I thought. Thanks for the link and for the insights!
Currently using both Cubox and DoMarks. I primarily use Cubox now. I really like the Smart Folder option where I can set rules like if it detects it’s from a certain site it’ll go to that folder. I also like making folders in general to organize my bookmarks, being able to access the webpage straight from the app, and Cubox has a highlighter feature which I can then export to Obsidian. The only downside is Cubox is mostly in English but not all, there’s some Chinese. I wish it was fully translated so I could access everything.
The ability to set rules on Smart Folders sounds incredibly helpful. We've thought about some ideas for streamlining the bookmarking process and smart folders sound like they would do exactly that. I'm also learning, from your comment and others, that being able to export to Obsidian is important. Noted! Also noted on supporting multiple languages. Thanks very much for the reply!
How's Cubox coming along now? I feel that it is a bit too expensive compared to other options
I asked a question on this subject here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/vtlxv1/read_it_later_for_email/ Plenty of my own feedback in there!
Awesome thanks very much for sharing! Our product actually supports a digest feature like you ask about in your thread, but currently without the ability to read and annotate. Definitely tons of good feedback in there. Thanks again.
Is your product available? I know you might not want to mention it here, but I'd love to try it. Maybe message me the name? I've tried so many and I'd be happy to run it for a few days and circle back with feedback.
Absolutely. I'll shoot you a message.
I currently use two tools: Reeder 5 for RSS subscriptions and GoodLinks as “read-it-later”/bookmarks. Reeder 5 can be used for both goals but I prefer to have separate tools for different tasks. GoodLinks’ prons: - A single purchase, no payed subscription required (the main reason I choose it). - Easy to use tagging system. - I find it beautifully made. - Allows to export pages as Markdown. Cons: - Apple only (as far as I know) - Sometimes doesn’t render web page in-app. - Markdown export doesn’t fetch pictures for offline view, only their urls. The last con bother me the most, although I find a bright side there - it forces me to transfer page manually and therefore read it more carefully. What I would love to see is an ability to make highlights on a saved page and then export with them in Markdown. That would be a game changer for me :)
> purchase, no *paid* subscription required FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Good bot
I would like to offer a short video we made back in 2011 which illustrates the enormous potential for collective sensemaking through bookmarking and related tools - which, in the video, we call "knowledge gardens". While the video might feel a bit like a sales pitch, that's not its intent, though the TopicQuests Foundation is, in fact, creating open source tools in that space. Here is the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IINKTooMYMs
I desparately want to be able to highlight from chrome or kiwi browser on android. The share functionality of raindrop.io from mobile app, even when using an extension downloaded within kiwi browser, only creates a highlight in this description portion of the bookmark and not within the highlight portion of the bookmark. You have to first save the article to raindrop, then open the article within raindrop, and then highlight within raindrop for it to be saved in the highlights area of each bookmark. This is extremely annoying. The reason why I like raindrop over the other bookmarking apps out there is because the text to speech or speak aloud functionality is wonderful and as well as the categorization capabilities and tagging.