These bookmarking apps can manage all of that content material you’re saving for later

It’s exhausting to maintain up with every little thing you come throughout on the net, similar to an article you don’t have time to learn in the meanwhile or a video you’d wish to run once more later. Years in the past, I began getting the higher of this challenge with Pocket, a well known app that permits you to bookmark an article to a separate server after which retrieve it to learn at your leisure. Since then, plenty of comparable companies have appeared, providing a wide range of options — and a wide range of costs.

What follows is an outline of Pocket and a number of the accessible apps. All of them (with one exception) provide free variations and sync throughout plenty of gadgets, together with net browsers, Android gadgets, and iPhones.

Pocket has developed a properly designed interface with plenty of choices that allow you to type your articles from latest or oldest, select favorites, show them in record or grid format, and archive those you need to preserve or manage them through tags. Its homescreen reveals you your most up-to-date saves together with its personal record of “Pocket-Worthy Reads.” You possibly can share your articles through social media or advocate them throughout the app for others to seek out. There’s a set of curated reads; extensions for all kinds of browsers, together with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari; and apps for Android and iOS gadgets.

Pocket is now “a part of the Firefox household,” and as of June eleventh, 2023, Pocket customers have been notified that they wanted to transition to Mozilla accounts. Nonetheless, for those who use Pocket and have already got a Firefox account or don’t thoughts creating one, you possibly can merely convert the account and proceed with Pocket as earlier than.

Paid model: The Premium model ($4.99 a month or $44.99 a yr) provides a everlasting library of every little thing you’ve saved (in case it disappears from the net) in addition to full-text search and different options.

Like Pocket, Instapaper began out as a easy net add-on and has gone via a number of iterations (and house owners); at present, it’s a part of an impartial firm referred to as Instapaper Holdings. The online app has a pleasant and easy UI; whereas there is no such thing as a grid view, you possibly can flip thumbnails on and off. It provides (and syncs throughout) net browsers (utilizing a Chrome extension, Safari extension, Firefox extension, or bookmarklet), iOS, Android, and Kindle. A free account helps you to save an infinite variety of articles, movies, and different content material. You can even spotlight textual content within the articles you’ve saved, create as much as 5 notes a month, and edit the title, hyperlink, or abstract of every article.

Paid model: The Premium model ($5.99 a month or $59.99 a yr) provides full-text seek for your saved paperwork, limitless notes, a everlasting archive, and text-to-speech.

Raindrop could not have the simplicity of Instapaper, however it has a load of options that might be useful, particularly for those who’re severe about your data collections. (And it is among the favorites of Verge editor-at-large David Pierce.) The online model helps you to view your articles in a wide range of codecs, together with an attention-grabbing one referred to as Moodboard. Like many of the others listed right here, the free model of Raindrop provides an infinite variety of bookmark saves on an infinite variety of gadgets; these embrace apps for Macs, iOS gadgets, Android gadgets, Linux gadgets, and extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers. You possibly can share with others and edit titles, tags, and descriptions.

Paid model: The Professional model ($3 a month or $28 a yr) provides AI ideas, full-text search, cloud backup, and a everlasting library of all of your bookmarked websites, amongst different options.

PaperSpan is an old school, easy app that’s effective in order for you a extremely plain bookmarking service — and it guarantees no advertisements and no monitoring, which is a plus. You possibly can create separate folders to your saved bookmarks, however that’s about it; there are cell apps for iOS and Android and extensions for Chrome and Firefox. In contrast to different companies listed right here, there aren’t any good graphics, highlighting, or alternative between lists and grids. However for those who simply save articles so as to have the ability to simply learn them and don’t care about all the flowery add-ons that the opposite choices provide, that is for you.

Matter is at present solely accessible for iOS gadgets and the net, with extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. The free model permits you to do a wide range of read-it-later duties, together with highlighting, including notes, and listening to an audio studying of the article; the homepage provides ideas as to what you would possibly wish to learn subsequent. The iOS app provides considerably greater than the net model, permitting you to set a studying purpose and add your Gmail deal with to tug your newsletters into the app. You can even sync highlights to note-taking apps similar to Notion or Obsidian or ship articles to your Kindle.

Paid model: Matter Premium prices $14.99 a month or $59.99 a yr and provides HD audio in a extra pure voice, AI transcription of podcasts and YouTube movies, and integrations with different companies.

Omnivore is a comparatively current open-source bookmarking app that reveals promise. It has a simple UI that allows you to see your articles in lists or as a gallery; as with most of the extra refined readers, you possibly can spotlight an article, add notes or labels, or archive them. Apparently, you possibly can see your notes and highlights as a sidebar each within the article itself or within the gallery / itemizing. There are extensions for a wide range of browsers, together with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, and cell apps for iOS and Android. If you wish to do greater than the fundamentals, it’s most likely greatest for those who’re snug with open-source software program, however on the entire, this can be a helpful and usable app.

Paid model: None; customers are requested to donate if they want.

Readwise’s Reader, which helps you to save all kinds of content material sorts, together with YouTube movies (and their transcriptions), is the one app listed right here that’s for-pay solely. The Verge’s David Pierce lately really helpful it, and I need to say, it’s intriguing. Reader provides a bar to the highest of your browser that allows you to overlay notes, tags, and extra, on to the unique article as you’re studying it. A checkmark on the extension icon reveals it’s lively; uncheck it, and the markups disappear out of your unique article however not from the copy that’s been saved to Reader. You might be additionally supplied with a private e mail deal with that permits you to ahead newsletters and different inbox-cluttering emails on to Reader. I solely want there have been some kind of fundamental free model.

Paid model: You get a one-month free trial (maybe two, for those who ask for it). After that, it’s essential to subscribe to each Readwise and Reader for $12.99 a month or $119.88 a yr.

Replace, September ninth, 2024: This text was initially printed on February twenty fourth, 2022; entries have been up to date, and new apps have been added.