Hi MPUers, I’m looking for a free Read It Later app that downloads the webpage content offline and retains it whether the original webpage exists or not.
I used to use Pocket and Instapaper (free versions) but, they don’t download the webpage content. They might temporarily store it in local cache but if I remove the app, its gone. I want the content to be there regardless of webpage existing and me changing devices.
Any recommendations?
PS: Evernote can do it, but its paid, so is DevonThink. Looking for a free solution.
I don’t think they have announced anything regarding the future business model as for now everything is free. They have recently launched Matter II where they have removed some of the social features to better focus on the reading experience:
The app is actually quite good in downloading and caching the cleaned-up content locally, you can share to it using the share sheet in iOS or the Safari/Chrome extension on Mac, and there are several integrations that can come in handy (for example there’s an Obsidian plugin that syncs the highlights).
Edit: just to add that they have just recently released the ability to import everything from Pocket and Instapaper too.
Thanks. Started using it and seems it’s downloading and caching the webpage content, but if the webpage is removed and I re-install the app (so basically local storage is removed), then Matter does not have the webpage, since on re-install it is trying to fetch it again.
In contrast, Evernote stores the webpage as a note and it doesn’t matter if the webpage is removed.
Is there a feature I need to turn on to make Matter work like Evernote’s funtionality
There’s a good web client and iOS/iPadOS apps are pretty good
Web clipper on the desktop which more or less usually works fine, the extension clips to either PNG or plain text + images
It should mostly be familiar to anyone happy with the way Evernote works and is organised
Minuses:
Sharing to OneNote from the share sheet sends just the link to OneNote on iOS/iPadOS so it’s better to share to any app that is able to create a PDF out of the webpage (or use Safari to capture the full screenshot of the page in PDF!) and then share that to OneNote (perhaps there’s a way this could be automated with a shortcut)
There are instances where the web clipper does not work OK on the desktop, depending on the complexity of the page so you have to resort to copying and pasting
SingleFile on Firefox might work, and then dedicate a folder to the purpose of unread files and just assign a color labels or Finder tags to indicate whether they’ve been read and what subjects they fall into.
You might want to try Goodlinks. It’s not free, but a one-time purchase only costs $4.99. The app is equally lovely on Mac, iPad, and iPhone and syncs via iCloud. I bought it a couple of years ago as a replacement for Pocket, and have been happy with it ever since.
The app downloads a local copy of each article you add to your queue so you can read it offline, even if the original has been removed from the web. (On the Mac, the local copies are buried deep in your Library files: /Library/Containers/Goodlinks/Data/Library/Application Support/articles/.)
One warning: if you remove an article from your queue, the local copy is deleted. Since I use Goodlinks as an inbox, not a repository, that’s not an issue for me. If there’s something I know I want to retain for reference, I use a command built right into the app to save a markdown copy, which I then paste into Obisdian. If the article has images I’ll need to retain, I use Marked 2 to convert it to a single page PDF.
I really like the UI of Goodlinks and seems to have the features in place. The only thing is web support, since I sometimes read articles on different machines that don’t have my iCloud account (or I don’t want to login there).
Reeder (which I have) I think also behaves the same way, but i’d need to verify that
Let me know if there are any other alternatives, but I’ll definitely give this a try.
