Omnivore team is joining Eleven Labs. The app is now essentially dead.
I’ve been using both Omnivore and GoodLinks as read-it-later apps for different workflows – I’m sad to hear this, as Omnivore had good sync with Obsidian, browser extensions, send to inbox, and a couple of other convenient features. 
Was sad to hear this as well. My plan was to watch Omnivore’s development and likely subscribe next year.
Very sad… it worked well.
It explains why the more costly-to-host features have been shuttered without explanation over the last few weeks, like YouTube transcription and natural voices.
Not sure where I’m going next as it was pretty perfect for my needs and my workflow.
Edit: I suppose I should give ElevenReader a go!
For others interested in doing so, you can export your data and then delete your account under Settings.
That’s a shame, though, kind of the expected outcome of the “expensive Readwise, reasonable Omnivore” narrative.
Eleven’s use case looks a bit narrow, but quite good within that.
Now I’ve got to decide between matter and Readwise
Sigh. I used Omnivore for two things: automatically porting markdown versions of saved articles to Obsidian and listening to some of them using high-quality text-to-speech functionality.
There are other ways to do both, of course, but Omnivore made it particularly easy. Had they added the ability to upload and annotate epubs and kept the premium AI voices, I would have switched over from Readwise Reader and paid for the privilege. (I like Reader just fine, but it’s annoyingly fiddly and its text-to-speech voices are most definitely not premium. Note to the good folks at Readwise: I would pay more for premium AI voices.)
ElevenLabs’ app is nothing like Omnivore. It’s very much like Natural Reader, but with fewer functions for readers as opposed to content creators and it’s more expensive, too. I don’t expect to use it. I subscribed to Natural Reader a few weeks ago when it became clear that Omnivore had disabled the premium voices and that they weren’t coming back anytime soon. I like it. It’s straightforward to use, and comes with useful features for readers such as exportable bookmarking and annotating. There’s an iOS app but no macOS app, although logging in and using it in a browser works just fine for what I do. So far I have used it successfully for PDFs, ePubs, and web content.
I just did that. I never trust anyone to delete my data; I’m happier doing that myself.
Giving people just 20 days between the announcement and data deletion is absurd and highly unprofessional, though.
I have more or less processed everything I had in Omnivore anyway, but I don’t know if any other apps can import their export files.
If the only thing you used Omnivore for was text-to-speech, ElevenLabs’ app might serve your needs, but it most definitely not a read-it-later app.
Yes, so I’ve found. Although I’ve quite a few epubs I’d like to listen to as audiobooks, so that’s a helpful discovery. The natural voices are superb.
So, the hunt is on for my next read-it-later app…
I was very disappointed to get the email. I didn’t really use text-to-speech, but I loved the way it could deal with web pages with flexible formatting, with highlights and notes on the web.
As far as I can see, the new owner just has audio, I could not see any text-based options.
What a shame
Presumably, that’s next on their roadmap and why they’ve recruited the omnivore folk.
I always wondered how this app will survive and they always insisted that this app is for long term. We have donors and blah blah blah.
Bummer. I liked the interface, speed and the font they used.
Data and account deleted.
If people are looking for an interesting option for Text-to-Speech generation of their articles, check out my project at blog2pod · GitHub
It’s very new and I’m working out some kinks, but you may find it useful
Readwise Reader just posted this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/readwise/comments/1gfaqnj/new_in_reader_import_your_data_from_omnivore/
They can import Omnivore notes and stuff into Reader.
I just imported my Omnivore export and so far, so good!
It’s a real shame.
There’s lots of discussion in the Omnivore Discord about alternatives. They vary wildly in their features and maturity, but worth a look. The devs have just shared a link to the Discord on their blog, so I assume it will remain open for a while.
I’m trialling a setup using the Obsidian Web Clipper to get content in Markdown. Calibre watches my clipping folder, imports the file and converts into an ePub. I then read that on my e-reader, or in Yomu on my Apple devices. It has worked surprisingly well so far, but my needs are not complex.
That’s a nice solution, especially if it has a degree of automation. Reading on Kindle is a good way of consuming content for me: distraction free, and the Markdown files are yours forever.
The biggest loss for me readable YouTube transcription which I used a lot while it was available. Even the relatively expensive Readwise seems to use the raw, auto generated transcriptions which are difficult to read and even more difficult to use.
A big thumbs up for the Obsidian Web Clipper! I find I’m drifting into using it as a read-it-later tool for web content I really do need to read later, highlight, annotate, and link to other things. I can read it there and do whatever I need to do with it without porting it or my highlights over from another app. If the article has images I need to preserve from link rot, I export it as a PDF using Marked 2.
(Yes, I know I can export a note to PDF right in Obsidian, but Marked 2 gives me more control over formatting and pagination, which are important to me, especially when images are involved. Ditto for saving web pages as PDFs from the browser.)
PS: Another big plus is the ability to create custom YAML templates to use for the web content you import.