A Simple Way To Save The Internet
Read It Later
If you’re like me, you want to save up your reading material, to read at a time that suits you.
During the day I’ll come across articles on the web that I don’t have time to read immediately, so I save it.
I save the internet.
Allow me to introduce Pocket.
Pocket is an app that lets you store articles from almost anywhere on the web, in one place, to read later.
In fact, it used to be called Read It Later.
I’ve been using it for years, and love the simplicity.
It means you no longer need to send links to yourself — just add the article to your personal Pocket library.
They also provide recommendations too, so you might find some interesting nuggets too.
How do you get it
Pocket is available on both iOS and Android as well as directly on the web.
There are also browser extensions across a whole range of browsers, which just sit there waiting for you to add the web page you’re looking at, to your library.
Apps & Integrations
There are numerous other ways to get your news and stories into Pocket.
1. Slack 2. Kindle 3. Feedly 4. Evernote 5. IFTTT and Zapier
For example, you can use IFTTT to watch a specific RSS feed, and when something is published, it will automatically pull it into Pocket.
Premium vs Free
As with many apps, there are two options of Pocket available.
The free, out-of-the-box, version, which is more than enough for most.
This has:
- Save unlimited articles, videos, and other web pages
- Sync your articles across iOS, Android, etc
- Add Tags to organize and keep track of your saved items
- Save from hundreds of apps, including Twitter, Flipboard, and more
- Save from your favorite browsers
- Listen (yes, listen) to your saved articles with the text-to-speech feature — this is a really good feature. It’s like a mini-podcast of that article. It’s not perfect but gets better with each release.
So, there is plenty available, without spending a penny.
However, when you upgrade, you also get:
- See no sponsored content in the apps, or on the website
- Access complete article search and more advanced search options
- Tag and organize your saves faster with Suggested Tags (I love this one) — essentially, when tagging an item, a list of suggested tags from your account is shown and can be added with a single tap or click.
- Access unlimited text highlighting (the free version only allows 3 highlights per article)
- Create forever copies of your saved articles with Permanent Library — this means that even if the item you’ve saved is changed or deleted from the web, you can still access it in Pocket.
- Make Pocket your own with custom reading layouts and additional font options
There are some articles that won’t be available to read in Pocket, even though they appear to be downloaded. When you open it then it becomes apparent that it’s behind a paywall (which, I suppose, is understandable).
There is a web interface too, to read and edit your lists.
It’s not just the written word, you can save videos too; even YouTube videos!
Once you’ve read an article you can choose to Archive-it, which will remove it from the main list, and you can also mark it as a Favourite. You can find them again in the relevant option in the menu.
You could even use IFTTT to tweet an article that you marked as a Favourite.
You can even highlight articles. How much depends on whether you have the free or premium version (see above).
I’ve been using Pocket for a number of years. It’s great for saving stuff through the day, and then catching up in the evening, or at the weekend.
I’ve not been sponsored by Pocket, neither am I an affiliate.
I just like sharing good stuff.
You can find out more about Pocket here.
Thank you for reading
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