Omnivore: The Read-It-Later App That Integrates With Obsidian

Have you ever found yourself stumbling upon fascinating articles, thought-provoking blog posts, or mind-blowing research papers, only to realize that you don’t have the time to dive into them right away?

For me, as an avid reader, it happens every time. Fortunately, it exists apps called bookmark managers or read-it-later apps, that can be used to store the content you want to read later.

Let me introduce Omnivore, a free and open-source read-it-later app that integrates seamlessly with the PKM app Obsidian!

Why Use Omnivore?

Imagine you’re scrolling through your favorite social media feed, and suddenly you stumble upon an article that catches your eye. It’s a gem, a hidden treasure of wisdom, but alas, you’re caught in the whirlwind of daily life and don’t have the time to give it the attention it deserves. That’s where Omnivore swoops in like a hero, ready to save the day.

With Omnivore, you can effortlessly save articles, blog posts, news stories, and any online content that sparks your curiosity, all with a simple click. No more frantically bookmarking dozens of websites or cluttering your browser tabs in a vain attempt to keep track of everything. Omnivore is here to organize your digital reading list and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

You can then highlight information as you’re reading in the Omnivore app.

Also, if you follow me you know I love Obsidian. Well, there’s an Obsidian plugin that allows Omnivore to integrate with Obsidian, mixing the power of note-taking and knowledge management.

Finally, Omnivore is not just any ordinary app. It is free and open-source. You get to enjoy all its features without spending a dime, which is rare these days.

It is also open-source, which brings a whole new level of transparency, flexibility, and community-driven development to the table. With Omnivore’s code freely available for anyone to see, developers and curious tinkerers alike can dive into the inner workings, inspect, modify, and contribute to the app’s growth.

Now, let’s discover Omnivore features!

Saving Content

Obviously, the main feature of Omnivore is that you can save content to read it later.

You have many ways to save content with Omnivore. First, you can just use the “Add Link” button in the app. It allows to paste a link in a modal to import what you want to save.

Then, you can also save content through the “Omnivore” Chrome extension. I prefer using this extension to save content as it allows me to save content quickly without having to open the Omnivore app.

Finally, if you’re on iOS, you can download the Omnivore app and save content into it using the “Share” feature from your web browser.

Reading and Highlighting

Once you have saved some content, you can just click on it in the Omnivore app to open your content. Omnivore saves the web page, so you can view it directly in the app, and I think if one day the page is gone you can still read it.

Then, you can just highlight passages in a text or add notes to them. For example, in the picture below you can see how the article I’m currently writing is looking in Omnivore, with some content highlighted and notes:

Newsletter Subscriptions

I’m not a big fan of newsletters so I haven’t tested this feature, but Omnivore allows you to create an email address and use it to subscribe to newsletters.

The emails sent to this address will then appear in the application.

I find this feature really interesting because it allows you to avoid cluttering your mailbox with tons of emails. Instead, these emails will arrive in Omnivore.

I think you can create as many email addresses as you want. It can allow you to use different addresses for different topics, and gather all the information in one place.

Sending PDFs to Omnivore

You can send PDFs to your email addresses generated by Omnivore to send PDF files to your library. If you provide a subject, it will be used as the title.

You can then highlight the PDFs or add notes to them, directly within Omnivore.

Organizing Your Library

When it comes to read-it-later apps, organization is very important.

With Omnivore, you can use labels to organize your saved content. You can then use the search bar to sort your content by label. By the way, the search bar also allows you to easily find an article by title, or if the words you’re typing are present in its content

You can also archive content to make it disappear from the library view without deleting it.

Text to Speech

If you prefer listening to articles rather than reading, there’s a text-to-speech feature included in Omnivore.

You can also download the audio for offline playback.

However, it’s only available on iOS, and I don’t have an iPhone so I wasn’t able to try it.

Obsidian Integration

This one is a great feature for someone relying on Obsidian for knowledge management.

Indeed, most of the time, content consumption and knowledge management are disconnected processes that require manual effort to bridge the gap and make the connection. However, with the integration between Omnivore and Obsidian, this barrier is effectively eliminated.

There’s a plugin for Obsidian called “Omnivore” that allows you to sync your highlights into your Obsidian vault. I made an article a few times ago about using Obsidian as a bookmark manager with Raindrop, it’s the same thing.

You can customize many settings. For example, you can change the destination folder of the synced highlights, you can change the template for the notes generated, etc…

To set up Omnivore with Obsidian, you just have to download the plugin, generate an API key in the Omnivore app, paste it into the plugin settings, and that’s it! Then you can just click on the Omnivore icon in the sidebar and your highlights will sync.

Below is how it looks when using the default template:

Automation

If you’re an avid user of the web version of Omnivore, you can use rules to streamline your workflow and automate tasks to save you time and effort.

A rules is a combination of a search filter and a set of actions. When a page matches the search filter, the specified actions are applied automatically. For example, from the doc:

subscription:"Money Talk" -> Add Label('Finance')

In this scenario, the rule adds the “Finance” label to all pages that originate from the “Money Talk” subscription.

Currently, the creation of rules is exclusively available on the web, accessible through the “/settings/rules” page. The process is straightforward:

1. Navigate to the top right corner and click on the “Create a new Rule” button.
2. Enter your desired search filter. For more information, consult the search reference guide.
3. Select the actions you want to be applied when the rule matches the criteria.

With rules, you can:

• Add Label: Assign a set of labels to an article, facilitating easy categorization.
• Send Notification: Dispatch a push notification to registered iOS devices, ensuring you stay up-to-date.
• Archive: Automatically archive an article, keeping your workspace clutter-free.

More information in the documentation!

Keyboard Commands

The Omnivore web client offers comprehensive keyboard accessibility for all its major features. There are two methods to utilize the keyboard within Omnivore: either by accessing the command bar and entering a command name or by directly using keyboard shortcuts.

Keep in mind that this functionality is exclusively supported on the web platform.

I won’t list here all the commands, so to see a list of all accessible keyboard commands, simply press the “?” key within Omnivore.

My Thoughts About Omnivore

I think Omnivore is a fantastic application! This app includes a lot of features that others don’t, and most importantly it’s FREE (and open-source, which I like as a developer), which is something very rare nowadays.

The user experience is outstanding and keeps you productive without wasting time. The organizational features are basic but effective. The automation features are powerful and also save you time. The features related to email addresses are nice and original, to the point of making me reconsider newsletters. And the integration with Obsidian is great!

Final Note

The last time, we discovered Lattics, an innovative knowledge management app. Today, we discovered Omnivore, a very well-done application, which you will definitely like if you are looking for a read-it-later app or a bookmark manager.

Honestly, I didn’t know Omnivore and I was contacted by someone working on Omnivore who asked me to talk about it. For the article about Lattics, I was also contacted by the team working on it. I like to talk about projects like these because I think it brings value to me and my readers.

So if you’re working on a project you think will bring something to me and my readers, feel free to contact me!

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