Eight of the Best Read-it-later Apps to Help You Navigate Your Backlog
If you find yourself coming across interesting articles that you can't actually sit down and read right then, a read-it-later app is a great solution. The ecosystem of these types of apps is thriving, offering a variety of ways to read articles and social media posts later, at your own pace. Here are a few of the best options to try out.
When most people think about read-it-later apps, they think of Pocket. Pocket has been going strong for more than a decade, and it’s still the popular choice for most of us. Pocket is now owned by Mozilla, and in addition to the standalone apps, it’s also directly integrated into the Firefox browser.
Pocket is free to use, but you can upgrade to the Premium plan for an ad-free experience. You also get features like full-text search, unlimited highlighting, and permanent archiving of all saved content.
Instapaper
Instapaper has been duking it out with Pocket for some time. It's more minimal compared to its rival, and you might prefer its simpler interface. And if you just want to mow down your article backlog, hit the Speed Read feature, which displays every word in rapid succession—though I feel it takes a lot away from the reading experience.
The free app is more than enough for most users, but for $6 per month, you'll get an ad-free experience, full-text search, unlimited notetaking, speed reading, and text-to-speech playlists.
Matter
Matter has a simple premise: save articles, PDFs, social media posts, and more with the browser extension, then read them later on your iPhone, iPad, Kindle, or back in your browser. The interface is elegant, and saving links to read later takes a single click.
To get more from your reading, Matter also offers highlighters and notes. You can organize your saved articles with tags and then hit play for audio playback. But the refined app isn't free. It offers a seven-day free trial, after which a yearly subscription (there's a monthly option too) of $79.99 kicks in.
Raindrop
Raindrop is an all-in-one tool for saving anything from the internet—and it works cross-platform, including on desktop. It’s where you can save your notes, recipes, articles, websites—anything, really. Everything is searchable through text, filters, and tags. Raindrop also does media previews quite well, and the three-pane layout is easy to use and nice to look at. Plus, you get a full-text search in the premium plan, and there’s automation support for IFTTT and Zapier.
If you feel tools like Pocket and Instapaper are a bit too simple for you, try setting up your bookmarking system in Raindrop with the generous free tier before you decide on the yearly Pro plan.
Alfread
Alfread is a nicely designed read-it-later app for iOS. It integrates with popular services like Instapaper, Pocket, and Readwise, allowing you to import your existing saved articles. You can also start fresh and build your reading list directly in Alfread.
If you don't read much anymore, Alfread could motivate you to read more with its insights, like reading goals and reminders to stay on track. It also automatically archives unread articles after a set period (defaulting to a month) and helps categorize your saved content with tags for better organization.
Alfread has a free tier. The subscription plan unlocks all features for $4.99 a month.
Screenbreak
This nifty browser extension is a different sort of read-it-later app. After you save various articles to read later, Screenbreak creates a physical booklet of all your articles, like a mini magazine, and can mail it to you or make it available to print at home.
Screenbreak is a paid app with a few pricing tiers, but it does have a free plan that allows you to digitize your saved articles into a decluttered PDF.
Chrome Reading List
Chrome's built-in Reading List is a useful tool for managing articles you want to read later, especially if you already use Chrome and don't want to bother with additional extensions and apps.
To save an article this way, go to a webpage within Chrome, and look at the top right of the window. Select the three-dot menu, then Bookmarks and lists > Reading list > Add tab to reading list. To read it, select Show reading list from the same menu. Alternatively, add a webpage to your reading list by right-clicking on the tab and then Add tab to reading list.
Of course, Chrome's Reading list is a little more basic compared to the specialized apps on this list, but you can download pages to read them offline, open the clutter-free reading mode option in the right-click context menu, and keep all your articles synced across devices.
Safari Reading List
If you’re all-in on the Apple ecosystem and you use Safari as your default browser, you can get along just fine using the Reading List feature in Safari. It works great on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and is beautiful to read. You can use the Add to Reading List feature from the Share sheet practically from everywhere. The Reading List feature is accessible inside the Safari browser.
Safari doesn’t download articles offline by default, but you can change that by going to the iOS Settings.