Read it later app: best ways to beat information overload

I once had 217 saved articles in Pocket. I'd read maybe 30 of them. The rest sat there, a digital monument to my good intentions and complete lack of follow-through, a read it later app backlog growing.

If you're reading this, you probably have your own embarrassing number saved in a read it later app. Maybe it's 47 unread tabs. Maybe it's 300 bookmarks in a folder optimistically named "To Read" in a read it later app. Maybe you're still pretending you'll get through that 15,000-word essay about cryptocurrency you saved in a read it later app in 2021.

Here's the thing about my ADHD brain: if something isn't directly in front of me, it ceases to exist, unless it's saved in a read it later app. Before I started using a read it later app properly, I'd keep dozens of browser tabs open because closing them felt like admitting defeat. Each tab was a tiny promise I was making to future me, a promise the read it later app would try to honour. Future me was going to be so organised. Future me was going to read everything.

Future me turned out to be exactly as disorganised as present me, even with a read it later app to keep things together.

The problem isn't really about finding a good app. The problem is that 80% of workers now experience information overload, up from 60% just five years ago, a concern for anyone relying on a read it later app. It's costing the U.S. economy up to $1 trillion annually. We're drowning in content, and saving articles for later in a read it later app has become the digital equivalent of shoving papers into a drawer and promising we'll sort them out eventually.

And then Pocket shut down in July 2025, pushing users to seek a read it later app. For millions of people, it was a wake-up call. Not just "I need a new app", but "do I actually need any of this saved content?"

This guide covers the best read it later app options available now, in the post-Pocket era, and sits well with personal knowledge management. But more importantly, it's about building a system that works with your brain instead of against it, personal knowledge management. Because the perfect app won't help if you're just creating a better-organised graveyard of unread articles best note taking app adhd.

What is a read-it-later app?

A read it later app saves content via a web clipper, so you can read it offline, without ads, and on your own schedule. It's more sophisticated than bookmarking because a read it later app saves the actual content of the page, not just the link, bookmark manager. So if the website goes down, changes, or gets paywalled, you've still got your saved copy in a read it later app.

They're different from note-taking apps like Notion alternative or Obsidian. Those are for creating and organising your own thoughts. Read-it-later apps are for consuming content someone else wrote, including a read it later app. With a read it later app, you save it, you read it, you may highlight a few bits, and then it's done.

Here's what most read-it-later apps offer: What is a web clipper and do you actually need one?.

A read it later app uses browser extensions and mobile share sheets to save articles with one click. You're reading something interesting on your laptop at lunchtime, click the extension icon, and it's waiting for you in a read it later app on your phone for the commute home.

Offline access means the full article is saved in a read it later app, not just the link. Brilliant for flights, trains with dodgy wifi, or just wanting to read without internet distractions.

Clean reading view strips out all the website clutter. No ads, no cookie popups, no "SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER" boxes blocking half the text. Just the article, formatted nicely.

Text-to-speech reads articles aloud. Useful for commutes, cooking, or when your eyes are tired from staring at screens all day. Some apps do this better than others.

Tagging and organisation helps you categorise saved content in a read it later app. In theory. In practice, most of us save everything with no tags and end up with an unsorted mess. But the option's there if you're more disciplined than me.

Cross-platform sync means your saved articles follow you everywhere. Save on desktop, read on phone, pick up where you left off on tablet.

The classic use case is saving articles during busy work hours and reading them during your commute, or saving long-form journalism throughout the week and reading it all on Sunday morning with coffee. There are over 50 billion pages on the internet now. Read-it-later apps help you pretend you might actually read some of them.

The question is whether you're using them to actually read things, or just to feel productive while procrastinating.

Why Pocket's shutdown matters

On July 8, 2025, Pocket shut down. For millions of users, it wasn't just losing an app. It was losing years of saved articles, carefully curated reading lists, and the comfortable routine of clicking that little pocket icon on every interesting article.

Pocket had been around since 2007. It survived acquisitions, multiple redesigns, and countless competitors. At its peak, it had over 500 app integrations. You could save to Pocket from basically anywhere. Mozilla bought it in 2017, which felt like validation that this was infrastructure-level software. Something permanent.

Then Mozilla announced the shutdown in May 2025. They removed it from app stores, stopped new signups, and gave users until October 8 to export their data before everything got permanently deleted. Their explanation was admirably honest but depressing: "People don't browse the web like they used to."

They weren't wrong. We've gone from carefully reading long-form articles to doom-scrolling Twitter, watching TikTok, and skimming AI-generated summaries. The idea of saving a 5,000-word essay to read later feels almost quaint now.

But here's the thing: Pocket's shutdown was actually useful. It forced millions of people to ask themselves a question they'd been avoiding for years: do I actually want all this saved content?

When I exported my Pocket library, I had 217 articles. Looking through them was like archaeological excavation of my past intentions. There were articles about productivity systems I never implemented. Recipes I never cooked. Think pieces about news events I could barely remember. Most of it was just clutter.

The shutdown wasn't a disaster. It was an opportunity. A chance to start fresh with a new tool and, more importantly, new habits. A chance to move on from the "save everything, read nothing" approach that Pocket had inadvertently enabled.

The save-but-never-read problem

Let me be brutally honest: most people who use read-it-later apps never actually read what they save. They accumulate hundreds of articles like digital hoarders, always intending to get to them "this weekend" or "when things calm down at work."

Things never calm down at work.

I know this because I've done it. My Pocket library sat there, making me feel guilty every time I opened the app. Eventually I stopped opening the app, which solved the guilt problem but not the underlying issue.

Here's why this happens:

Saving feels productive. Clicking "save for later" gives you a little dopamine hit. You've done something. You've taken action. You've captured that valuable information. Except you haven't actually learned anything yet. You've just moved the work to a different location.

We have no system for processing. Most people save articles randomly and then... what? When exactly are you supposed to read them? During which specific time in your schedule? Most of us never actually allocate reading time, we just vaguely hope we'll feel like it later.

Aspirational saving vs realistic reading time. We save articles based on who we want to be, not who we actually are. I want to be someone who reads 10,000-word essays about macroeconomic policy. I am not that person. I've saved twelve of those essays. I've read none of them.

Information overload is getting worse. The world produces over 403 million terabytes of data each day. By the end of 2025, we're looking at 181 zettabytes of data globally. That's not a typo. We're drowning in information, and our brains evolved to handle maybe a village's worth of gossip.

For my ADHD brain, the problem is even worse. Out of sight, out of mind. If an article isn't right in front of me, demanding attention, it essentially doesn't exist. I can save things with the best intentions, but two days later I've completely forgotten I ever saw that article about productivity systems.

So what actually works?

Weekly review ritual. Pick a specific time each week. Sunday morning with coffee, Friday afternoon before the weekend, whenever. Spend 30 minutes going through your saved articles. Read a few. Archive the ones you're definitely not reading. Be ruthless.

Archive aggressively. If you saved something more than a month ago and haven't read it yet, you're not reading it. Archive it. It's fine. The article will survive without you reading it.

Accept you won't read everything. This is the hardest one. We want to read everything interesting. We can't. There's too much content and not enough time. Accepting this is liberating.

Use AI summarisation for triage. Instead of saving everything to read "later", get a quick summary first. Decide if it's actually worth reading the full thing. Most articles aren't.

This is where Ultrathink helps. When I save an article, it automatically generates an AI summary. I can skim that in 30 seconds and decide if the full article is worth my time. About 70% of things I used to save, I realise I don't actually need to read. The summary gives me what I needed. The other 30%, I read properly because I've already decided it's worth my time.

The goal isn't to read everything you save. The goal is to save things worth reading, and actually read them.

Best read-it-later apps compared

Here's the honest comparison of the best apps available now that Pocket's gone. I've used most of these at various points, usually while procrastinating on actual work.

Instapaper

Instapaper is now the default choice for former Pocket users, which feels odd because it's actually older than Pocket was. It launched in 2008, survived being bought by Pinterest and then sold again, and has outlasted most of its competitors through the simple strategy of staying reliably boring.

The interface is straightforward. You save articles. You read articles. There's a clean reading view that removes all the website nonsense. The text-to-speech is serviceable but robotic. There's a speed reading feature that flashes words at you at 650 words per minute, which is brilliant if you like feeling stressed while reading.

The free version works fine but shows ads in the app. Premium is £2.99 per month and gets you full-text search, unlimited highlighting and notes, and removes the ads. The search is genuinely useful if you're the sort of person who remembers saving an article about something but can't remember where.

Best feature: Direct Pocket import. They added this immediately after Pocket announced shutdown, which was excellent timing. You can import your entire Pocket library in about five minutes.

Biggest limitation: It feels dated. Not unusable, just... old. Like software from 2012 that's been maintained but not really improved. There's no innovation here. Which might be exactly what you want if you're exhausted by apps that constantly redesign everything and break your workflow.

Best for: People who want Pocket's simplicity without Pocket's unfortunate tendency to shut down.

Readwise reader

Readwise Reader is the power user option. If Instapaper is a bicycle, Reader is a Swiss Army knife with 47 attachments, most of which you'll never use but are glad exist.

It's built for people who read a lot and want everything in one place. It handles web articles, RSS feeds, email newsletters, YouTube videos, Twitter threads, and PDFs. You can highlight text, and those highlights sync to Readwise (which costs extra) and then to your note-taking app. There are keyboard shortcuts for everything. The reading view is excellent.

The problem is it's overwhelming if you just want to save occasional articles. There are too many features, too many settings, too much to learn. I spent my first week with Reader feeling like I was using 10% of its capabilities and being judged by the other 90%.

It costs £7.99 per month, which includes Readwise. That's actually decent value if you're using both, but expensive if you just want a read-it-later app.

Best for: Researchers, writers, and knowledge workers building a second brain. People who want "everything I read in one place" and are willing to learn a complex system to get it.

Matter

Matter is the beautifully designed option. It's won three Apple "App of the Day" awards, which tells you it's either genuinely excellent or just very good at looking pretty. In this case, it's both.

The interface is gorgeous. Clean, modern, thoughtfully designed. Reading in Matter feels pleasant in a way most apps don't. The text-to-speech is the best I've used in any read-it-later app, using natural-sounding voices instead of the robotic ones most apps have.

There's a social element where you can share articles with friends and see what they're reading. I've never used this feature because I don't want my friends to know how much time I spend reading articles about productivity systems instead of being productive.

Matter also transcribes podcasts, which is genuinely useful if you're the sort of person who prefers reading to listening but wants access to podcast content.

The free version is generous. Premium is £9.99 per year, which is absurdly cheap compared to most apps. That gets you newsletter integration, advanced search, and some other features I've never felt the need to use.

Main limitation: It's very iOS-focused. There's a web app, but Matter clearly thinks you're using an iPhone. If you're on Android or primarily desktop, this isn't your app.

Best for: iPhone users who want a polished, pleasant reading experience and don't mind paying £10 a year for premium features.

Flyleaf

Flyleaf is the Apple ecosystem version of Instapaper. It's simple, fast, and works exactly as you'd expect if you're used to native Apple apps. It follows all the iOS design conventions, integrates properly with Safari and the share sheet, and syncs via iCloud.

The focus is on privacy and offline-first design. Everything's stored locally on your devices and synced through iCloud, so there's no company server with your reading history. If you're worried about data privacy, this is reassuring.

The limitation is obvious: Apple only. No web app, no Android, no Windows. If you use any non-Apple devices, Flyleaf is immediately ruled out. Even if you're all-in on Apple, this feels limiting in 2026.

I couldn't find clear pricing information, but most Apple ecosystem apps follow the "free with optional premium" model. The free version likely has everything most people need.

Best for: Apple users who want a simple, private reading app and never plan to switch to Android or need web access.

Raindrop.io

Raindrop started as a bookmark manager and added read-it-later features, so it's more hybrid than pure read-it-later app. If you want both bookmarking and article saving in one tool, this is your option.

The organisation is excellent. You can create collections, nest folders, add tags, and even collaborate with other people on shared collections. The visual bookmark display is nice if you're saving things like design inspiration or recipes where the image matters.

It saves a permanent copy of web pages, so even if the original site goes down or gets paywalled, you've still got your saved version. This is brilliant for research or for saving articles from sites that frequently delete content.

The reading experience is fine but not exceptional. It's clearly designed for organising and finding saved content, not for the actual reading part.

Free version is generous. Pro is £2.50 per month and adds features like full-text search, permanent copies of all bookmarks, and nested collections.

Best for: People who want visual bookmark organisation with read-it-later capabilities, rather than a dedicated reading app.

Safari reading list

This is the "I can't be bothered to install another app" option. If you're on Apple devices and just want basic read-it-later functionality with zero setup, Safari Reading List is already there.

You click the icon. The article saves. It syncs across your Apple devices via iCloud. You can read offline. That's it. No features, no settings, no account to create.

The limitations are severe. No highlights, no notes, no tags, no organisation beyond one long list. No web app, no Android, no sharing. It's the reading list equivalent of a text file.

But it's free and requires exactly zero effort to start using. For people who save maybe five articles a month and just want them accessible offline, this is perfectly adequate.

Best for: Minimalists who want the absolute simplest option and don't care about features.

Omnivore

Omnivore is the open-source, privacy-focused alternative. It's free, the code is on GitHub, and you can even self-host it if you're technically inclined and don't trust anyone else with your data.

Features are solid: newsletter integration via custom email addresses, highlighting, keyboard shortcuts, decent mobile apps. The reading experience is clean. It's clearly built by developers who actually use read-it-later apps.

The catch is it feels less polished than commercial options. The interface is functional but not beautiful. The mobile apps work but feel like version 0.8 instead of version 2.0. There's a smaller community, so fewer integrations and less support.

But it's free and open source, which matters to some people. If you're worried about another Pocket situation where a company shuts down and you lose everything, self-hosting Omnivore means you control your data completely.

Best for: Privacy-conscious users, developers, and people who want to avoid vendor lock-in at the cost of some polish.

Feature comparison table

Here's how these apps stack up side by side:

A few things stand out from this comparison. If you're on a budget, Matter's £9.99 per year is remarkably cheap. If you want a free option that's actually good, Omnivore or the free tiers of Instapaper and Matter are solid choices.

Platform support matters more than people realise. If you're all-in on Apple, you've got lots of options. If you use Android, your choices narrow considerably. If you need web access for work computers where you can't install apps, that narrows things further.

The Pocket import feature is temporarily important. In six months, once everyone's migrated, it won't matter. But right now, if you've got years of Pocket articles you actually want to keep, direct import is valuable.

Beyond read-it-later: apps that help you actually process content

Here's the fundamental problem with traditional read-it-later apps: they're passive storage. You save an article, you read it, maybe you highlight a few sentences, and then... what? The information just sits there. It doesn't connect to anything else you've read. It doesn't become part of your thinking.

This is fine if you're reading for entertainment. But if you're reading to learn, to research, or to develop ideas, passive storage isn't enough. You need the content to feed into your knowledge system.

This is where personal knowledge management (PKM) comes in. The idea is that everything you read, learn, or think about should connect to everything else. Instead of isolated articles sitting in silos, you build a web of interconnected knowledge.

Some tools try to bridge the gap between read-it-later and PKM:

Readwise (the original one, not Reader) syncs your highlights from read-it-later apps to your note-taking app. So you highlight passages in Instapaper or Kindle, and those highlights appear in Obsidian or Notion. It's useful if you're already using both types of tools, but it's another subscription (£7.99/month) and another system to maintain.

Obsidian with web clipper lets you save articles directly into your notes. The advantage is everything lives in one place. The disadvantage is Obsidian isn't designed for reading articles, so the experience is clunky. You end up with markdown files full of web content mixed in with your actual notes.

Notion with save extensions works similarly. You can clip web pages into Notion databases and theoretically organise them alongside your notes and projects. In practice, it's slow, and Notion's reading experience is terrible. It's fine for saving reference material you'll search later, not for actually reading.

The problem all these approaches share is they require manual work. You save an article, you read it, you manually extract key ideas and add them to your notes. If you're disciplined, this works brilliantly. If you're not, you end up with hundreds of saved articles you never process, which is exactly the problem we started with.

This is why I built Ultrathink the way I did. It combines the save-for-later functionality with active knowledge processing. When I save an article, it automatically generates an AI summary, so I can decide if it's worth reading. When I do read something valuable, I can highlight key passages, and Ultrathink automatically suggests how those ideas connect to other things I've saved.

The desktop widget means I can capture thoughts while reading without switching context. I'll be reading an article about productivity, have an idea about how this applies to Ultrathink's design, and capture that thought in two seconds without losing my place.

For my ADHD brain, this matters enormously. The friction of "save article, read article, open notes app, find relevant note, add thoughts, link to other notes" is too high. I won't do it consistently. But "highlight text, see suggested connections, click to link" actually works because it removes most of the friction.

The goal isn't to replace read-it-later apps. It's to make reading an active part of building knowledge instead of passive consumption. Your reading should feed your thinking, not just fill time.

Choosing the right read-it-later app for your brain

The "best" read-it-later app depends entirely on how you actually use these tools, not how you imagine you'll use them. Here's how to pick based on your real behaviour.

If you're a former Pocket user wanting a direct replacement:

Go with Instapaper. It's the closest thing to Pocket that still exists. Same basic functionality, direct import of your Pocket library, no learning curve. It's reliable, boring, and won't shut down anytime soon because it's survived this long by being profitable enough to not need aggressive growth.

The premium tier is worth it if you care about search and unlimited highlights. If you just want to save and read articles, the free tier is fine.

If you're a power user or researcher:

Readwise Reader if you're serious about building a knowledge system and connecting your reading to your notes. It handles everything: web articles, RSS, newsletters, PDFs, YouTube. The keyboard shortcuts make navigation fast. The integration with Readwise and note-taking apps means your highlights actually go somewhere useful.

The price (£7.99/month) is justified if you're reading extensively for work or research. If you're just reading casually, it's expensive overkill.

Omnivore if you want similar power-user features but prefer open source and don't want another subscription. You lose some polish but gain control over your data.

If you're all-in on Apple devices:

Matter for beautiful design and the best text-to-speech I've heard in any app. The £9.99/year premium is absurdly cheap. The social features are there if you want them, ignorable if you don't. Just know it's iOS-first and the web app feels like an afterthought.

Flyleaf if you prioritise privacy and want something that feels native to iOS and macOS. Limited features but excellent at what it does.

Safari Reading List if you want zero setup and are fine with basic functionality. It's already there, it works, and it costs nothing.

If you want visual organisation:

Raindrop.io treats your saved content as a visual collection rather than a text list. Brilliant for design inspiration, recipes, or anything where the image matters. The permanent archive feature means your saved pages won't disappear even if the original sites do.

It's more bookmark manager than pure read-it-later app, so the reading experience isn't as good as dedicated options.

If you have ADHD or struggle with information management:

This is where traditional read-it-later apps fall short. They assume you'll remember to read things, process them, and extract value. ADHD brains don't work that way.

Look for tools with:

• AI summaries for quick triage (so you can decide what's worth reading without guilt about unread content)
• Desktop widgets for frictionless capture (so you can save thoughts without context switching)
• Automatic relationship linking (so connections happen without manual work)

Ultrathink was designed specifically for this. I built it because traditional read-it-later apps created guilt-inducing piles of unread articles, and PKM tools required too much manual effort to maintain. The AI does the triage and connection work that my ADHD brain struggles with.

Questions to ask yourself:

Do you actually read what you save? If your honest answer is "rarely", any app with AI summarisation will help more than a better reading interface.

Do you need mobile, desktop, or both? If you primarily read on one device, pick the app that's best on that platform rather than settling for mediocre cross-platform support.

Is the free tier enough? For most people, yes. Premium features like full-text search and unlimited highlights sound useful but often go unused.

Do you want this connected to your notes? If you're building a knowledge system in Obsidian or Notion, integration matters. If you just want to read articles, it doesn't.

How to migrate from Pocket

If you're reading this before October 8, 2025, you still have time to export your Pocket data. After that date, it's gone permanently. Mozilla wasn't joking about the deletion.

Export your Pocket data:

Log into Pocket on the web. Go to Settings, find the Export option, and download your HTML file. This gives you a list of all your saved articles with their URLs and timestamps. Do this now, even if you're not sure which app you're switching to yet.

Which apps accept Pocket imports:

Instapaper has the best import process. Direct, fast, maintains your tags if you used them. If you've got years of Pocket articles you actually want to keep, this is the easiest migration path.

Readwise Reader can import Pocket data through their web interface. It's straightforward and handles large libraries well.

Matter has an import feature that works with the exported Pocket HTML file. Takes a few minutes but generally reliable.

Raindrop.io imports your Pocket content as bookmarks rather than full articles. This works fine if you're treating it primarily as an organisational tool.

The important question: do you actually need all your saved articles?

Be honest here. Most of what you've saved falls into predictable categories: news articles about events you can barely remember, productivity advice you never implemented, recipes you never cooked, and "interesting" essays from years ago you never got around to reading.

Here's my recommendation: don't import everything blindly. Use Pocket's shutdown as an opportunity for a fresh start.

The fresh start approach:

Export your Pocket data for peace of mind. You've got the file if you need it. But start your new read-it-later app with a clean slate. No backlog of guilt-inducing unread articles. Just save new things going forward and actually read them.

If you remember a specific article from your Pocket archive that you genuinely need, you can find it in the exported HTML file and save it manually to your new app. In practice, you'll do this approximately twice before realising you don't actually need any of it.

This is what I did. Exported everything, started fresh with a new tool, never looked at the export file again. The relief of not having 200+ unread articles staring at me every time I opened the app was worth far more than any article I might have wanted to reference later.

Conclusion

The real challenge with a read it later app isn't finding one with the right features. It's building a system that works with your brain instead of against it.

Pocket's shutdown forced millions of people to rethink their approach to reading and information management. That's actually valuable. The worst outcome would be blindly replacing Pocket with another save-and-forget tool and continuing the same patterns that led to hundreds of unread articles.

If you're a casual reader who saves a handful of articles each month, Instapaper or Matter will serve you well. If you're a researcher or knowledge worker, Readwise Reader or Omnivore give you the power-user features you need. If you're all-in on Apple, you've got excellent native options. If you prioritise privacy and open source, Omnivore delivers.

But the app choice matters less than the habits you build around it. Weekly reviews where you actually archive old content. Accepting you won't read everything. Using AI summaries to triage instead of saving everything by default.

For those of us with ADHD, the traditional "save everything, process later" approach doesn't work. We need tools that reduce friction, not add it. Tools with AI summarisation, desktop widgets for frictionless capture, and automatic connection of ideas without manual linking work. This is why I built Ultrathink the way I did, because I needed it for my own brain.

Try a couple of apps. Give each one a proper week of real use, not just setup and first impressions. Pick the one that feels natural, not the one with the most features. And remember that no app will make you read more if you don't actually allocate time for reading.