I need a bookmark manager:.
- Simple, cross-platform (Mac, iOS, browser)
- Not just read-it-later
- No (or limited) social aspects
- Simple organization
Pocket, Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Reeder, Matter, M.b bookmarks, Omnivore don’t fit. Pinboard is closest but it’s browser only and dated. Suggestions?
Brad Barrish I’m a big fan of Raindrop. It’s the only one besides Pinboard that fits or nearly fits your criteria.
Manton Reece If you don’t mind sharing, I’ll be curious to hear what you find and why it works better than all the options you listed.
Scott Yoshinaga I’ve been going through a search myself. Raindrop was better than pinboard.in but I wish the Mac app were better. I’ve been using Anybox for a month and I think this will work for my permanent bookmarks. No browser version, but I can live without it. I’ve been using Omnivore for “read later” and then archiving anything I want to keep in Anybox.
Matt Langford @manton This is my ideal workflow:
- Quick save into ‘catchall’ type of folder
- From there I can archive or move to ↓
- “Read Later”, “To Do”, “Frequent”, and “Temporary”
- No “automatic reader view”
If it could do that with fast sync, that meets 90% of my needs and I’d be content. Some apps can get close to it with a tagging interface, but so often that’s clunky. I don’t need to pull out image previews or see how many times a link has been saved or use AI to summarize or turn it into an audio version or share my bookmarks with followers or tag articles with 15 different tags or export as pdf. I just want a place that stores/organizes links and syncs fast.
M.b is pretty close. If it had a dedicated Bookmarks app/interface that was fast, I’d be all-in on it.
Matt Langford @robbirming I’ve tried GoodLinks and it’s close. Not bad at all. Just something about the UI didn’t click with me. Need to try again.
Matt Langford @bradbarrish @pratik @kimonostereo @valera I tried Raindrop before and had a lot of syncing issues. But maybe I should give it a go again.
Jarrod Blundy I’ll pile on for Raindrop. Their native iOS app is particularly nice.
Chris L Pinboard’s age is kind of beside the point if it does everything you need. And the Pinner third party app works fine on iOS anyway. That said, Raindrop seems to be the next best, though its lack of support for feeds in the places I wanted them made it a non-starter.
Matt Langford @chrislott I was under the impression that Pinner was no longer under development.
Torb There are several native clients for Pinboard (Spillo, Pinner, etc). Been using that for years.
Heard good things about Raindrop though.
Matt Langford @wfm That app has always been something I’ve wanted to explore. Perhaps now is the time.
Matt Langford @jasonekratz Booky.io and a better Pinboard app are also on the list to try out.
Chris L I have no idea. I’m just a happy user. If Raindrop had RSS feeds for tags—and the developer made clear he didn’t plan to add that feature—I might have considered switching to raindrop.io, though I do prefer the fast and simple interface of Pinboard, after which all the rest seem over-developed. The archiving feature on Pinboard is broken, though, at least last time I checked!
Matt Langford @rcrackley I got that lifetime Pinboard thing too back when it was offered. Looks like it was 2012. I installed Pins to give it a shot.
Jamie Thingelstad I’ve looked into this abyss many, many times over the years and have never found something better, functionally, than Pinboard. So I’m still there. Raindrop is intriguing, but too complicated for what I want.
Greg Moore Not making light of your needs but I often forget just how powerful the simplicity of a text file can be. I recently kept paper on hand for the real-world equivalent.
Jamie Thingelstad @gregmoore I have 14,140 links in Pinboard. That would be a heck of a text file. :-)
Jamie Thingelstad @letters it makes me smile when I add a link to Pinboard only to find I added it a couple years earlier.
Matt Langford @jthingelstad I think I’m staying with Pinboard. I just created a Shortcut that pulls the title of the page, gives me tag options, then ads an AI created description to every bookmark. 🤪
Matt Langford @nathanrhale I use Safari everywhere and utilize that in full for pages I frequent. However, I’m more speaking of the hundreds (thousands?) of accumulated links for things like research and writing.
Matt Langford @gregmoore Oh, you’re right for sure. I’m all in on plain text for so many things. I just want a slight step up for bookmarks organization. The nature of my job requires a lot of research for project after project, and I need a simple way to store info and keep it organized.
I do use Notes for so many things. As well as Obsidian and Marked 2.
Brad Barrish it has been rock solid for me. I have tens of thousands of bookmarks, it’s under active development and new features are thoughtfully added. Also worth noting that the few times I’ve reached out to the developer, he always responds. Honestly couldn’t ask for more. Needless to say, I’m a very happy customer.
Brad Barrish , @chrislott makes a great point and not having RSS feeds for tags, or anything for that matter, is the only quibble I have with Raindrop. I was previously a Pinboard customer and still pay for it, so I simply have an IFTTT applet running that creates a bookmark in Pinboard whenever I bookmark anything in Raindrop.
Leon Mika 
Brad Dowdy just chiming in on the Pinboard train, with the Pins app on iOS. It’s more of a workflow situation for me, but it always works.
Valera Kushnir @wfm I recently tried DevonThink to organize some tax documents. What do you use it for?
Notes @valera All bills, receipts, bookmarks, pdf files on topics I’m interested in, research I’m doing, pretty much everything goes into Devonthink. I have it on my phone and my mac. The one on my phone acts as an inbox of sorts. If I see an interesting article in a paper that I may want again, it gets quickly scanned in. I have different databases on the mac version and just sync the inbox between my phone and mac. Then stuff in the inbox gets processed on my mac.
Sometimes I will create a smart group around a topic, for example, I have a current one called “Retrofit” and I have a bunch of stuff in there about insulation, solar panels, heat pumps, grants. Using tags, they all end up grouped together. I’m only using a fraction of its power.
Valera Kushnir @wfm thank you. Does it actually move local files into organized structure of some sorts or just referenced them?
Notes @valera you can choose to enter documents directly into Devonthink or index them from a folder elsewhere. I would have a combination of both, but it’s purely a personal choice.
Valera Kushnir @wfm thank you for your replies. Bummer that it’s not cross platform and requires subscription for the mobile app.