I can finally tell you about Readwise Reader.

Readwise Reader is the latest read-it-later app, except not just for books. Reader brings in your highlights from books, articles, tweets, PDFs, epubs, emails, and even newsletters! While it's not yet officially launched, it's now in public beta and you can sign up to be put on a wait list to try out this awesome product that's been so essential to my workflows.
Note: I do have an affiliate link of Readwise, but this video was not sponsored. They know I'm making this video, because I had to reach out to get permission to post the screenshot of a private email, but they did not review this video and had no idea what I was going to say. :)
// RESOURCES MENTIONED
Readwise: readwise.io/ni...
Sign up for the Reader waitlist: readwise.io/read
// TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
01:09 What is Readwise? What is Reader?
02:19 The Reader browser extension
03:17 The Reader web app - Library
05:34 Reader Feed tab
06:26 Searching in Reader
07:08 Articles in Reader
07:43 Books in Reader
08:48 Emails and newsletters in Reader
09:47 PDFs in Reader
11:28 Saving Twitter threads in Reader
12:57 Shortlists
14:07 Filtered views in Reader
15:27 The command pane in Reader
16:31 Readwise Reader + Obsidian
17:51 How to try out Reader for yourself
If you want to learn more about Obsidian, check out my course for beginners, Obsidian for Everyone: courses.nicole...
---
// ABOUT ME
Site: nicolevanderho...
Mastodon: pkm.social/@ni...
My work at Grafana Labs: • My work at Grafana Labs
// APPS I USE
- Obsidian: obsidian.md
- Readwise: readwise.io/ni...
- Shortform: shortform.com/...
- Reclaim: go.reclaim.ai/...
- Snipd: link.snipd.com...
Napkin: napkin.one/?vi...
// GEAR
nicolevanderho...
// WANT TO SUPPORT ME?
❤️ Join my Patreon and get my sample vault with templates: / nicolevdh
☕ Buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/nico...
⭐ Buy Obsidian for Everyone, my beginner course on Obsidian: courses.nicole...
Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may get a small percentage when you sign up using those links. To see how I decide what to promote in this way, check out my Ethics Statement: nicolevanderho...

[@nicolevdh]

It's really impressive to see how much the Readwise team has done in a year. Can't wait to see what they do next! readwise.io/nicole The theme I used in this video was Minimal, by @kepano: github.com/kepano/obsidian-minimal , with the red accent colour selected within the Obsidian settings. :)

[@jeremyasteward]

You’ve been hinting about this for a while now, so excited to watch this video on my lunch break! Just wanted to sneak in and try to nab the first comment 😆

[@nicolevdh]

Haha! You did it!! I guess I was less secretive about it than I thought. Much excite!!

[@douglasdrumond]

I’m also a huge fan of Readwise and Reader to the point that I onboarded several users when it was in private beta. It changed the way I approach articles and how I read, and I believe it made me a more active reader. [Edit: typo]

[@nicolevdh]

Wow, that's so great!!! They were lucky to have you help out. I feel the same way about Reader. It's really significantly impacted how I learn.

[@tsadickmelehoff9081]

I love the way You explain!!! Thank You SOOO much

[@addieclark2026]

Incredible video! I am SHOCKED and delighted that I can now highlight directly on the page! this is going to be a massive gamechanger for my workload when it comes out :)

[@jerbear7952]

This is my first video save in readwise and your the first RSS I subscribed to. Thank you for your wonderful videos. You are fantastic

[@arpablothegreat]

I am using Reader for the last few months and I don't want to miss it any more. Highly recommended!!!

[@nicolevdh]

It's great, isn't it?!?! There's just nothing else like it right now.

[@zmy2010xqx]

Hi Nicole, thanks for your effort for letting us know there is such great reader like this! You are my mentor into Obsidian and now you introduced this, it clicked for me right on, and I am a currently full subscription user of readwise and I just emailed them asking for an invite with reference to your videos, but I am not sure how long I can obtain access to it. Anyway so grateful for all your video contents!

[@kristomen]

It was nice to hear "dziękuje" on the end. I switched from Tidlywiki to obsidian thanks to you.

[@nicolevdh]

Glad you appreciated that! :) I used to use TiddlyWiki too! I loved that I could use it on a flash drive - it got me around some companies' annoying restrictions on installing applications. Luckily I don't work for companies like that anymore, because Obsidian is so much better!

[@luvmusicusa]

Thank you for this fantastic video. I was on the fence on my workflow and if readwise was right for me. Going to sign up for it.

[@nicolevdh]

Yay! So happy to hear that. Readwise is freaking awesome.

[@indieMiwi]

Looks really cool, I am so anxious to have a chance to join the beta!

[@nicolevdh]

Glad you think so! It IS cool! I heard they're speeding up how many people they let into the beta now. Hope you get in soon!

[@PaulJacobson]

Really helpful intro video Nicole, thank you.

[@nicolevdh]

Glad you liked it, Paul! :) Thanks for watching.

[@MarkIsero]

Great video. I like Reader, too (especially the keyboard shortcuts). The only feature I wish for is the ability to share annotated links. (I acknowledge that maybe this is not a popular request!)

[@nicolevdh]

I would encourage you to write to Readwise and request it! They've been extremely responsive to requests in my experience. :)

[@JustinSCampbell]

This is very excited. I've only recently started using Readwise and really enjoying it.

[@nicolevdh]

Glad to hear it! If you sign up for early access, maybe you could get to use Reader soon too!

[@TrostCodes]

Just signed up for access. Been using Readwise for a while now with Matter and I'm excited to try this out!

[@nicolevdh]

Great! I've never used Matter. Looking at their site now, it seems like Reader, but with fewer sources. I'd be interested to hear what you think about Reader when you try it out!

[@alexpacific1721]

I don't really understand how Reader and Readwise work together. I can see they are connected but the highlights from my books (on Kindle and Kobo) don't show up in Reader while highlighted tweets do. Also: I can't hookup Reader withe Evernote. Or am I completely missing the point?

[@fsmontenegro]

OMG, this is GREAT! I signed up for the early access immediately after watching you show which page to sign up on :-) Can definitely see this replacing some of my workflows. Basically I see it as a "firewall" before sending stuff to Obsidian. Muito obrigado! Now I get to compulsively check my email for the early access ...

[@nicolevdh]

YAY! In case it helps, maybe email [e-mail] and tell her I sent you. Hope you get admitted soon!

[@fredriccarlsson2035]

Looks amazing. Signed up! How could I have missed this?

[@nicolevdh]

Ikr?? Hey - if you have issues getting into the beta, maybe try emailing [e-mail] and telling her I sent you. I don't actually know if it will do anything but it can't hurt, right? :D

[@dusanvystrcil1311]

Trying to get early access for many months and even while I'm paying customer still without any luck :/ Hope it will get released soon. It looks awesome!

[@TerryBenzie]

I sent them a note. It seems they are releasing it to random KZbinrs (I've seen it in three videos recently) but not paying customers.

[@nicolevdh]

To be clear, I've had access to Readwise Reader longer than I've had this KZbin channel. :) They invited me because I wrote a Python script integrating Readwise with Obsidian (before the plugin was released). Also, I've been paying for Readwise for a few years, so I actually am a paying customer.

[@nicolevdh]

They've been in a more restricted beta the last few months, but they said they'd be opening that up soon. You can always email [e-mail] - can't hurt to ask nicely. :)

[@alexa2269]

This is a very helpful video! Thank you for sharing

[@nicolevdh]

Happy to hear that, Alexa! Thanks for watching!

[@SuperXeroNine]

Great info. I was curious on how you would get blog posts and such into Obsidian. I'm trying out Readwise with your link. Thanks, Nicole. :)

[@nicolevdh]

Thank you so much, Daniel! Appreciate the support, and I'm happy I could help. :)

[@henryzheng6395]

Great Review! Thanks a lot for sharing. Do you think that note taking app is no longer needed for those who are only insterested in collecting and catorgorizing articles?

[@dadsh85]

Hi Nicole. Question: Have you stopped saving bookmarks in your browser? I.e. when do you save a bookmark vs. capture in Readwise Reader?

[@drgokulsyam]

If I buy Readwise subscription, will I get Reader app for free ?? Or do we have to pay for Reader separately.?

[@nicolevdh]

Hey! Yep, Reader comes with Readwise. :)

[@mikethelma]

Is it just me, or is Readwise scrambling my keboard mapping? It is somewhat dissapointing when reading the second paragraph of the introduction to how to use Readwise they instruct me to type "h" after highlighting Antonio Banderas to see some wonderful new feature and instead of that, it invokes the usual CTL-F function of opening the finder box at the bottom of my screen. WTF? In Readwise Reader "h" behaves exactly as if I had typed "CTL-F h". Yeah, I hunted around for rogue processes. I got Power Toys to try to remap it back and that did not help. It seems as if Readwise itself is doing this. I don't have that problem in Gmail ... IOW I just typed "have" and got it in the text here and did not get a search for all comments with words containing the letter "h". Anyone else have this problem? So far, if this is how bad things are going right out of the gate, I really don't want to have anything to do with Readwise Reader. Thoughts?

[@LuanSRezende]

Thanks for the video! I was so curious and excited about Reader and how it's gonna work.. Does the article keep permanently saved even if the web source goes offline?

[@DrDanAllosso]

I wonder whether the highlight function is going to impact social annotation using Hypothesis?

[@nicolevdh]

Hmmm, afaik, Readwise doesn't (yet) plan to introduce social highlighting, so Hypothesis is probably safe from that perspective. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually went down that route though.

[@gregphilipmusic]

So what is the difference between Readwise and Reader? Which is better?

[@holanda73]

Hi Nicole, thanks for this nice tour. Can you tell me if it is possible to add a Twitter account or Twitter search as a feed in Reader (as is possible in some RSS readers). I would then add some specific searches or users to the feed, which would save me time scrolling through my Twitter timeline just to see if I missed anything interesting.

[@emodepo4701]

Is it possible to load books in EPUB format?

[@nicolevdh]

It is! That's exactly what I showed in the books section.

[@chasetoys]

Where is the link to the chrome extension you're using to get live highlights on web pages? I've installed two of them and can't figure out how to replicate. Thanks!

[@nicolevdh]

It's part of Reader - you'll need to be accepted into the beta first, and then you'll get a link to it when you get set up.

[@tucker3303]

I can’t seem to find the answer to this anywhere. When you save a website/article does it save a “permanent” copy in case you are offline, or if the website is removed etc.

[@nicolevdh]

Hey, this is probably best asked of the Readwise team - reach out to [e-mail]. I'm not sure if there's a way to do that, but no local copies are saved by default, if that's what you mean. However, if you're syncing your highlights to Obsidian, which is what I'm doing, then those ARE saved locally and you can access it whenever you want.

[@etobias_musiced]

Very cool - do you know if this would work with highlighting e-books via Nook (Barnes & Noble) on the web?

[@nicolevdh]

Hey! Sorry, I don't use Nook, so I'm not sure!

[@willhelliwell]

Just signed up today and paid for it. The reader experience is great. Then readwise just sits in the background to sync everything to Obsidian. The only thing that doesn’t work for me right now is highlighting a PDF on mobile. It just doesn’t seem possible.

[@nicolevdh]

Glad you're liking it! I'm not having any issues highlighting using the Reader mobile app, though... but I'm using Android so maybe it's an iOS thing? The Reader app works well on my iPad.

[@willhelliwell]

@@nicolevdh I think it’s just that specific PDF actually. I’ve tried others and they all work. This app is game changing for me. Thanks again for the video

[@nicolevdh]

Oh, good to know! Glad it was just that one PDF. I HAVE tried to highlight PDFs that just didn't work well, come to think of it. I think one had three columns with lots of images. Thanks for watching! :)

[@pigu7870]

Dziękuję również :-)

[@PositronMcHappy]

Loving Reader, prob paying in 29 days!

[@nicolevdh]

That is awesome! Reader IS such an essential part of my workflow. Love it! It completely changed the usefulness of Readwise (which I was already sold on).

[@sarahjane9517]

I'm brand new to all of this... soooo just to check this would replace instapapers pretty much?

[@nicolevdh]

Hi Sarah! Welcome! Yes, absolutely. I cancelled my Instapaper subscription immediately.

[@SplittingField]

Just came across the Fork My Brain notes. How to I actually fork? Is there a public repo? Essentially I'm interested in keeping track of new changes to the site much like with rss for a blog.

[@nicolevdh]

Hey! I USED to keep my repo public, hence the name, but later decided to make it a private one. I've been meaning to switch it back over to public for a while now. I wish there were an easier solution to help you keep track of changes, but I don't know of any! I'm hoping this is something the Obsidian team will implement for Publish (which is what I use for it). Sorry about that!

[@nicolevdh]

Hey! I was thinking about your comment, and I actually implemented a Changelog: notes.nicolevanderhoeven.com/Changelog It's not exhaustive, but I thought it might give you an idea of what I've been working on recently. ;)

[@javier_plumey]

Signed up for beta of Readwise on day 1 and never got an invite! When, when, when will it be released?

[@nicolevdh]

Awww, that's a shame. I'm not sure if it would help, but maybe you could try to email [e-mail] to ask for an invite and let her know that you heard about it from me. I don't think they're making it public anytime soon, since it just now entered into public beta. :(

[@meathead919]

How does it handle websites with a paywall? Does the content get sent from the webbrowser (which would be great as its aleady "unlocked") or does Reader crawl the site with a remote bot (bad)?

[@nicolevdh]

Hey! This is a great perk, actually. I don't know exactly how they do it, but yes, I've been able to get around paywalls with this. It'll still show up as locked, but I send it to Reader and can read the whole article there. :)

[@meathead919]

@@nicolevdh That's great to hear, looking forward to getting into the beta.

[@nicolevdh]

I'm not sure if it will help, but just in case it does - you could try emailing [e-mail] and letting her know I sent you. :)

[@sdnnvs]

wow... nice...

[@nicolevdh]

I thought so too!

[@theinstigatorr]

I’m currently using Pocket integration with Kobo to read articles in bed and highlight interesting things the next day on something else. I’m looking forward to being able to use an Android eink tablet instead with the Reader app installed

[@nicolevdh]

Sounds like a good workflow! I know there's an initiative to send things from Reader to Kindle, but I don't know of one to Kobo yet... maybe soon!

[@ThijszonTureluurs]

Strong Google Reader vibes. But better! Basically everything I wanted that service to become, until it got cancelled :(

[@nicolevdh]

OMG I feel the same way! I also used Google Reader and was disappointed when it was cancelled. I never really found anything to replace it with, until Reader-- and Reader has so many more features than Google Reader.