What is Readwise?
Readwise is a reading app that saves, highlights, and resurfaces content from ebooks, articles, PDFs, videos, and newsletters for readers who want to retain and use what they consume. It covers the full reading workflow from saving content to reviewing it over time. A built-in read-it-later inbox handles web articles, RSS feeds, EPUBs, PDFs, YouTube transcripts, Twitter threads, and newsletters. Highlights sync automatically to note-taking tools and resurface daily through spaced repetition review. Mobile apps for iOS and Android and a web app keep everything accessible across devices.
Features & Benefits
- Read-It-Later Inbox: save web articles to a distraction-free reading environment built for focused reading and highlighting.
- Web Highlighting: highlight and annotate any page on the open web using the browser extension without saving first.
- RSS Reader: subscribe to website RSS feeds inside the reading app to follow publications and blogs.
- Newsletter Inbox: subscribe to email newsletters directly inside the reading app to keep them out of your email inbox.
- PDF Reader: upload and read PDFs with full highlighting and annotation support.
- EPUB Reader: upload and read ebooks in EPUB format alongside all other content types.
- YouTube Transcript Highlighting: watch YouTube videos and highlight from the transcript inside the reading app.
- Twitter Thread Reader: compile Twitter threads into readable long-form articles for easier reading and highlighting.
- Highlight Import: sync existing highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, iBooks, and other sources into the library.
- Physical Book Highlight Capture: photograph text from physical books to add those highlights to the library.
- Annotations and Tagging: add notes to any highlight and tag it to organize the library by topic or project.
- Full-Text Search: find any highlight or saved document by keyword across the full library, including offline.
- Ghostreader: use the built-in AI reading assistant to ask questions about documents, define terms, and simplify complex language.
- Text to Speech: listen to any saved document read aloud in a natural human voice.
- Keyboard Navigation: navigate, highlight, and annotate documents without using a mouse.
- Daily Review: receive a daily email or in-app session that resurfaces highlights using spaced repetition for long-term retention.
- Note-Taking App Sync: export highlights continuously to tools like Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, Roam Research, and Logseq.
- Offline Access: read and search saved content without an internet connection across all apps.
- Cross-Device Sync: keep highlights, documents, and reading progress in sync across web, iOS, and Android.
- Library Import: import an existing read-it-later library from Instapaper and other apps, and import RSS feeds via OPML.
What can Readwise do?
- Sync Kindle highlights to a reading app
- Save articles to read later
- Highlight PDFs with annotations
- Subscribe to RSS feeds in a reading app
- Read newsletters outside of email
- Highlight YouTube video transcripts
- Upload and read EPUB ebooks
- Capture highlights from physical books
- Review book highlights with spaced repetition
- Get a daily email with saved highlights
- Search highlights and saved documents offline
- Sync reading highlights to Notion
- Sync reading highlights to Obsidian
- Ask AI questions about a saved article
- Listen to articles with text to speech
Real-World Applications
A researcher or student working across books, PDFs, and articles can bring all of that into one reading app. PDFs upload directly. Web articles save with one click. Highlights from all those sources flow into a single searchable library and export automatically to Notion, Obsidian, or Logseq for use in writing and note-taking.
Someone who follows a lot of writers and publications can replace several apps with Readwise. RSS feeds, newsletters, and saved articles land in the same inbox. The reading app surfaces everything in a clean, distraction-free interface with full highlighting and annotation built in.
Professionals who consume YouTube videos and long Twitter threads for research may find those content types easier to work with here. Transcript highlighting pulls key ideas out of videos directly. Thread compilation turns fragmented posts into readable documents worth annotating.
A consistent reader who finishes books but struggles to retain the ideas can use the Daily Review to build a recall habit. The reading app resurfaces the right highlights at timed intervals over days and weeks. Over time that habit turns a backlog of past highlights into an actively useful knowledge base.
