Show HN: I made an app to buffer and complete my "read later" list

by lewisjoe • 5 years ago

53 16 5 years ago

lewisjoe2• 5 years ago

Hello HN. Author of https://closetab.email here!

I made this software to solve my "tabdemic" problem. I saw myself ending up with 50+ open tabs in my browser regularly - full of browser tabs I want to read later.

This extension helps me to close those tabs with confidence without sending them to the abyss of bookmarks.

This is how it works:

#1 Bookmark a tab using the extension, with an optional timeout and relevant tags.

#2 Close the tab with confidence. Every monday you'll receive an email digest of links you've been meaning to read.

lewisjoe2• 5 years ago

I've published the source code if you'd like to contribute/host on your own: https://github.com/joelewis/readmelater

adz5a2• 5 years ago

Hello, thanks for your submission this is really interesting. Out of curiosity have you thought about how this problem could relate to history navigation, in the sense that it can create context around a specific resource, ie : retrieve links that you read after reading a HN thread, in order to prioritise its reading order or link it to some topic?

drknownuffin• 5 years ago

What's the timeline for the firefox extension? It looks like it fits up my alley, but I wouldn't want to manage this through google :)

Scarbutt• 5 years ago

Bookmarked

PeterBarrett• 5 years ago

That's a nice idea. My current approach is to close everything off and just accept that if I haven't read it within a couple of days I'm never going to and it's not actually that important! Having articles pop up in my emails sounds like a good approach.

adz5a2• 5 years ago

Mine is to put links in Notion with a description and some tags and then forget forever about it.

lobocinza• 5 years ago

I also do that but with pure markdown notes.

benrbray• 5 years ago

Sometimes I write the title down on a sticky note and put it on my desk before closing the tab. Then, a week later, I don't feel so bad about throwing it away.

For things that I actually do intend to read later but just don't have time now, pasting the title/author/url into a zettelkasten entry helps me with tab anxiety. If I assign a few tags, I might actually read it later!

elcapitan• 5 years ago

I keep notes in Evernote (now in Joplin) about certain topics that interest me, and then when I have one of these "interesting later" articles, I put it in there, usually structured by subtopics etc. Kind of like a manual version of Delicious, but also a bit better structured. When I have a minute for the topic and can wrap my head around it, I have the articles ready for checking out.

leokennis• 5 years ago

I follow your approach too. I think of the "interesting" tabs I open, I maybe visit 50% in the end.

To be honest, the other 50% that I open, never read and then close at the end of the day? Never really missed something truly important, and not reading did not negatively impact my life...

I try to accept that there are just 24 hours in a day, and every second more than 24 hour of interesting content is created, so there's no way to digest it all. Most days, it's working :-)

rognjen• 5 years ago

Nice. I've been using Pocket https://getpocket.com/ for a long while

mellosouls• 5 years ago

Pocket integration is listed on the OP page on the ToDo list.

fwiw for Kindle users: I use p2k which bundles unarchived Pocketed articles and sends them to your Kindle on a (eg daily) basis.

https://p2k.co/

mjip• 5 years ago

Nice! I'm going to save this to my bookmarks so I can eventually configure it later ;)

nicbou• 5 years ago

This is a cool project!

My approach is to send these to Pocket, and read them before bedtime. It's a great way to end the day.

iKlsR• 5 years ago

You should probably have two checkboxes, so you can more accurately see # who would pay vs who wouldn't. My current workflow just uses OneTab to collapse these, name them and save to a page or export if private but I could see myself using this.

Show HN: I made an app to buffer and complete my "read later" list

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