Savely Blog

A Read-It-Later App for Android That Works Offline: Savely on Firefox

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

Your phone is where you find most of the things you want to read, and where you have the fewest good moments to read them. That's exactly what a read-it-later app is for.

On Android, there's a catch: Chrome for Android doesn't support browser extensions. Firefox for Android does. That's why Savely runs there, with the same list and the same reader as on your computer, laid out for a small screen.

What you need

Firefox for Android, version 142 or newer (Release, Beta or Nightly all work).
A couple of minutes.

Install Savely on your phone

Open Firefox on your phone.
Open the Firefox menu and go to Extensions, then find Savely in the add-ons catalog (or open Savely's page on addons.mozilla.org).
Tap Add to Firefox and confirm.

Saving an article

Android doesn't have a right-click menu, so saving on your phone goes through the Savely list:

On the page you want to keep, open the Firefox menu and choose Extensions → Savely.
Your list opens. Tap Save this page.

Savely extracts the article from the page you were on and stores it on your phone. It's the same extraction engine Firefox uses for Reader View, so it copes with most news sites, blogs and newsletters.

Reading offline

Tap any article in your list to open it in the reader. The text is stored on your phone, so it opens instantly, with or without signal. That makes it ideal for flights, subways and roaming abroad.

The reader adjusts to how you like to read:

Text size and column width
Serif, sans-serif or a dyslexia-friendly typeface
Light, sepia, dark or system theme, which is handy at night
A progress bar, and it remembers where you stopped

Want the reader to use no data at all? In the reader settings (Aa), tick Don't load remote images. You'll get the text without downloading any pictures from the original site.

Organizing on a small screen

Everything you can do on desktop is reachable from the list on your phone:

Switch between To read, Favorites and Archive
Search the full text of everything you've saved; type tag:name to filter by a tag
Tag, favorite, archive or delete the selected article from the buttons at the top
Open the options (⚙) for export, import and sync

Keep your phone and computer in sync

Savely doesn't have accounts or servers, so sync works differently from most apps: it goes through a private GitHub Gist that you own. Connect the same token on your phone and your computer, and both will read from and write to the same list.

Here's the step-by-step sync guide, including exactly what's stored and the privacy trade-off to be aware of.

Prefer not to sync? You can still move your list manually: export a Full backup (JSON) on one device and import it on the other.

What about iPhone?

Savely doesn't run on iOS today. Safari extensions are a different platform, and Savely currently targets Chromium browsers and Firefox. On Android, though, Firefox gives you a real, offline, private read-it-later app, with no account required.

Sync Your Reading List Across Devices Without a Cloud Account

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

Savely stores your reading list on your device, with no account and no server. That's great for privacy, but most of us read on more than one computer. So how do you get the same list on your laptop and your desktop?

Savely's answer: sync through a place you already own. Right now that's a private GitHub Gist on your own GitHub account. Savely never sees your data in transit, because there's no Savely server for it to pass through.

This guide covers setup, how merging works, and the privacy trade-offs you should know about before turning it on.

Before you start: the privacy trade-off

Sync is off by default, deliberately. Here's what turning it on means:

Your list (addresses, titles, tags, highlights, notes) and the article text are stored in a private Gist.
A private Gist isn't listed publicly or shown on your profile, but it is not end-to-end encrypted. Anyone who has your token, or access to your GitHub account, can read it.
The token stays in local extension storage on each device, and is never copied into your browser's own settings sync.

If that trade-off works for you, read on. If not, you can still move your list between machines with a manual export and import.

Step 1: Create a GitHub token

On GitHub, go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens.
Create a token with the smallest possible access:
- a classic token needs only the gist scope, or
- a fine-grained token needs only Gists: read and write.
Copy the token. GitHub shows it only once.

Giving the token only Gist access means that even if it leaked, it couldn't touch your repositories.

Step 2: Connect Savely

Open your Savely list and click ⚙ to open the options page.
Scroll to Sync across devices and pick GitHub Gist as the provider.
Paste your token and click Connect.
Your browser will ask for permission to access api.github.com. Allow it; sync can't work without it.

On the first sync, Savely looks for an existing Savely Gist on your account. If there isn't one, it creates a new private Gist.

Step 3: Sync

Click Sync now to sync on demand.
Tick Sync automatically every 30 minutes to let it run in the background while your browser is open.

Step 4: Add your other devices

On each other computer, install Savely and connect the same token. Savely finds the existing Gist and joins it, so every device ends up reading from and writing to the same place.

How Savely merges changes

Two devices will inevitably change the same list between syncs. Savely's rules are designed so you never lose something you meant to keep:

Items are matched by address, with tracking parameters like utm_source ignored, so the same article saved on two machines becomes one item.
Tags and highlights are combined, never overwritten. Tag an article "work" on your laptop and "later" on your desktop, and it ends up with both. If the same passage is highlighted on both, the version with a note wins.
Other fields (favorite, archived, and so on) take the most recent change.
Deletions are remembered, so an item you delete on one device disappears from the others too. The exception: if you changed that item on another device after deleting it, the newer, deliberate edit wins and the item comes back.
If another device synced in the meantime, Savely stops rather than overwrite its changes, and tells you. Click sync again to merge.

What's inside the Gist

Two files:

savely-sync.json: your list's metadata (addresses, titles, tags, highlights, deletions) in readable JSON.
savely-contents.json.gz.base64: the article text, compressed.

Because it's a normal Gist, GitHub keeps its revision history, which gives you an extra safety net.

Limits worth knowing

Size: Savely refuses to upload a file larger than about 9 MB and says so plainly. Compressed article text for several hundred articles fits comfortably.
Automatic sync only runs while the browser is open.
Disconnecting removes the token from that device. It doesn't delete the Gist or your local list.

Prefer not to use GitHub?

Then don't. Savely works fully without sync. For an occasional move between machines, use Export → Full backup (JSON) on one device and Import on the other. Imports merge by address, so nothing is duplicated or overwritten.

Read It Later Without an Account: Why Your Reading List Should Live on Your Device

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

Think about what's in your reading list right now. Probably an article about a health symptom you haven't told anyone about. A guide to negotiating salary, saved on a Tuesday afternoon. Something about the neighborhood you're thinking of moving to. A long read on a political topic you'd rather not argue about at dinner.

A reading list is a diary of your curiosity. It's arguably more revealing than your browsing history, because it's the curated part: the things you cared about enough to keep.

So it's worth asking where that diary lives.

The hidden cost of "sign up to save"

Most read-it-later apps work the same way: create an account, and every article you save is copied to the company's servers. That's how they sync across devices, and for years it seemed like a fair trade.

It comes with three costs that are easy to ignore until they aren't.

1. Someone else holds a record of what you read

Even with the best intentions, a server-side reading list is data: stored, backed up, possibly analyzed, and subject to whatever the company's privacy policy says this year. A breach, an acquisition or a policy change can put it somewhere you never agreed to.

2. Services shut down

Pocket, one of the oldest and best-known read-it-later services, was shut down by Mozilla in July 2025. Omnivore, a popular open-source alternative, closed in late 2024. In both cases users got a deadline to export their data, and anyone who missed it lost their list.

When your reading list lives on someone else's server, its lifespan is tied to their business decisions.

3. Your list is only as portable as they let it be

Exports tend to be an afterthought: a CSV of links without the article text, or without your highlights and notes. Moving between services often means starting over.

What "local-first" means

A local-first app keeps your data on your device as the primary copy. The network is optional: it's used when you ask for it, not as a precondition for the app to work.

For a reading list, that means:

Saving stores the article in your browser, not on a server.
Reading works offline, because the article is already on your device.
Searching runs locally, across the full text of everything you've saved.
Leaving is easy, because the data is already yours to export.

How Savely does it

Savely is a read-it-later extension for Chrome, Firefox and Firefox for Android, built local-first from the ground up:

There is no Savely server. Not a small one, not an optional one. There's nowhere for your list to be uploaded to.
There is no account. Install it and start saving.
There is no telemetry. No analytics, no crash reporting, no "anonymous usage statistics".
Articles are stored in your browser's own database (IndexedDB), along with your tags, highlights and notes.
The network is used only when you act: to fetch the page you're saving, to show that page's images in the reader (which you can turn off), or to sync, if you switch that on.

"But I need it on more than one device"

Fair. Savely's sync is off by default, and when you turn it on, it goes through a place you own, never through us. Today that's a private GitHub Gist on your own GitHub account. Both devices read and write the same Gist, and Savely merges the changes. Here's the full walkthrough, including the privacy trade-offs.

"What if I want to leave?"

You should always be able to. The options page exports:

a full JSON backup with every item, the article text, your tags and your highlights, and
a bookmarks file in the standard format every browser can import.

Savely also keeps a daily snapshot of your list's metadata (tags, favorites, archive state, dates), so an accidental mass-delete isn't the end of the world.

The trade-offs, honestly

Local-first isn't free of compromises:

Your device is the backup. If you clear your browser data without exporting, the list goes with it. Export occasionally, or turn on sync.
No web app. You read in the browser where Savely is installed.
No iPhone app. Savely runs where browser extensions run: desktop Chrome, Firefox and Chromium browsers, plus Firefox on Android.

For many people those are easy trades for a reading list that nobody else can read, mine, sell or shut down.

The short version

Your reading list is personal. It should work offline, survive any company's business decisions, and be yours to take anywhere. That's the whole idea behind Savely.

How to Save Web Pages for Offline Reading in Chrome and Firefox

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

You find a great long read at the worst moment: five minutes before a flight, on a spotty train connection, or at midnight when you should be asleep. The obvious fix is to save it for later. The less obvious question is how, because "later" is often "offline", and a bookmark is useless without a connection.

Here are four ways to save a web page for offline reading in Chrome and Firefox, with the honest trade-offs of each.

1. "Save page as" (Ctrl+S)

Every desktop browser can save a page to disk. Press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) and choose Webpage, Complete.

Good for: archiving a page exactly as it looked.

Not great for: actually reading it later. You get an HTML file plus a folder of assets, often including ads, scripts and pop-ups that break without a connection. After a few weeks your Downloads folder is a graveyard of article_files directories with no titles, no tags and no search.

2. Print to PDF

Press Ctrl+P and choose Save as PDF as the printer.

Good for: sharing, annotating in a PDF app, or keeping a legal-grade copy of what a page said.

Not great for: comfortable reading. PDFs lock in page breaks and column widths designed for paper. On a phone you end up pinching and zooming, and menus, footers and cookie banners often end up in the print too.

3. Reader view

Firefox has a built-in Reader View (the page icon in the address bar, or F9), and Chrome offers a reading mode in its side panel. Both strip a page down to the text and let you adjust fonts.

Good for: reading right now without distractions.

Not great for: later. Reader modes clean up the page you have open; they don't keep a copy. Close the tab or lose your connection and it's gone. Browser reading lists help you remember links, but they mostly store the address, not the article.

4. A read-it-later extension

A read-it-later extension combines the good parts: it extracts the article like reader view does, stores it like Save As does, and keeps everything in one searchable, organized list.

This is what Savely is built for. Here's how saving works:

Click the Savely button in your toolbar, right-click the page and choose Save to Savely, or press Ctrl+Shift+S.
Savely runs the same article-extraction engine Firefox uses for Reader View on the page you're looking at, so it works even on sites that build their content with JavaScript.
The cleaned article text is stored in your browser. The page's clutter is left behind.

You can also save a link without opening it: right-click any link and choose Save link to Savely.

Reading it later, offline

Open your list, pick an article, press Enter. The reader works with no connection at all, and lets you choose:

Text size and column width
Typeface: serif, sans-serif, or a dyslexia-friendly option with wider letter and word spacing
Theme: light, sepia, dark, or follow your system

It shows a progress bar, remembers where you stopped, and marks an article as read once you've got through 90% of it. You can highlight passages and attach notes as you go.

Truly offline? Article text is always stored locally. Images still load from the original site, so without a connection you'll see the words but not the pictures. If you'd rather the reader send no requests at all, open the reader settings (Aa) and tick Don't load remote images.

Which method should you use?

You want to…	Use
Keep an exact snapshot of a page	Save As (`Ctrl`+`S`)
Share or annotate a fixed document	Print to PDF
Read the page in front of you, distraction-free	Reader view
Build a reading list you can read offline, search and organize	A read-it-later extension

For most people, most of the time, the last row is the one that matters. A reading list only works if it's somewhere you'll actually come back to, with the articles still inside it.

A note on privacy

Most read-it-later services store your list on their servers, which means a company holds a detailed record of what you read. Savely stores everything on your device instead, with no account and no analytics. If that matters to you, here's why we built it that way.

Pocket Is Gone: How to Move Your Saved Articles to a Private Alternative

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

Mozilla shut Pocket down in July 2025. For a lot of people that meant losing a habit, not just an app: years of "I'll read this later" links, tagged and archived, suddenly needing a new home.

If you exported your data before Mozilla's deadline, you're holding a file that can bring that whole list back. This guide shows how to move it into Savely, a free read-it-later extension for Chrome and Firefox that keeps everything on your own device, so the next shutdown can't take your list with it.

What's actually in a Pocket export

Pocket's export is a ZIP archive with one or more CSV files inside (typically named something like part_000000.csv). Each row is one saved item, with these columns:

title: the article title
url: the address you saved
time_added: when you saved it
tags: your tags, separated by a |
status: whether the item was unread or archived

Notice what's missing: the article text itself. Pocket's export is a list of links, not a library of articles. That matters later.

Didn't export in time? Unfortunately, once Pocket's export window closed there was no official way to recover the data. If you have an old export lying around (check your Downloads folder for pocket ZIP or CSV files), it will still import fine.

Step 1: Unzip your export

Extract the ZIP file somewhere easy to find. You'll end up with one or more .csv files. Larger accounts get split across several parts; you'll import each one.

Step 2: Install Savely

Add Savely to Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi or Opera. There's no sign-up screen, because there's no account. The extension is ready the moment it's installed.

Step 3: Import the CSV

Click the Savely button in your toolbar to open your list.
Click the ⚙ (Data and backups) button in the top bar. This opens the options page.
Find the Import card and click Choose a file.
Pick your Pocket .csv file.

Savely shows a short report: how many items were added, how many were merged with ones you already had, and any rows it had to skip (for example, a row with a broken address). If your export has several parts, repeat this for each file. Importing the same file twice is harmless, since items with the same address are merged instead of duplicated.

What comes across

From Pocket	In Savely
Title and link	✅ Title and link
Save date (`time_added`)	✅ Kept, so your list stays in the order you built it
Tags	✅ Every tag, ready to filter with `tag:name` in search
Archived items	✅ Land in your Archive tab
Unread items	✅ Land in To read
Article text	❌ Not in Pocket's export (see below)

An import in Savely never deletes anything and never overwrites content you already have. It only adds. So it's safe to run even after you've started saving new articles.

Getting the article text back

Because Pocket only exported links, your imported items start out as entries without a stored copy of the article. To get a clean, offline-readable version of anything you care about:

Open the original page. Select the item and press o, or double-click it.
Save it again with the toolbar button or Ctrl+Shift+S.

Savely recognizes the address, fills in the article text on the existing entry, and keeps your tags and archive state. No duplicate.

You don't need to do this for your whole backlog at once. Most people find their real reading list is a few dozen items; the rest is history you mostly want searchable, which titles and tags already give you.

Why pick a local-first replacement this time

Pocket's shutdown is a reminder that a hosted reading list is only as permanent as the company running it. Savely takes a different approach:

No server to shut down. Your list lives in your browser's own storage. There is no Savely cloud.
Export is always one click away. Full JSON backups (articles, tags, highlights) or a standard bookmarks file any browser can open.
No account, no tracking. What you read is nobody's business, and Savely was built without anywhere to send it.
Sync only if you want it, through a private GitHub Gist you own. Here's how that works.

Quick recap

Unzip your Pocket export.
Install Savely.
⚙ → Import → choose each .csv file.
Re-save the articles you want to read offline.

That's it. Your reading list is back, and this time it's yours.