Readwise 101: Get Notes & Highlights from Pocket, Instapaper, & Kindle into Evernote
Updated Oct 14, 2020 Wed
This article is purely focused on Readwise’s (affiliate link) ability to gather your notes and highlights into one place and send it to Evernote. They have other stand-out features, like…
Tagging, adding chapter metadata, and combining highlights as your read
… but their Evernote integration is the one I use the most by far.
My main capture workflow is Kindle/Hypothes.is/Instapaper/Twitter -> Readwise -> Evernote.
After I highlight something or add a note, they automatically go into my Evernote’s “Readwise” notebook. From there I can move notes into other notebooks and they would still sync with any future updates and highlights.
For example, I use my Readwise -> Evernote workflow to pull information from books, newsletters, and other sources to write my curation newsletter. I couldn’t have pulled my curation pages for Cal Newport and James Clear without it.
Note, that you’ll need a Readwise Full membership ($8/month) to unlock Evernote sync and tags/notes.
I outline my capture workflow in this video:
This post is an updated companion to that video. I’ll also talk about other methods I didn’t cover in the video like:
Mobile uploads/scans for physical books with Readwise app
When I use Hypothes.is vs Instapaper.
My read-it-later workflow for PDFs
Their NEW integration to save podcast notes
Saving notes for YouTube videos
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Kindle & iBooks: How to Save eBook Highlights
I buy most of my books on Amazon and read them on the Kindle iOS app. Highlights for books bought and read on Kindle are automatically sent to Readwise. Yay!
You can export your Kindle highlights and email them to add@readwise.io. This is especially useful for saving highlights for personal documents that you upload to the Kindle app or to your standalone device.
If you have to download and read a book outside of the Kindle ecosystem, I prefer getting them as ePub files and reading them on iBooks. Highlights on all ePub books can then be exported and emailed to Readwise via add@readwise.io.
Hypothes.is & Instapaper: How to Save Online Article Highlights
Instapaper is for articles that I want to read later - mostly, non-work related articles - while Hypothes.is is for articles and PDFs that I read as I find them.
Method 1: Hypothes.is
Hypothes.is great for articles and PDFs.
I've tried LINER and Highly (RIP). Hypothes.is is better because it lets you annotate each highlight and it also lets you annotate PDFs. This lets you use Readwise’s tagging syntax to identify headings (.h1, .h2, and .h3) and concatenate highlights (.c1, .c2, .c3 …).
You can’t highlight PDFs or add annotations with any other highlighting tool (that I know of).
One of my favourite tricks is copying and annotating any sources or quotes the author uses. This saves the source to Evernote for further research later, lets me quote original sources, and keeps me focused on the current material.
The only thing with Hypothes.is right now is that it’s pretty clunky. You need to log in for every new page you want to highlight. When you delete a comment, Hypothes.is automatically scrolls the entire page up. But if you’re talking about the fundamentals - getting highlights and notes into Readwise - it’s perfect.
Method 2: Instapaper/Pocket
For articles I want to read in bulk or offline, I use Instapaper. Like all the other apps, any highlights and notes go into Readwise then Evernote. And like Hypothes.is, Readwise’s tagging syntax works, too!
Note that you’ll need Instapaper Premium ($3/month) to make more than 3 highlights per article. Pocket, I think, has unlimited highlights free (and integrates with Readwise, too). I’ve used both but I just like Instapaper better.
Kindle, iBooks, & PDFExpert: How to Save PDF Highlights
Getting PDF highlights into Readwise and Evernote depend on how you like to read them, as long as the app lets you export your notes and email them to add@readwise.io.
The fastest way is to read on your browser and highlight with Hypothes.is. But if you want to save your PDFs for later, here's what you can do.
Highlighting PDFs on Kindle
Email the PDF to your Kindle email address with the subject line “Convert”. This converts the PDF into a personal document you can read on the Kindle app.
Read and highlight as normal.
After reading, export and email your highlights to add@readwise.io.
Highlighting PDFs on iBooks
Uploading the file is easiest to do on a Mac.
Drag and drop the PDF into iBooks on Mac. Wait for it to sync to the cloud.
Same as Kindle, after reading, export the highlights and email to add@readwise.io.
Highlighting PDFs with a PDF reader
Personally, I read PDFs with PDFExpert. Same process as Kindle and iBooks: Export highlights then email to add@readwise.io.
How to Save Tweets and Tweetstorms
This is one feature that I didn’t know I needed until it was there. I save so much from Twitter, from cutting videos from @ReceiverSchool to tweet threads from VCs.
There’s 2 ways to save tweets. You can...
Reply “@readwiseio save” to the tweet. Kinda like the Unroll app.
DM the tweet to @readwise.io, along with any notes or comments you have (I prefer this latter method because it’s less intrusive.)
Saving tweetstorms is similar. You can either
Reply “@readwiseio save thread” to the last tweet in the thread
DM the thread to @readwise.io with “thread” or "t" in the message
How to Save Book Highlights
For physical books, I’ve tried CSV bulk imports and the Readwise app’s OCR feature. As of this writing, I prefer CSV imports for physical books. Typing into a CSV is faster than scanning (for now).
But honestly? I’ve mostly been repurchasing, re-reading, and highlighting the Kindle versions of my books.
Thanks to Readwise, the time it costs to re-read a 200-300-page book is about the same as the time it takes to type-flip-type-flip through it.
Method 1: CSV Import
You can import a CSV of your notes through Readwise’s bulk import method.
The Highlights field is the only requirement, but I’d recommend adding a Title and the URL for articles.
You can have multiple books and articles in each CSV. You don’t have to do a new import for each article or book.
Method 2: OCR & The Mobile App
I didn’t cover this in the video.
With the Readwise app, you can take a photo of the page or book. The optical character recognition within Readwise lets you highlight the passage you want to save.
I haven’t used this feature as much as I’d like to. I tend to highlight multiple passages in a page. As of this writing, I would need to take for each highlight I have on that page.
They recently came out with a way to highlight with OCR across multiple pages. So that’s something I’ll be testing. 🤓
Bonus: Tagging for Readwise
If you want more details on how tagging works in Readwise (I use this a lot), check out these guides from Readwise:
Airr Audio: How to Save Podcast Notes
Readwise came out with an integration with podcast app Airr.
As far as I know, Airr is the only podcast app that lets you take notes as you listen to podcasts.
Airr captures the transcript, your notes, the timestamp, and a link to the episode and sends all of this to Readwise (and Evernote).
The app itself is very buggy, but the team is responsive and is working hard on bug fixes.
To the Airr team: If revenue will help you improve the product faster, I know I'm willing to pay. :)
Annotate.TV: How to Take Notes on YouTube videos
This is another new Readwise integration with Annotate.TV, an app that lets you take notes on YouTube videos.
You can either paste the link into Annotate.TV or install a browser extension that does that for you. Similar to Airr Audio, you can take notes as you read and your notes get sent to Readwise automatically.
The app is free for up to 5 annotated videos. And you have to pay $4/month to sync to Readwise (among other premium features).
If you enjoyed this article, you can sign up for Readwise using my affiliate link.
You get a 60-day free trial – that’s 2x more than the usual 30 days – and I get a commission fee for the first year you use the app (at no extra cost to you, you know the drill 😉).
Thank you in advance!