PocketReader
Pocket is gone. Your reading list shouldn’t be.
PocketReader is a portable Windows app that turns your Raindrop.io bookmarks into a fast, private, fully-offline reading library — one you actually own. Save articles in Raindrop like always. PocketReader pulls them down, archives the full text on your disk, and gives you a calm place to read, search, highlight, and revisit them — online or off, with no subscription and no server.
Why this exists
For a decade, “read it later” meant Pocket. Save now, read later, trust it’ll be there. Then Mozilla shut Pocket down for good — and that reliable little home for the things you meant to read vanished with it.
Raindrop.io is the natural place to save now: unlimited bookmarks, free. But saving is only half the job, and the reading half has walls:
- 🔒 The reading features cost extra. Full-text search, forever copies of your articles, and annotations are all locked behind Raindrop Pro.
- 🌐 It’s online-only. Raindrop opens your saves in the browser, on the live web. No connection — or a dead link, or a new paywall — and the article you saved is simply gone.
PocketReader fills that gap. Point it at your Raindrop account once, and it fetches and extracts every article’s full text and images, and stores them locally. From that moment your library is yours: it reads beautifully offline, it’s searchable to the last word, and it outlives link-rot, paywalls, and disappearing sites.
Raindrop is where you save. PocketReader is where you read, keep, and come back.
📖 New here? Start with the User Guide.
What makes it different
📦 Portable — no server, no cloud, no setup. Other self-hosted readers want Docker and a server you babysit. PocketReader is one self-contained folder. Install it to any drive — even a USB stick — and carry your whole library with you.
🔒 One-way and private by design. It only ever reads from Raindrop and never writes back. Your ratings, notes, and highlights stay on your machine. No telemetry. No external AI. Even tag suggestions are computed locally.
📴 Offline-first, and genuinely fast. Clean, readable articles with images baked in, opening instantly with no connection. Full-text search runs across tens of thousands of articles in milliseconds.
🪶 A real native app, not a browser tab. Built with WinUI 3 — Mica material, light/dark, a proper distraction-free reading window.
Raindrop free + PocketReader
| Locked behind Raindrop Pro | In PocketReader (local, free) |
|---|---|
| Full-text search | ✅ Built-in, offline, across your cached articles |
| “Forever copies” of articles | ✅ Your own local copies — full text and images |
| Annotations | ✅ Per-article notes and in-text highlights |
| Suggested tags | ✅ Smart tag suggestions + auto-tag, computed locally |
…and things Raindrop doesn’t do at all:
🔊 Offline text-to-speech · 📄 Export to PDF · 📈 Reading statistics · ⭐ Star ratings · ⏯ Reading progress & resume · 🗑 Recycle Bin
Features
Read
- Distraction-free reader — Light / Sepia / Dark, adjustable text size
- Reading-progress bar and resume where you left off
- Listen — built-in offline text-to-speech
- Export to PDF — save any article exactly as it reads
Organize
- Tags with a drag-and-drop Tag Manager and local tag suggestions
- 1–5 star ratings, per-article notes, and in-text highlights
- Browse by Favorites, Unread, Notes, Highlights, Ratings, or any tag
- Card or list view; sort and density to taste
Keep & review
- Lightning-fast full-text search across your offline library
- Recycle Bin — delete safely, restore anytime; deleted items never re-sync back
- Statistics — articles read, words read, time spent, day streaks, 30-day activity
Manage
- One-click sync (incremental or full), batch tagging, batch offline caching
- JSON export/import of your entire library
How it works
- Install — run the setup, pick any folder or drive (no admin needed).
- Connect Raindrop — the simplest way is Sign in with a token (Raindrop → Settings → Integrations → create a test token). Browser OAuth is also supported if you supply your own Raindrop app credentials.
- Sync — pull your bookmarks in.
- Download offline — cache the full articles, then read anywhere, anytime.
Requirements
- Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
- A free Raindrop.io account
- That’s it — no server, no subscription, no second device required.
Privacy
PocketReader talks to two places only: Raindrop, to read your bookmarks, and the websites of the articles you saved, to fetch their text. Nothing else leaves your computer. Your reading, tags, ratings, notes, and highlights are stored locally and never sent anywhere.
Build from source
Requires the .NET 8 SDK and the Windows App SDK workload.
dotnet build -c Release -p:Platform=x64
Browser OAuth credentials are intentionally not included in this repository. To enable one‑click browser sign‑in, create your own app at Raindrop → Settings → Integrations (redirect URI http://localhost:8080/callback) and set the RaindropClientId / RaindropClientSecret constants in MainWindow.xaml.cs. Otherwise, use Sign in with a token — it needs no app credentials.
License
Released under the MIT License. © 2026 Aung Ko Ko · more of my apps —
PocketReader isn’t a Raindrop replacement — it’s the reading half Raindrop leaves out, and the Pocket-shaped hole it left behind.