Like at least a few people I use Readwise to collect highlights and notes from various sources. I tried Roam for a while but prefer Obsidian. Unfortunately, there is no official integration yet (but they are working on one) between Readwise and Obsidian. So I looked up the API and made my own with Python.
Currently, it’s set up to download new book, article, and podcast highlights ( I haven’t tested podcasts yet) with some metadata headers that I use similarly to the Roam Readwise feature. The program will prompt you for the number of days in the past to grab highlights from and then download all your highlights into markdown files titled with the article or book title.
This configuration won’t suit everyone. It’s meant to be a jumping-off point for others to modify. If you have a minimum level of Python experience (or any language for that matter) you should be able to see what’s happening and modify the code to suit your needs referencing the Readwise API guide as well. I may add other configuration options in the future, but I think it’s good enough for others to use as is.
I’ve only been using it for a couple of days so please consider this a very alpha version. If you find bugs, please leave a note on Github.
Notes
- I add a link to the current daily note with each file in the format
YYYY-MMM-DDbut you can modify it if you use another format. - I use Instapaper so I haven’t tested it with Pocket
- It currently doesn’t support Kindle location links that open in the Cloud Reader as this needs another integration with the Kindle API
- I add the
#inboxtag so I can finish cataloging the notes in Readwise - There are more details on how to get your Readwise API access token and what to do with in the README.