With Omnivore disappearing into the bowels of some other app and all data being deleted soon, I’ve been trying to figure out how to reasonably continue collecting stuff.
Besides the usual suspects, one option is to use the new Obsidian clipper and just save everything to Obsidian.
What I’m trying to do
Things I have tried
I used Omnivore as an inbox of stuff I want to read in the future, so there are many articles there that I will NOT keep for the long term.
So I have LOTS of articles - some rather long - jammed into my Omnivore account right now.
I was thinking of creating a new vault just for saved articles.
Then, in time, read/digest them, and if necessary move them to my permanent vault.
Looking for Opinions/Tips
I’m curious what others have done / are doing in this regard.
How might I sensibly arrange things in Obsidian to be an inbox-y thing for clipped articles WITHOUT using some other app (like Readwise or Pocket or Wallabag or…)?
Just one alternative view to consider. Don’t replace it.
I used to use Pocket. I still technically do. And I have so many things pinned that I intended to read in the future, some from 8 to 10 years ago I bet! It’s like sweeping dust under an infinite rug. I don’t think I’ve even looked at it in over a year.
My theory is that these types of collection inboxes are not even worth using. Maybe they are! Maybe my review process is just missing. But if I’m being honest with myself, I need to probably stop clipping things into apps or tools like this. There is a very high probability that I will never read anything from this account ever.
I appreciate the suggestion, but I do use my Omnivore clippings, even though I end up keeping only maybe 20% of the articles I save. Sometimes, they’re useful tidbits to throw into a lecture; sometimes they’re cues for other ideas.
And once I retire (18924 hrs and counting), I really, really want to focus on that stuff more than I can now.
Pro:
I can easily save on mobile and desktop. (Android, iPad, Mac).
The paid version has AI suggestions for tags. You can bulk-add tags with it.
Has a section for filters: Article, Link, Video, Image. It is useful when you want to read/clean the archive.
Broken links section.
You can organize the links in Collections (folders).
Has a permanent copy option.
You can upload files and read them.
On mobile, it opens the articles by default in the reader.
Con:
No full content saved in Markdown, as Omnivore was doing.
No newsletters.
No official plugin in Obsidian. There is an unofficial one, which syncs only highlights.
My flow:
Read titles/intros of the RSS feeds in Net News Wire and read newsletters in Meco.
What I want to read later, I save to Raindrop.
The same process for when I’m browsing the web or social media.
In Raindrop I have a folder for the links I want to save to Obsidian. When I’m in the app I move there what I want to save.
Weekly I open the links and save the full content with Obsidian Clipper. In Obsidian I have a dedicated folder for these saves, organized by the saved date.
Not sure yet how I’ll process the highlights for the articles saved in Obsidian. I’ll probably save the full content and add manually the highlights made in Raindrop. (Or sync the highlights via the plugin and add links to the full content article).
@pdworkman - May I ask: where do you clip to? Just a folder in a vault? I was thinking of having a separate vault just for wholesale clippings, which I’d then process one by one, moving them to a permanent vault if they’re worth keeping. I figure this will help keep my permanent vault as small as possible. Does that make sense?
@klaus14 - Do you have the paid version of raindrop with the “permanent copy” feature?
If so, do you find that sufficient?
I ask cuz I have the paid version, and it seems raindrop is blocked from articles that live behind paywalls and similar roadblocks.
Pocket also holds a very special place for me. Unfortunately, its free version lacks an offline page-saving feature, which is a major drawback. I believe there should be an official and functional web clipper for Obsidian, similar to what Joplin has. This is, in my opinion, one of the most noticeably missing features.
I appreciate all the input.
Pocket would be a contender, but I think I’m just gonna stick with the new Obsidian clipper, which seems really impressive so far.
As for mobile, for now I’m going to just save things with raindrop and move them to Obsidian as time allows.
(I just haven’t had the time to set up Obsidian for mobile properly.)
OMG, I feel like crying. I had no idea about this until you mentioned it, and I was using Universal Web Clipper, which is also a good add-on. But I’m so happy that Obsidian now has its own Web Clipper and that they made it open source. So far, it’s been working great in legacy mode. My only suggestion is that page previews could be displayed on a larger screen, so we can make edits more comfortably. THANK YOU!
I’m replacing the clipping/notes and the long term storage from Omnivore to Zotero.
The bookmarks i’m testing between Raindrop.io and self-hosted solutions like LinkWarden and Wallabag… still not convinced and keep a lot of the bookmarks on Arc.
What i’m still missing is the newsletters capabilities, i really need something here because the newsletters in the email is causing me not read them…
