Hands-On Mac 185: Safari Reading List

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hands-On Mac 185: Safari Reading List

Podcast Information:

• Title: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)
• Host/Author: TWiT
• Episode: Hands-On Mac 185: Safari Reading List
• Release Date: June 5, 2025
• Description: Leo Laporte gathers fascinating technology personalities to discuss pivotal tech issues in a fun, relaxed, and informative manner. TWiT is renowned for delivering some of the best tech podcasts globally.

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Introduction

In this episode of Hands-On Mac, host Micah Sargent delves into leveraging Safari's built-in Reading List feature as an effective replacement for Pocket—a popular "read it later" tool that has recently seen diminished usage.

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Replacing Pocket with Safari's Reading List

Micah Sargent begins by addressing the decline of Pocket and introduces Reading List, Safari's native solution for saving articles to read later across all Apple devices.

Micah Sargent [02:57]: "Given the fact that Pocket has gone the way of the dodo, well, at least as far as it seems, I thought it'd be a good time to talk about the fact that you have a built-in tool for doing, you know, pretty much what Pocket did for you all that time."

He demonstrates accessing Reading List on macOS by navigating to the Bookmarks tab in Safari and selecting "Add to Reading List". He highlights the keyboard shortcut Shift + Command + D for quickly adding articles.

Micah Sargent [02:57]: "Shift Command D adds that to your reading list instead. You can also see that right beneath it is a great option that says Add Open tabs to Reading List."

This feature allows users to save multiple open tabs simultaneously, ensuring that all articles of interest are easily accessible later.

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Adding and Managing Items in Reading List

Adding Articles: Micah showcases how to add articles from various websites, such as The Verge, 9to5Mac, 6colors.com, and PaulThorat.com, using both keyboard shortcuts and shift-clicking on links.

Micah Sargent [04:10]: "You can simply shift click on a link on the page to add it to the reading list as well."

Accessing the Reading List: To view the Reading List, Micah clicks the sidebar button in the top-left corner of Safari, revealing sections like Bookmarks, Reading List, Shared with You, and iCloud Tabs.

Micah Sargent [05:00]: "We're of course going to choose reading list and that will open up our reading list."

Managing Items: Within the Reading List, users can:

• Search Articles: Utilize the search bar to find specific items.
• Sort Articles: Toggle between Read and Unread sections.
• Interact with Articles: Right-click options include opening in a new tab/window, marking as read, saving offline, deleting, or clearing all items.
• Trackpad Gestures: Swipe right to mark as read or left to remove/save offline.

Micah Sargent [06:15]: "Swiping to the right will open up the mark as read option. Swiping to the left lets you remove it or save it offline."

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Enhancing the Reading Experience

Continuous Scrolling: Micah demonstrates the seamless experience of scrolling through multiple articles in the Reading List without having to navigate manually between them.

Micah Sargent [08:10]: "If I continue to scroll once I get to the bottom of the page, it will just pop us on to the next article."

Offline Access: A standout feature is the ability to save articles offline, ensuring access even without an internet connection.

Micah Sargent [09:00]: "The save offline option is great because what that lets you do is if you are in a place where you aren't able to access the Internet, that page will be available to you."

Automatic Offline Saving: For users who prefer their articles always accessible, Micah explains how to enable automatic offline saving:

1. Navigate to Safari > Settings > Advanced.
2. Enable "Reading List: Save Articles for Offline Reading Automatically."

Micah Sargent [11:00]: "That way you have those articles, you can get to them no matter where you are."

Reader View Customization: Micah highlights the Reader View feature, which simplifies article layouts and offers customization options such as themes and typefaces.

Micah Sargent [12:30]: "You can make it black in the background, gray in the background, sepia toned in the background and choose the typeface."

He personally prefers the Georgia typeface for its readability.

Micah Sargent [13:00]: "I personally love Georgia because of the serifs on the side and that way you are able to view these pages exactly as you want to in your reading list."

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Conclusion

Micah wraps up by emphasizing that Safari's Reading List, combined with Reader View, offers a robust and integrated solution for managing articles across Apple devices. While it may not cover every feature of dedicated "read it later" services like Pocket, its seamless syncing and customization options make it a compelling alternative.

Micah Sargent [14:30]: "Between reading list and that reader view in Safari, hopefully you can find an easy to use and easy to find and easy to integrate replacement for Pocket if that's the tool you were using before."

He encourages listeners to explore these features to enhance their reading habits and productivity.

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Key Takeaways

• Safari's Reading List is a viable replacement for Pocket, offering seamless integration across Apple devices.
• Users can easily add articles using keyboard shortcuts or shift-clicking links.
• Reading List supports offline access, ensuring articles are available without an internet connection.
• Reader View enhances readability with customizable themes and typefaces.
• Enabling automatic offline saving ensures all Reading List items are always accessible.

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Notable Quotes

• Micah Sargent [02:57]: "Shift Command D adds that to your reading list instead."
• Micah Sargent [06:15]: "Swiping to the right will open up the mark as read option. Swiping to the left lets you remove it or save it offline."
• Micah Sargent [12:30]: "You can make it black in the background, gray in the background, sepia toned in the background and choose the typeface."
• Micah Sargent [14:30]: "Between reading list and that reader view in Safari, hopefully you can find an easy to use and easy to find and easy to integrate replacement for Pocket if that's the tool you were using before."

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Closing Note: This detailed exploration of Safari's Reading List underscores its potential to streamline your reading experience, offering functionality that rivals dedicated services while maintaining the convenience of integration within the Apple ecosystem.

Transcript

[Micah Sargent]

Coming up on Hands on Mac, let's take a look at a way to save what you're reading for later without needing that little tool that went away. Stay tuned.

[Leo Laporte]

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[Micah Sargent]

Podcasts you love from people you trust.

[Leo Laporte]

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[Micah Sargent]

Welcome back to Hands On Mac. I'm Micah Sargent and today, given the fact that Pocket has gone the way of the dodo, well, at least as far as it seems, I thought it'd be a good time to talk about the fact that you have a built in tool for doing, you know, pretty much what Pocket did for you all that time. So let's talk about what that is. It's called Reading List and it exists in Safari across your various devices. So let's head over to macOS to take a look. Although I should note this is also available on your iPhone and your iPad as well. All right, here we are on macOS and as you can see, I have Safari open and I'm going to go to a website that has articles like the Verge for example, and I'm going to open up a document. So let's or document an article. Let's take a look at this article about Mario Kart world. Now let's say I started to read this, but I need to go do something and come back to it later. Well, all you have to do is go up to your Bookmarks tab and choose Add to Reading List. You'll also notice that next to that is the keyboard shortcut. Shift Command D. Command D of course, is the well known way to bookmark something. Shift Command D adds that to your reading list instead. You can also see that right beneath it is a great option that says Add Open tabs to Reading List. If you have multiple documents open multiple articles open that you don't think you're going to be able to get to right now, but you might be able to get to later. This is a great way to get to them whenever you're ready by putting them in your reading list. So we'll add this to the reading list and what I want to do is go through and find a few more things to add. Now remember that we were able to do Command Shift D to add it to our reading list. You can also simply shift click on a link on the page to add it to the reading list as well. So I'm going to quickly find a few things to add here and we're going to go to another site. Let's go to 9to5mac. We'll add this and then we'll go to 6colors.com and add something from there. And then we'll go to. Let's go to Paul. Well of course that's Thorat.com, not PaulThorat.com and add something from here. Remember I'm holding down the shift key and then clicking to add it to my reading list. Now, to access my reading list, I'm simply going to click in the top left corner where we have the show sidebar button. And in doing so, you can see I've got one tab open, I've got some other group tab groups open as well, or available rather as well. But down here at the bottom of the sidebar, I've got bookmarks, I've got reading list, I've got shared with you, and I've got icloud tabs. We're of course going to choose reading list and that will open up our reading list. Now, there are a couple things you can do when it comes to your reading list. I can scroll down from the top so that I can search my reading list. I can sort between what I've read and what I have yet to read. I can of course, click on something to go to that page. If I right click on the reading list item, I have the option to open this reading list item in a new tab, a new window, mark it as read save offline, which we'll talk about in a moment, delete it, meaning removing it from my reading list, and then clear all items, which of course will take that and the other items in our reading list and get rid of them. If you have a trackpad, you can swipe with your trackpad. Swiping to the right will open up the mark as red option. Swiping to the left lets you remove it or save it offline so that you can access it that way. Now, the save offline option is great because what that lets you do is if you are in a place where you aren't able to access the Internet, that page will be available to you and you're able to go through and take a look at it. We're going to take a look at what it's like to view the reading list next.

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[Micah Sargent]

Your reading list open, let's go to this first article here. And here's the cool thing about the reading list. As I'm reading here at the top and I go through and I see my article, blah blah blah, I get to the bottom and if I continue to scroll once I get to the bottom of the page, it will just pop us on to the next article. See, now we're on the third one. This Apple announces 2025 Design Award winners. I can scroll down to the bottom of this and and just push through to the next one. Now we're on to 9 to 5 Mac, so on and so forth. So it's very easy to quickly scroll through your various reading list items. And you may remember whenever we had clicked on the Bookmarks tab that there is an option to select the previous item in the reading list. Select the next item in the reading list and what you can do with that is add a keyboard shortcut to quickly move through those different items so it starts to feel a little bit more like Google Reader Pocket, one of those tools. The last thing I want to mention is as you can, as I mentioned, you can save these offline. What that does is sort of Create a snapshot of that page that's available to you should you ever be disconnected from the Internet, so that even if you're in a place where, okay, I've got no connection, that whole page is going to be available to you. And you can move through your reading list that way. I'm going to see that because I've gone through this list already. These are all red. So if I go to the Unread tab, only this Rivian article, which I didn't scroll all the way through, and the Google Pixel 10 article were the ones that were left as being unread. Now if we go back to the Unread tab, they're all gone. It's all moved over to the all tab, meaning that it has been read. So there's one more tip that I want to give you about the reading list, and that is that maybe you just want to make it so that regardless of where you are and whether you have connection, you can always access your items. That is possible for you to do. You can set it up so that it always saves these articles offline. You go to Safari in the menu bar, you choose Settings, you go to Advanced, and then here you find the option that says Reading List and choose Save Articles for Offline reading automatically. From that point on, anytime you add items to your reading list, those items will be saved automatically offline. They will, as long as you have icloud syncing turned on sync to your iPhones and your iPads, as will their red status where they appear in that list. And they will download as well to be offline on those various devices too. So that way you have those articles, you can get to them no matter where you are. And again, I love that option in bookmarks to be able to choose Add Open tabs to reading lists. So if you got a jet boom, you can save all of them. You hop into public transit, you pull open and you've got all those articles ready for you to read, just as you want to now with Reading List, it's not obviously a complete replacement for some of the other sort of read it later, save it later services that you might have access to. But between that and your ability to turn on the mode that kind of simplifies the page, it comes relatively close, particularly because of the built in syncing that exists between devices. So let me show you really quick as we go back to macOS here. I can choose the webpage options in the top right or the top left of the main bar. And I can choose Show Reader. So now I have a reader view of this document and I can move on to the next one Microsoft announces June 2025 update for the new Outlook Move on to the next one this page doesn't have a reader view, so you can see there's no reader view option allowed, so it honors that setting for the webpage. This does have a reader view available, so I'm able to scroll through that. This does as well, so on and so forth. Being able to access the reader views of these various PA and of course you have control over the theme so you could make it black in the background, gray in the background, sepia toned in the background and choose the typeface. In this case it's currently San Francisco, but you might like something like New York or Times New Roman which is a little bit easier to read or so they say. I personally love a Georgia because of the serifs on the side and that way you are able to view these pages exactly as you want to in your reading list. So between reading list and that reader view in Safari, hopefully you can find an easy to use and easy to find and easy to integrate replacement for Pocket if that's the tool you were using before. Folks, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Hands On Mac. As always, love love love hearing from you. You can reach out micahit TV to get in touch and I'll catch you again next week for another episode. But until then, it is time to say goodbye.

[Leo Laporte]

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[Micah Sargent]

Sam.