💡 WiseUp! Vol. 66 — Import from Voicenotes, read a classic with us, and we're hiring!
This week, our team is going back to the classics. We're sharing what we're reading, from Tolstoy to Dumas, and challenging you to a quiz on famous first lines. Can you beat our high score?
On the app side, we've fixed dark mode highlights on mobile (they're readable again!), sped up document chat replies, and improved how Reader renders saved tweets. Read on for all the details or check out our log of weekly improvements.
By the way, we're currently hiring for a Senior Staff Engineer! If you or someone you know might be a good fit (and loves reading), check out our posting here.
Before we get into the tips…
📍 Let's start with a reading recommendation
Build your bookshelf: Anna Karenina
Our team has been getting back into the classics. Support specialist Angie is chipping away at The Count of Monte Cristo, head of bizOps Fernando just finished Middlemarch, and Wisereads editor Abi has Tolstoy's Anna Karenina lined up next. She'd love for you to join. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Speaking of classics, we've been passing around our scores on this quiz featuring famous first lines. Take it and let us know if you're more well-read than us. Our high score is 4460.😛
From the support inbox
Have questions about using Readwise or Reader in your workflow? We'd love to be your guide! Reply to this email with your question and you might be featured in an upcoming issue. Even if your question isn’t featured, we’ll respond to every message.
❓ A Readwise question from Joe K:
Is there a way to get my voice notes into Readwise?
Save more of your everyday thoughts by speaking instead of typing. The Voicenotes app turns audio notes into text and includes AI tools for summaries, key takeaways, to-do lists, and more. The Readwise integration brings each new note into Readwise as a highlight. You can connect your account with these instructions.
❓ A Reader question from Charles M:
Can I search for just the documents in my Feed?
Find Feed documents faster by searching the title, author, or source right inside Readwise. While full article content is not yet searchable, you can still zero in on what you need with a filtered view (Shift + F) like feed:true AND title__contains:"AI". For those who like exploring advanced tools, full text search is available through the Readwise MCP or CLI.
📖 New help doc of the week
Share the internet more thoughtfully
Reader is great for collecting interesting ideas for yourself, but occasionally you might want to release one back into the wild. This week, we’re featuring Cayla’s guide on ways you can share your Reader content with friends, colleagues, and fellow internet scavengers.
🎬 New video of the week
No lost highlights
Sometimes you wind up with a book so old, getting a digital copy is impossible. Thankfully, you can still capture the wisdom within those real pages and add them to Readwise using this feature.
📰 Apr 25 - May 1 updates
What's new in Reader and Readwise
🌓 Fixed Mobile Dark Mode Highlights — Adam fixed a bug where highlight text appeared black in dark mode on mobile. Highlights are now readable in dark mode again.
⚡ Improved Document Chat Speed — A regression in the OpenAI model used by document chat was causing a slowdown in the replies. Adam switched the chat tool-call to use a different model, so replies should feel quicker again.
👆 Fixed Annotation Bar After Auto-Highlighting — Adam fixed a bug where the annotation bar popover didn't appear after a highlight was created via auto-highlighting. The popover now shows up the way it does for manual highlights.
📧 Fixed Feed Email Attachments — Thanks to Rasul, attachments forwarded to a Feed email address now reliably land in your Feed instead of occasionally bouncing into Library.
🐦 Improved Tweet Rendering — Tristan tightened how Reader renders saved tweets so they conform to Twitter's display rules and look closer to the original.
📨 Fixed Twitter List Digests — Tristan fixed an issue with Twitter list digests in Reader, caused by a change in the Twitter API. Twitter digests should now be working again.
📄 Fixed Kindle Highlight Parsing — Rasul fixed a parsing bug where Kindle Notebook HTML with no space before the color parentheses caused some highlights to be skipped during import. Your imports should be complete again, even when Kindle's HTML is squished.
✉️ Added Kindle Sender Aliases for Trailing-Dot Usernames — Rasul added a fallback Kindle sender address (rwkindle-<id>@send.readwise.io) for users whose Readwise username ends with a dot. Amazon rejects these types of sender addresses, so previously these users couldn't get sends to work. The Reader web Kindle setup instructions now show the correct alias to approve in Amazon.
🎙 Added Podcast Category Override — Mati added "Podcast" to the document category dropdown when manually editing a document's metadata in Reader.
⌨️ Fixed Custom Keyboard Shortcuts — Mati fixed a bug where pressing the × button on one shortcut for a command removed *all* shortcuts for that command. Each shortcut now removes individually, the way you'd expect.
✨ Reader Mobile Polish — Mati polished two small Reader mobile interactions: the Reader forwarding email copy button now copies properly, and tapping into a document while using the skim UI on iPad will correctly save your place instead of scrolling back to the top of the list when exiting the document.
🔗 Fixed Highlight Section Sync — Mitch fixed an error when an existing highlight had an invalid URL. Sync should now complete even on books with legacy invalid URLs.
🛜 Parsing Updates — Krzys updated how Substack articles are parsed, including more reliably removing subscription CTAs and better embed rendering. He also improved parsing for howtogeek.com and thurrott.com.
👍 Three featured finds from the team
From product designer Christina
Something to read 📖
Christina recently finished My Friends by Fredrik Backman, the story of four teenagers whose summer friendship culminates in a famous painting that, twenty-five years later, changes a stranger's life. Bring tissues. Christina wasn’t prepared to laugh and cry at the same time.
Something to focus 💿
Christina is currently listening to the new album HALO by Tiffany Day. She's recently been listening to EDM/hyperpop while working. It's chaotic in the best way and scratches an itch in your brain you didn't know you had.
Something to unwind 🍓
Christina recently tried the Ube Mochi Pancake Mix from Trader Joe's. It’s not only super easy to make, it’s also super tasty (Christina-certified). If you’re feeling fancy, add some sliced bananas, strawberries, and coconut cream. It’s life-changing. She wishes she bought 4 more boxes.
💬 From the Readwise group chat
Respect the honesty, question the math
Adam's debugging exchange is a good example of why we still need humans in the loop. Claude confidently reported a speed improvement, and when Adam pushed back, it cheerfully admitted it made the whole thing up. Prompt & correct! 😀
Warmly,
the Readwise customer support team