💡 WiseUp! Vol. 86 — Put your highlights to work

📍 Let's start with a reading recommendation

To annotate, or not to annotate

Annotating a novel you're reading for fun is optional, but what about the books you're reading to learn from? Tabatha Lee of Modern Academia argues that even those don't always need a pencil in hand, and walks through when notes help and when it's better to just read. "Not every text is asking the same thing of you, and not every reading session needs to look the same. The real skill isn’t deciding once and for all whether you’re someone who takes notes. It’s knowing what this particular read is asking of you." To channel that back-to-school excitement as an adult, try the rest of her series on independent study, or her piece On Losing the Identity of Being a Student.

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 Zack D:

Can I save just a highlight to Readwise without saving the whole webpage to Reader?

You can save just the text you want to Readwise without adding the whole webpage to your Reader library. If you have both the Readwise and Reader browser extensions installed, right-click some selected text, and choose “Save Highlight to Readwise.” You can install the Readwise extension on Chromium-based browsers or Firefox by going to the Import page > Kindle, where you’ll be prompted to install it.

❓ A Reader question from Davy P:

Can YouTube chapters show up as chapters directly in Reader?

Finding your way around a long YouTube video is now much quicker in Reader. Videos saved on the web can show their chapter markers in the Contents panel, so you can select a section and jump straight to it while the transcript follows along. Think of the chapters like the headings in an article. This feature is available on web and will appear on any newly-saved YouTube videos.

📖 New help doc of the week

Pocket-sized flashcards for your favorite highlights

With the redesigned Readwise app, you can turn any highlight into a Mastery flashcard without ever leaving your phone. Cayla has updated the Mastery guide with the full mobile flow, plus how to start a quick Mastery-only review from your Home screen.

🎬 New video of the week

ICYMI: Revisit your highlights and get better at typing

Spaced repetition lives at the core of what we do, but a Readwise user found a way to stretch it even further. They built this clever typing trainer that sharpens your speed and accuracy by having you type out your own Readwise highlights. You revisit the ideas worth remembering and become a faster typist at the same time.

📰 Sep 12 - Sep 18 updates

What's new in Reader and Readwise

💌 NEW! Redesigned Readwise Emails — To match the recent Readwise app redesign, your Daily Review and Themed Review emails have a fresh design built by Ibai and Christina, with cleaner highlight cards and links that take you straight to editing, tagging, or sharing a highlight. To try it, head to your email preferences on the Readwise website and turn off "Use the legacy email design". You can switch back the same way whenever you like.

🧩 NEW! Reader API Highlights — You can now create highlights through the Reader API. Send a POST to /api/v3/save/ with the document's parent_id and the passage as content (plus optional notes and tags), and the highlight is anchored to that document. Previously the same request quietly created a stray article instead. Thanks to Piotr, mismatched requests now return a clear error too. See the API docs for an example.

📥 Improved OPML Imports — Importing an OPML file to Reader used to subscribe you to a blank "No name" feed for every address it couldn't fetch, and never told you which ones failed. Piotr shipped a fix that skips those feeds, keeps the feed names from your file, and emails you a summary when the import finishes, listing any feeds that were left out so you can re-add them.

🤖 Improved Ghostreader Indexing Progress — The first time you open Ghostreader's library chat in Reader on web or desktop, it indexes your whole library in the background, but the header showed a partial count as if that were everything. Piotr made it say "Indexing your library..." with a running tally, then switch to the final total once it's done.

🪄 Fixed Mobile Ghostreader Prompts — Ghostreader's "Tag the document" and "Highlight the document" prompts in the Reader app could confirm the tags in chat without ever applying them to the document. Adam fixed how the app reads the result, so the tags and highlights land on the document again.

🧠 Improved Mobile Model Memory — New Ghostreader chats in the Reader app always started on the Fast model, even if you prefer Thinking. Following last week's change on web, Piotr made the mobile app remember your pick too, so a new chat starts on whichever model you used last.

👆 Fixed Android Reading Taps — After jumping to a chapter from the table of contents in the Reader app on Android, the reading view could stop responding to taps entirely. Tadek shipped a fix for the invisible overlay that was catching those taps, so the page responds normally after a jump.

🔊 Fixed Feed Text-to-Speech — Some RSS feeds deliver each post as one long run of plain text, and Reader found nothing in those documents to read aloud, so the Play button never appeared. Thanks to Tadek, new items from these feeds now arrive with proper paragraphs, so text-to-speech works on them like any other article.

🎙️ Fixed Missing Podcast Episodes — Some podcast feeds point every episode's link at the show's homepage, which made Reader treat the whole feed as a single item and stop delivering new episodes. Tadek taught Reader to tell those episodes apart, and Krzys fixed a related case where two posts sharing one audio file were merged under the wrong title. Affected feeds should now catch up and keep delivering new episodes.

📊 Improved Sync Reliability — In rare cases, a single change the server couldn't process would block everything queued behind it, so a device could stop syncing with Reader: new uploads never arrived and books sat on their loading cover. Tristan fixed the two causes we found, so one bad update no longer holds up the rest and syncing carries on.

🖥️ Fixed Half-Blank Documents — Reader on web and desktop could occasionally open a document squeezed into the bottom half of the window with an empty space above it. Tristan shipped a fix for the hidden list that was taking up that room, so documents fill the window again.

📤 Fixed Large CSV Exports — Exporting your highlights from Readwise as a CSV could fail with an error page if your library was very large. Thanks to Tristan, libraries over 50,000 highlights now get their CSV prepared in the background and emailed as a download link, so even the biggest collections should export smoothly.

🔠 Fixed Section Labels — If you edited the text of a heading highlight in Readwise, review cards for that book kept showing the old section name (or a placeholder like "page_89") until the book's next sync. Ibai made the section name update along with the highlight, so your review cards match what you see on the book's page.

📷 Improved Scan Reliability — Photos taken with the Readwise app's Scan tool would sometimes fail to turn into text for no obvious reason, because the text recognition service couldn't always fetch the uploaded image. Johannes changed how the image is handed over, so scans should come back with their text far more consistently.

🔀 Fixed Instapaper Imports — A single bookmark with a malformed URL, or a Google share link that wouldn't resolve, could stop an entire Instapaper import to Reader partway through. Rasul made the importer set that one bookmark aside and carry on, so the rest of your Instapaper library comes across.

📚 Fixed Hypothesis and Raindrop Syncs — One Hypothesis annotation with a blank tag, or one Raindrop bookmark with no title, was enough to halt the whole sync to Readwise. Rasul fixed both: blank tags are ignored, and untitled Raindrop bookmarks come in as "Highlights from" followed by the site's name, so the rest of your highlights sync as usual.

🐦 Fixed Twitter Imports — Turning on Twitter bookmark imports in Readwise for an account whose Twitter/X connection had lapsed showed an error page, and the same tweet could occasionally be saved twice when it arrived through more than one route. Rasul fixed both, so you now get a Reconnect option for the affected account and each tweet is imported once. Twitter list digests that include a quote of a deleted tweet also generate properly again.

🛜 Parsing Updates — Krzys improved how Reader handles documents from macstories.net, reuters.com, dpreview.com, howtogeek.com, wsj.com, entwickler.de, olickel.com, Reddit share links, and Substack newsletters.

👍 Three recommendations from our team

From support specialist Max

Something to read 📖
Max is currently reading Walden. It’s a classic for a reason, and he’s especially enjoying Thoreau’s reflections on simplicity, nature, and living a little more deliberately.

Something to focus 🧠
For easier transitions between sitting and standing at his desk, Max recently added an adjustable stool to his setup. It’s already getting plenty of use, especially during meetings, and makes it easy to switch positions without breaking focus.

Something to unwind 🎮
Max doesn’t usually play video games, but a friend recently convinced him to give Stardew Valley a try. The cozy farming game, created by a single person, has built up a cult following over the years, and he’s starting to see why.

💬 From the Readwise group chat

No sleep for the wicked

The eternal standoff between wanting to be a functional human and refusing to close the app at a reasonable hour.