Disclosure. Signelo, the company behind this site, makes Tenoa, which is on this list. We put it where we think it honestly lands and wrote down where it loses. If that bothers you, read the other entries and skip ours.
Pocket shut down on July 8, 2025. Mozilla kept an export page alive until November 6, and then it was gone. What people got out was an HTML file of URLs and titles. Not the articles, not the highlights, not the years of reading. Just the links.
That is the whole argument for this page. A save-it-later app holds things you decided were worth keeping. Most of them hold those things in a database you cannot open, behind a plan you have to keep paying, on a server that will one day be turned off. The apps below are the ones where the answer to "what happens to my stuff if this company disappears" is something other than an HTML file of links.
There is one test that sorts them, and it takes a minute:
The delete test
Save ten things. Quit the app. Now, without the app, open the folder where they went and try to read them. If you can read them in a text editor and see the images in Finder or Explorer, the files are yours. If you see a database, a container or nothing at all, they are the app's, and "export" is a favor it does you while it is still running.
Prices and platform facts were checked on September 8, 2026, against each product's own pricing or help pages. They drift. Check before you commit.
| App | Passes the delete test? |
|---|
| Obsidian Web Clipper | Yes. Markdown in your vault from the first click. Images stay as web links unless you download them |
| Tenoa | Yes. Markdown plus the original file in a normal folder, index rebuilt from the files |
| Eagle | Partly. Originals are inside a .library folder with Eagle's metadata; tags and notes need an export |
| Karakeep, self-hosted | Partly. You hold the database and can export JSON or HTML any time, but it is a database |
| Readwise Reader | No, but the export is the best in the cloud category: markdown, CSV, OPML, PDF, plus automatic sync to Obsidian |
| Raindrop.io | No. Cloud, with HTML, CSV or text export on every plan |
| Recall | No. Cloud sync, with a markdown export that carries summaries and transcripts |
| mymind, Cosmos, Sublime, Are.na | No. Cloud. mymind exports files plus a CSV from desktop only; Cosmos has no documented export; Are.na exports channels as PDF, ZIP or HTML |
At a glance
| Web Clipper | Tenoa | Eagle | Karakeep | Readwise Reader | Raindrop | Recall | mymind |
|---|
| Readable files without the app | ✓ | ✓ | ✓1 | ✓2 | · | · | · | · |
| Original file kept next to the note | · | ✓ | ✓1 | · | · | · | · | · |
| Search index rebuilds from the files | · | ✓ | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| Export available | ✓3 | ✓3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic sync into Obsidian | ✓3 | · | · | ✓4 | ✓ | · | · | · |
| Free, or one-time purchase | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | · | · |
| Visual grid library | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Phone app | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
1 Inside Eagle's .library folder; originals untouched, tags and notes in Eagle's metadata. 2 Self-hosted: you hold the database. 3 It already writes markdown into a folder, so there is nothing to export. 4 Through a community plugin that mirrors bookmarks as markdown.
1. Obsidian Web Clipper
Free, open source, markdown into a folder
Obsidian's browser extension. A page, an article or a selection becomes a markdown file in your vault, shaped by a per-site template. Optional local AI through Interpreter. Every major browser, including Safari on iPhone.
Where it wins
- Passes the delete test at zero cost. The file is in your folder before you have finished reading the page
- Templates, variables and a highlighter give you exact control over what gets saved
- No account, no telemetry
Where it falls short
- It is a clipper, not a library. No visual grid, no search over images, no library to browse on the phone
- Images are left as remote URLs by default. Run the download command or they rot with the source page
- You design the system yourself
Pick it if you live in Obsidian and text is most of what you keep.
2. Tenoa
Visual library over a folder of files, $49 once
A visual library for everything you save: images, screenshots, pages, videos, PDFs, notes. Every item is a markdown file with the original beside it in a normal folder. Search reads inside the content and "more like this" matches on meaning, both on your own computer with a local model. Free iPhone and iPad apps save into the same folder.
Where it wins
- Passes the delete test. The search index is throwaway and rebuilds from the files
- Imports from mymind and Recall run on your own computer, wifi off, with nothing uploaded
- One purchase, no account. $49 once for three desktop computers with a year of updates, then an optional $29 a year for hosted sync and new features. Skip it and everything keeps working
Where it falls short
- Young and made by one person. Mac today, Windows installer targeted October 1, no Android
- Local AI means setting up a model, or bringing an API key
- Chrome and Firefox extensions are not out yet
Pick it if you save more than text and you want the library to outlive the app.
tenoa.app
3. Eagle
Local design-asset library, $34.95 once, lifetime updates
A desktop library for images, fonts, colors and references, sold once for two computers. Mac and Windows. The most refined browser capture in the category.
Where it wins
- Local by design. Nothing goes to a server
- One price, forever, for a mature product
- Batch capture, hover-to-save, screenshots, drag-to-save
Where it falls short
- Originals live inside a .library folder with Eagle's metadata. You can export them back to plain files, but the tags and notes do not travel inside the files
- Desktop only, no phone
- Text in images needs a plugin that sends the image to Google. No summaries
Pick it if your saves are design assets and the desktop is where you work.
4. Karakeep
Open source, self-hosted
Bookmark-everything, run on your own server. Full-page archives, OCR, semantic search, Ollama for summaries and tags, apps and extensions everywhere, an API. Also sold as a $4 a month cloud.
Where it wins
- You hold the database and the server. Nobody can turn it off but you
- Export to JSON or HTML any time, lists included
- AI features with no per-item cap when you bring your own model
Where it falls short
- A database is still a database. Passing the delete test means running the export, not opening a folder
- You are the sysadmin, and it is pre-1.0
- The Obsidian mirror is a community plugin and a copy
Pick it if you self-host already and want the widest feature set for free.
5. Readwise Reader
Cloud, but the best way out
The read-later app for people who finish what they save. Cloud-hosted, $9.99 a month billed annually, no permanent free tier. Included here because its export and sync are the best in the cloud category, so leaving is a setting rather than a project.
Where it wins
- Automatic sync of highlights and documents into Obsidian, Notion or Logseq, so a copy of your reading already lives in your files
- Exports markdown, CSV, OPML, PDF and text, plus a zip of uploaded files
- The reading workflow itself is the best there is
Where it falls short
- Fails the delete test on its own. The sync is the safety net
- The most expensive tool in the category
- Text-first; not for images
Pick it if reading and annotating is the job, and you keep the Obsidian sync switched on.
What "keeps your files" should mean
Three things, and a tool that only does one of them is not there yet.
- The file is the record, not a copy of the record. If the app's database is the truth and the markdown is a mirror, the mirror drifts and the truth dies with the app
- The original is untouched and next to the note. The photo, the PDF, the page. Not a thumbnail, not a link that will 404
- Anything derived is rebuildable. Search indexes, embeddings, thumbnails. Throw them away and the app should regenerate them from the files without complaint
The Pocket shutdown was not unusual. It was the normal end of a cloud save-it-later app, done politely. Pick the next one with that ending in mind.
Want the files and the visual library?
Tenoa is a folder of markdown and originals with search on top. 14-day trial, no card.