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Just reading
No algorithm choosing your next article, no notifications, no streaks. You decide what to save; it's there when you're ready.
A calmer way to read
Everything you meant to read, waiting when you want it.
A quiet reader that saves the article you're on — clean text and images — and has it waiting on every device, even offline. No feed, no clutter, no busywork.
The Atlantic · 8 min
The quiet case for reading on paper again
What we lose in the scroll is not information but attention — the long, unbroken kind that a single column of text still asks of us.
Saved cleanly, an article stops being a tab you'll never return to and becomes something closer to a page: yours to keep, to mark, to finish on a plane.
Why SimplyRead
Reading apps got complicated. This one didn't.
No feed deciding what you read next. No highlighting, tagging, or note-taking machinery to wade through. No streaks, no social layer, no upsells. Just a quiet place where the things you meant to read are waiting, clean, whenever you want them.
Nothing to learn, nothing to manage. And nothing proprietary: your library exports to plain Markdown files anytime — yours to keep even if this app, or any app, goes away.How it works
Three steps, then it's just there.
01 — Save
Click, in your browser
One button reads the page you're on and pulls out the article — clean text and images, no ads or popups. Your logins never leave your device.
02 — Sync
Synced everywhere
It's saved to your account, and every device you read on pulls it down on its own — no copying files around.
03 — Read
Anywhere, even offline
Open the app on your phone, switch to airplane mode, and read — words and pictures, right there. Have it read aloud, too.
What you get
Built for people who actually read.
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Truly offline
Your whole library lives on your phone. Read on a flight, a subway, a dead-zone commute.
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No lock-in
Your library exports to plain Markdown files anytime — an open format you can keep and read in anything. Nothing proprietary to get trapped in.
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PDFs & newsletters
Save open PDFs, and clip newsletters straight from Gmail or Outlook like any article.
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Listen to anything
Any saved article, read aloud with natural voices — on device, and offline.
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Clean reading
No ads, no cookie banners, no chrome. Just the words, in a column made for reading.
Simple price
One plan. The whole thing.
$10 / year
Unlimited saves, every device, offline reading, listening, PDFs, and one-click export. Or $1 a month — cancel anytime, and take your files with you.
A fraction of what the big reading apps charge — and your library exports to plain files whenever you want, so you're never stuck.
Questions
The things people ask.
Can it save articles I'm signed in to read?
Yes. SimplyRead saves the article you're currently viewing in your browser, so whatever you can read, you can save. Your sign-in stays in your browser — it never reaches SimplyRead, and it doesn't unlock anything you couldn't already read.
Isn't this just Pocket / Readwise / Instapaper?
Those are good, feature-rich apps. SimplyRead is the opposite bet: deliberately small. No feed, no highlights or notes, no AI — just save, read, listen, export. If you want a quiet reader without the ceremony, that's the whole idea.
What happens to my library if SimplyRead shuts down?
Export it anytime — it comes out as plain Markdown files that open in Obsidian or any editor. Like any hosted app, you'd want to export before a shutdown (you'd get a heads-up window, the way Pocket did) — but since the format is just files, there's nothing proprietary to be stuck in.
Which browsers and devices?
Save from Microsoft Edge or Chrome on your computer. Read on any device in the browser, and install the app on your iPhone for offline reading.
Is my reading private?
Your saved articles are stored in your own account and kept fully separate from every other user's. Only you can read them.