Below are some of the most frequently asked questions about Instapaper. You can also email support@help.instapaper.com & tweet at @InstapaperHelp with ideas, feedback, and questions not covered here. We always love to hear from you.
What does Instapaper do?
Instapaper turns web content – articles, stories, posts, videos, and even long emails – into a great reading experience.
Over the course of your day, you'll encounter things you want to save for later. With Instapaper, you simply push a button in your browser, or choose “send to Instapaper” in a linked mobile app. Instapaper then saves it for you, and makes it available in a beautiful, uncluttered, reading-optimized format on your mobile phone, your tablet, your Kindle, or your browser.
- When Instapaper Premium was introduced, it was a paid subscription that added several advanced features to the service. Later, the app and service were purchased by Pinterest, and Instapaper Premium was made available for free to all users. Last month, Instapaper announced that it was separating from Pinterest and becoming an independent company.
- Instapaper by Instapaper Holdings, Inc. Is a mobile app that gives you the possibility to save articles on your smartphone so that you can read them offline. Even though Instapaper for Mac is not available on the Internet, there are similar tools that you can download and install on Mac. Here is a list of alternatives to Instapaper for Mac.
- Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted. Instapaper for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch provides a mobile-optimized text view that makes reading Internet content a clean and uncluttered experience.
I can't get something to work, what should I try first?
Most Mac Gems are programs you run on your Mac, but some Web-based services are so useful that they warrant similar recognition. Today’s Gem, Instapaper, definitely falls into that category. Download FREE Rast Sound – Sounds Of Mars KONTAKT-DECiBEL for Mac! The Future is Here! Sounds of Mars is designed by 20+ sound designers collaboratively and comes with a wild engine that can even play itself. Weighing in at just over 3 GB and powered by Kontakt (full version), this library provides.

- Make sure cookies are enabled in your browser.
- Make sure Javascript is enabled in your browser.
- If you're using Android or iOS, make sure you're using the same Instapaper username between your computer, the application, and your mobile browser.
- Switch to Safari, Chrome, or Firefox. There are plenty of other reasons to do this, too. If you're not sure how or why you should do this, ask your nearest computer geek, we assure you they'll have an opinion on the matter.
Will you add [some cool feature]?
Quite possibly! Please let us know what you'd like. We read every idea or suggestion. We make changes to Instapaper very carefully, but we aim to be constantly improving.
Are there storage limits?
There's no limit to how many articles you can store, and your archive of read items is kept indefinitely (unless you delete from it).
Does Instapaper make money?
Yes. We are a small team and our goal is to build a long-term sustainable product and business, without venture capital. In order to do so, it's essential that the product generates enough revenue to cover its cost. If you'd like to support Instapaper, the best way to do so is to purchase Instapaper Premium.
Instapaper Premium users receive:
- Full-text search
- Unlimited highlighting
- Third-party API access
- Better Kindle functionality
- Ads removed from website
I'm trying to create an account but it says my email is already taken.
Usually this is because you created another account with your email address sometime in the misty, distant past. Try logging in with the credentials you might have previously used.
If you want to get rid of the old account, you can rename or delete the old one from Settings when you're logged into it.
My device is telling me my password is incorrect but I can login with those credentials on web.
If you can login on web, chances are it's your device time that's incorrect. Please go to your device's date/time settings and make sure they're accurate. Setting your time to be set automatically is always the safe bet in this case.
How do I install the Instapaper bookmarklet on mobile Safari?
With the introduction of the system share sheet in iOS 8, mobile bookmarklets are no longer required. To save on mobile Safari, and any other compatible apps/browsers, please add Instapaper to the system share sheet. This can be done by opening the share sheet (box with arrow icon), scrolling all the way to the right of the top row, choosing 'More,' and enabling Instapaper. Instapaper will then be an option on the share sheet.
I save pages, but they don't appear in the app.
Please ensure that you're using the same account name on both the web browser (where you're saving articles) and the iPhone app (where you're reading them). Your account name is displayed:
- On the website: In the lower left, inside the nav bar.
- In the iOS app: In the Settings screen, under Account.
- In the Android app: In the Settings screen, under Your Account.
Why do I have to sign in every time I click the Instapaper bookmarklet?
First and foremost, please make sure you're not in Private/Incognito browsing mode.
If browsing mode is not private, please enable third-party cookies for: www.instapaper.com
If the issue persists, please reinstall your bookmarklet/extension from www.instapaper.com/save
When I click the Instapaper bookmarklet, nothing happens, or it hangs after '(Saving...)'. (Most commonly occurs with Firefox.)
Please make sure that you do not have any add-ons or settings that would interfere with Javascript's operation. This includes the Firefox NoScript add-on and some types of ad-blocking software.
Why can't it save pages from [some site]?
There are many reasons why certain pages aren't accessible offline or in Text view. The most common:
- The page requires a login. The Instapaper server must fetch a copy of the page without knowing your username, password, or session details. Pages such as Gmail messages or travel itineraries generally can't be reached without logging in, so Instapaper cannot access them for offline saving.
- It does not allow this type of access. Some sites block access to web crawlers, which will block or restrict Instapaper from saving them.
We're always working to improve page compatibility, but the web is vast, complex, and always changing — so we can never guarantee perfect or complete compatibility with every site.
We encourage you to submit sites you're having saving issues with to Support so we can look into the saving behavior for you.
Are PDF files supported?
Instapaper currently does not support PDF files.
Amazon’s fees for 3G delivery
Instapaper uses Amazon's Kindle Personal Documents Service to deliver its documents to your Kindle.
Kindles with Wi-Fi only (no 3G) receive Instapaper's documents for free whenever they're connected to a Wi-Fi network.

For Kindles with 3G, such as the Kindle 1, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Kindle 3 3G, Kindle Keyboard 3G, and Kindle Touch 3G, Amazon charges small fees for delivery over 3G when the Kindle is not connected to a Wi-Fi network.See this Amazon document for details.To avoid fees with 3G Kindles, use the @free.kindle.com option.
Instapaper assumes no responsibility for charges incurred by your use of this feature.
| Online bookmarking, saving articles for later reading | |
| Owner | Instant Paper, Inc. (previously Pinterest) |
|---|---|
| Created by | Marco Arment |
| URL | www.instapaper.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | January 28, 2008; 12 years ago |
| Current status | Active |
Instapaper is a bookmarking service that allows web content to be saved so it can be 'read later' on a different device, such as an e-reader, smartphone, or tablet. The service was founded in 2008 by Marco Arment and has around 2 million users as of late 2011.[2][non-primary source needed] In April 2013, Marco sold a majority stake to Betaworks[3] and by mid 2016 Pinterest acquired the company.[4] In July 2018, ownership of Instapaper was transferred from Pinterest to a newly formed company Instant Paper, Inc. The transition was completed on August 6, 2018.[5][6]
History[edit]
Instapaper started out as a simple web service in late 2007 with a 'Read Later' bookmarklet and stripped-down 'Text' view for articles. When Marco Arment launched the service publicly on January 28, 2008,[7] its simplicity rapidly earned accolades from the press, including Daring Fireball[8] and TechCrunch.[9]
In April 2013, Arment sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks.[3] Afterward, the service's web interface was redesigned.[10]
On August 23, 2016, Instapaper was acquired by social networking service Pinterest. The service will continue to operate, and the Instapaper staff will work on development for both Instapaper and Pinterest.[4] On November 1, 2016, Instapaper announced that it would discontinue its subscription model and offer its 'Premium' features to all users.[11]

On May 23, 2018, Instapaper announced that it had suspended its services for residents of the European Union in order to address compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements.[12] Service was restored on August 7, 2018.[13]
Features[edit]
Instapaper can be used via a web-based interface, or through mobile apps for Android and iOS. Within a web browser, a 'Read Later' bookmarklet can be used to save pages to a user's personal unread queue on Instapaper. Every article is automatically reformatted to remove excessive formatting and graphics.[14]
Instapaper was initially distributed as a paid app. Later, the app became a free service, but with certain features exclusive to a 'Pro' version of the app, and later an 'Instapaper Premium' subscription, such as ad-free browsing, full-text search, and voice dictation on supported platforms. These features became free for all users on November 1, 2016.[11]
iOS[edit]
Instapaper's free iPhone app (removed from the App Store on March 12, 2011[15]) with offline reading was one of the first apps in the App Store on July 12, 2008.[16][better source needed] Instapaper's paid app, then called Instapaper Pro, launched shortly afterward on August 26, 2008 and introduced tilt scrolling, which automatically scrolls a column of text when the device is tilted slightly up or down.[17]
On March 10, 2011, with the launch of the 3.0 app, Instapaper added social sharing and browsing features.[18] Later in 2011, the redesigned 4.0 app added full-text search of all saved articles for customers with the optional $1/month subscription.[19]
The Instapaper iPad app launched with the iPad itself on April 3, 2010.[20][21]
Android[edit]
The Instapaper for Android was built by development shop Mobelux[22] in 2012 and supports Android phones and tablets.
Kindle[edit]
An automatic send-to-Kindle feature was added on March 8, 2009.[23] The Kindle feature alone is used by over 60,000 Kindle owners as of late 2011.[24] Manually sending individual articles, or digests of recent articles, from the Instapaper app is currently a Subscriber feature.
The Feature[edit]
On June 1, 2008, Instapaper launched Give Me Something to Read, a standalone website that featured a few high-quality, longform, nonfiction articles every day from Instapaper's most frequently saved articles.[25]
Unlike a conventional social news website, which carries stories posted automatically by popularity, Give Me Something to Read is human-edited. Marco Arment was the editor for the site's first year. On July 27, 2009, Arment hired Richard Dunlop-Walters as a part-time contractor to take over as editor.[26][permanent dead link] As of March 2011, Dunlop-Walters was Instapaper's only employee besides Arment.
On March 22, 2012, Give Me Something to Read was renamed The Feature.[27] The articles are still hand-picked, and they are featured in Instapaper's website as The Feature, and in the iOS app as The Feature section.
Marco Arment observed about The Feature (formerly known as Give Me Something to Read):
The very similar Longform and Longreads both started significantly later than Give Me Something To Read but always got a lot more attention, with Longreads fueled especially by its active Twitter presence. They’ve both done great things, but I always believed that Give Me Something To Read deserved a similar level of attention that it never seemed to achieve.[28]
Reception[edit]
Instapaper has been positively reviewed by publications including The New York Times,[29]The Wall Street Journal,[30]PC Magazine,[31]Macworld,[32] and Wired.[33][20]
Competitors and similar services[edit]
Instapaper is one of several 'read it later'[34] (also known as 'read later'[35] or 'saving'[30]) services. In November 2013, Mashable named Instapaper and the following four clients as the '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps';[36] they all support a variety of devices and other apps.
- Pocket (originally titled 'Read It Later'), began as a Firefox extension in late 2007, similar to Readeroo but using local browser storage,[37] before matching Instapaper's core features later in 2008[38] and 2009.[39] As of October 2013, it integrated with more than 300 apps, such as Flipboard and Twitter.[40]
- Readability, released in 2009 and discontinued in 2016, allows one to share to their social media accounts and easily send articles to their Amazon Kindle. Top Reads displays the most popular Readability articles and is fully integrated with Flipboard, Longform, Pulse, and Twitter clients such as Tweetbot.[41]
- Evernote Clearly, rolled out in 2011, allows users to download articles to the Evernote app as well as to the Chrome, Firefox, or Opera browser; it also works with Evernote Business and in conjunction with the Evernote Web Clipper. Web Clipper works with the aforementioned browsers, as well as Internet Explorer and Safari.[42] As of January 22, 2016, Evernote discontinued support for Clearly. It is no longer available for download, and no further updates will be made to the extension. Customers with existing installations of the Clearly browser extension can continue using it.[43]
- ReadKit is an app for Mac devices (only) that supports Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability as well as Delicious, Feed Wrangler, FeedBin, Feedly, Fever, NewsBlur, and Pinboard. The app aggregates all of one's content from the abovementioned sources, so one need not switch from one app to another.[44]
See also[edit]
Instapaper App Windows 10
References[edit]

- ^'Instapaper Site Info'. Alexa Internet. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
- ^'Instapaper: Press and Media Kit'. Archived from the original on November 26, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2011.[non-primary source needed]
- ^ ab'Instapaper acquired by Betaworks, owner of Digg'. The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- ^ abLynley, Matthew. 'Pinterest acquires Instapaper, which will live on as a separate app'. TechCrunch. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- ^LeFebvre, Rob (July 16, 2018). 'Instapaper buys itself back from Pinterest'. Engadget. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
- ^'Instapaper is going independent'. July 16, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
- ^Arment, Marco (January 28, 2008). 'Instapaper'. Marco.org. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Gruber, John (January 30, 2008). 'Instapaper'. Daring Fireball. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Work, Henry (January 30, 2008). 'Simple Bookmarking Now Available with Instapaper'. TechCrunch. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^'Instapaper gets complete redesign after Betaworks purchase, new mobile apps soon'. The Verge. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- ^ ab'Instapaper drops monthly subscriptions'. The Verge. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
- ^'Instapaper is temporarily shutting off access for European users due to GDPR'. The Verge. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
- ^'The next ten years of Instapaper'. August 7, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
- ^Tweney, Dylan (August 28, 2009). 'Instapaper: A $5 App That Justifies Your iPhone Purchase'. Wired.
- ^Arment, Marco (April 28, 2011). 'Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation'. Marco.org. Retrieved August 24, 2016.
- ^Arment, Marco (July 12, 2008). 'Instapaper: Now available offline'. Marco.org. Retrieved December 21, 2011.[better source needed]
- ^Arment, Marco (August 26, 2008). 'Instapaper Pro with tilt scrolling'. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Arment, Marco (March 10, 2011). 'Instapaper 3.0 is here'. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Arment, Marco (October 17, 2011). 'Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone'. Marco.org. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^ abChen, Brian X. (April 1, 2010). '10 Apps We're Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day'. Wired. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Wagner, Mitch (April 13, 2010). 'The eight best iPad apps so far'. Macworld. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^http://mobelux.com
- ^Arment, Marco (March 8, 2009). 'Kindle support now available'. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Arment, Marco; Benjamin, Dan (December 19, 2011). 'Build and Analyze #56'. Build and Analyze. 5by5 Studios. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Arment, Marco (June 1, 2008). 'Officially launching Give Me Something To Read'. Marco.org. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^'About Give Me Something To Read'. Archived from the original on July 10, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Arment, Marco (March 22, 2012). 'The Feature'. Marco.org. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
- ^Arment, Marco (March 22, 2012). 'The Feature'. Marco.org.
- ^Darlin, Damon (December 11, 2010). 'Feel Free to Read This Later, on Your Phone'. The New York Times. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^ abGlazer, Emily (October 21, 2011). 'Worth It? Saving Websites to Read Offline'. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Costa, Dan (October 8, 2010). 'Instapaper Pro v2.2'. PC Magazine. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
- ^Frakes, Dan (May 14, 2010). 'Instapaper'. Macworld. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
- ^Sorrel, Charlie (March 11, 2011). 'Instapaper 3 Adds Sharing, Curated Articles and Plain Old Speed'. Wired. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
- ^Chan, Christine (March 10, 2012). 'It's The Battle of the Read It Later Apps! Read It Later vs. Instapaper vs. Readability'. AppAdvice.
- ^Gordon, Whitson (August 27, 2013). ''Read Later' Apps Compared: Pocket vs. Instapaper vs. Readability'. Lifehacker.
- ^Ang, Sarah (October 10, 2013). '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps'. Mashable.
- ^Pash, Adam (November 14, 2007). 'Save a Link for Later with Read It Later'. Lifehacker.
- ^Weiner, Nate (October 2008). 'Read It Later 0.99 Released'. Idea Shower Blog.
- ^Weiner, Nate (April 2009). 'Read It Later iPhone App Released'. Idea Shower Blog.
- ^Ang, Sarah (October 10, 2013). '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps: Pocket'. Mashable.
- ^Ang, Sarah (October 10, 2013). '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps: Readability'. Mashable.
- ^Ang, Sarah (October 10, 2013). '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps: Evernote Clearly'. Mashable.
- ^'Evernote to end support for Clearly, Evernote for Pebble, and versions of Skitch'. Evernote Help & Learning. December 17, 2015. Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
- ^Ang, Sarah (October 10, 2013). '5 Best Read-It-Later Apps: ReadKit'. Mashable.
External links[edit]
Instapaper App
