Upload highlight to Readwise

DEVONthink
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Hi, Readwise users, is it possible to upload highlights in Devonthink to Readwise? or do we have a magic script to make this happen.

2

Hi,
I haven’t tried myself, but maybe you could try with the csv import option? Readwise
Best regards,
Björn

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3

Hi, importing by .csv is working.

I just wondering, when finish reading and highlighting an article, is it possible to use a script to upload highlight to Readwise?

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4

Hi,

I’m don’t know scripting that well. Maybe someone else can answer? What you want is a script exporting all highlights in an article to a csv file with data ready for uploading to Readwise?

Best regards,
Björn

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I don’t know code. Actually I hope all highlights in an article can upload to Readwise directly, maybe by Readwise API.

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6

This looks interesting. It would be nice to have such a script!

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7

Curl (for example) can be used in this context. It shouldn’t be too difficult if you have an access token for the API. Since I don’t use highlights nor Readwise, I’m not inclined to try it out. But perhaps someone else is.

2 Likes
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Are you wanting to do this for every article? And is this a lot of articles?

I’m asking because I’m wondering why if it’s a lot of articles you wouldn’t just read in Reader instead, and then just export the highlights you want into DT? So basically do it the other way round. Seems less work (unless you’re wanting parity between the two systems?)

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I don’t really believe Read-It-Later app can archive webpage full text, so just save html files by myself or using Single File. Then manage them in DT, I want to reread them and highlight them in DT, also hope highlights can import to Readwise, as all my highlights are stored there.

I hope Readwise can upload html file directly, but can not.

Actually DT is a perfect tool for managing and reading all kinds of documents, and Readwise is a perfect tool to collect highlights and export to all kinds of note app. So I really hope these two perfect tools can work together.

10

I don’t really understand this comment - I’m not suggesting you archive stuff in Reader (personally I think that’s a terrible idea since there’s no backup process and your stuff would be stuck on a random server somewhere, plus the interface isn’t really designed for this type of file storage and retrieval). I’m only suggesting you read articles there since you want ALL highlights in Reader, then move what you need to DT after. But it does seem you want parity between the two apps - I was a little unclear if you wanted all files in both apps or all highlights, but I think you want both. I don’t think Readwise even supports that with other apps - I think it usually imports/exports just highlights, not whole files, through its official syncs to third party apps (caveat: I don’t use all their syncs so can’t say for certain!).

In any case, I personally am not convinced by this approach of everything everywhere. You presumably save articles that then end up not being of use to you? Why would you then want them saved everywhere?

(Sidenote for context: I don’t follow the preferred Reader process here, because I don’t retain content on Reader that I didn’t highlight/use. If I read an article that ends up not being useful to me, I delete rather than archive. I personally don’t agree with their “archive it all” nudge - I don’t want my account filled with rubbish I didn’t need. Likewise, I don’t keep files in DT that ended up not being relevant, I delete them.)

As you’ve noticed Readwise cannot import html files, and the csv option discussed in this thread would only import highlights, not the whole article.

What you could do is save web articles to PDF in DT instead of html. (Which I and many other folk do anyway.) You can import highlighted PDFs to Reader, so you could highlight and summarise in DT and then send the marked up PDF to Reader when you’re ready.

Still seems like a lot of work though. I don’t put all my highlights in both apps - DT for me contains a lot of technical reading that I wouldn’t want surfacing in Readwise. I save most web articles I want to read to Reader, then if the article is worth saving “permanently” I save a copy (as PDF) to DT. A lot of stuff doesn’t deserve preserving in my database so never makes it there. To keep this process streamlined, I have an “action” tag and filtered view in Reader that I use to mark articles that I need to save to DT, and I batch process them once a week(ish) as part of my DT admin. When I’ve done that, I remove the action tag and add a “DT” tag, so that I know that article is stored in DT. And finally, I have a filtered view that shows any archived articles that do not have an action or DT tag, so I can keep an eye on what articles I highlighted in Reader that haven’t been moved to DT. There are some articles like that by choice, but I check it occasionally to make sure I didn’t just forget to move something.

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Thanks for your kind sharing and suggestions and I will rethink my workflow.

  • I prefer html files than PDF, because PDF can not edit and pdf file is large. PDF always is my last option, I like plain text. And DT can view and edit html files perfectly.

  • I use DT as an original source collector/manager, like full text webpage archive and so on. Readwise as an highlights collector/manager, so some webpages read in Readwise still save an html files in DT.

  • Actually not save everything everywhere, just save all full text source in DT and all highlights in Readwise.

  • I’d like ‘Readwise flashcards review feature’ can cover all my highlights, so I try to export highlights from DT to Readwise. Because it isn’t very convenient to review highlights in DT.

  • I think the difference between us, your DT should only keep ‘worth saving permanently’ articles, but I try to save all interesting articles I met in DT, most of them I haven’t read fully, just read subtitles or skim quickly. When I find an interesting topic, I will search in DT first, if I find something I will read and highlight in DT. I don’t want those highlights just staying In DT, I want to review them in Readwise. That’s why I need this magic script.

Anyway, like your idea about “DT tag in Reader”, for now, after saving html files to DT, I don’t tag this article in Reader, just archive it like other articles.

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I did a really yucky process (technical term!) a few months ago for one of my favourite books which is out of print and only available in paperback (I.e. no kindle book or PDF available). I typed up all my quotes and notes in Markdown for DT (that bit is fine, I do that for paperbacks anyway).

But, I really wanted the quotes in Readwise so my life is improved by seeing one of my fave authors regularly. I exported/printed the Markdown doc to PDF in DT (sorry, I can’t remember what action I did specifically here but I did it so the file was rendered correctly and not written as markdown). Then I imported the PDF to Reader. That only adds a document to Reader, it didn’t tell it that I liked all the quotes in it and wanted to see them regularly in Readwise. So then in Reader I went through the PDF and highlighted every quote I wanted to see.

It was a stupid process, but it did do what I wanted it to do, which was surface quotes from the book regularly in Readwise.

It would’ve been better to put all the quotes in a csv file and import that to Readwise directly, but I was just messing about and it didn’t occur to me. Readwise also has a function where you can manually add a book quote, but it accepts entries one at a time through the web interface, which is no good for big books or a lot of quotes.

This process does mean that you can basically add any file you like to Reader and surface quotes in Readwise though, which is fun to think about!

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Also this isn’t exactly what you’re getting from Readwise, but you might also find these two things of interest:

  • I have a couple of shortcuts on iOS that open random files in specific databases/groups. I run one daily. (This doesn’t work on Mac)

  • I have some smart groups on MacOS that show me files that haven’t been interacted with in specific timeframes. It’s not a perfect system, because DT on Mac doesn’t know what files you’ve opened in DTTG, and as I read in iPad DTTG mostly I get a lot of false positives. However, it does mean that I am resurfacing content and not just losing stuff in my database. (Smart groups don’t work on DTTG so be aware that this is a task for your Mac).

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I think that book is really important to you. Before I only like reading new published books. From last year, I changed, think classic books are more worthy to read. Maybe your story proves too. Lol.