Pocket shut down. Now what? Migrating your reading list to the Kindle

In July 2025, Mozilla shut down Pocket. More than 20 million people lost the place where they kept their "read later" pile. The export window closed in November, and the data was permanently deleted. Anyone still relying on "save it for later" now needs a plan B.

What Pocket was

Pocket started as Read It Later in 2007. Mozilla bought it in 2017 and folded it into Firefox. For a decade it served as a decompression chamber between the browser and real reading time. You saved any link, opened it later on your phone or tablet. It worked well enough to become a verb: "I'll Pocket it".

Why it closed

Mozilla announced the shutdown in May 2025. The official reason: reallocating resources to other priorities. In practice, Pocket never became a sustainable business. The paid version was optional, most users did not pay, and running 20 million accounts is expensive.

What remained was a displaced community and a short export window. Anyone who missed downloading their HTML before November lost the entire history.

The problem that stuck around

Former Pocket users now choose between five main alternatives. Each solves part of the problem, none solves all of it.

• Instapaper. Clean, reliable, the closest replacement to classic Pocket. Paid tier monthly, free tier with limits.
• Readwise Reader. Strong on highlights, exports to Notion and Obsidian. Built around "knowledge productivity" rather than calm reading.
• Raindrop.io. Generous free plan, focus on tags and collections. Good for treating reading as research.
• Wallabag. Open source, self-installed on your own server. For readers who prioritize control over their data.
• Matter. Polished, Apple Design Award winner, iOS-first. Has remarkably natural text-to-speech.

Where Folio fits

None of these options ship the article to your Kindle as a book. You still read on blue-light screens with a notification every three minutes. The whole point of "saving for later" is escaping the context that produced the saturation.

At Folio, we solved this from a different angle. You pick the article in your browser and it lands on your Kindle as an editorial e-book: Newsreader serif, generous margins, no ads, no sidebars. You can send right away or batch into a daily or weekly edition combining multiple pieces. It works behind paywalls you already pay for (NYT, The Atlantic, Substack), because the capture runs inside your own browser session.

How to migrate

If you kept your Pocket backup before November 2025, the exported HTML still works. Each saved link becomes a manual send in Folio. We do not have a one-click importer for that format yet, but for anyone with the file, it is a Saturday afternoon of cleanup.

Without a backup, start from your next read. Every time you think "I'll read this later", send it straight to the Kindle. The 3 free sends per month cover an honest trial.