Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Send Web Articles to Kindle from an iPhone with Readability

Readability is an outstanding, free web-service and mobile app for iOS and Android which permits users to read advertisement-free web content offline on multiple devices. In this post, I’ll describe how to use Readability to send a web article you want to read later to your Kindle eReader. Hat tip to Bob Sprankle who first showed Readability to me and sang it’s praises!

If you’d like to send web articles or blog posts you read on your iPhone to your Kindle with Readability, a few setup steps are required. First, of course, you’ll need to create a free account on Readability if you haven’t already. On your Readability account settings, you’ll need to add the “email to my Kindle” email address for your device. You can find and/or “set” this address by logging into kindle.amazon.com by clicking MANAGE YOUR DEVICE, and then EDIT under “Send-to-Kindle E-mail Address.”

Kindle Settings for Readability

Second, again on the website kindle.amazon.com, add the email address kindle@readability.com to your list of approved or authorized email addresses which can auto-magically add content to your Kindle. You’ll find this by clicking the sidebar link for “Personal Document Settings.”

Add kindle@readability.com

Next, on your iPhone you’ll want to add several “bookmarklets” so you can quickly send webpages to your Kindle via Readability. These bookmarklets include some scripting code so they have to be added differently than a ‘regular’ bookmark. As described on this Readability Community Support article, the process is to:

  • Copy the Javascript code
  • Make a new bookmark
  • Edit that bookmark to be the Javascript (instead of a link to the page)

Once you add the bookmarks, they will look something like this when you access them using the Safari browser on your iPhone. (The name will depend on what you decide to call each one.)

iPhone Readability Bookmarks

Now that you’ve added the bookmarks, when you have an article or blog post open in Safari on your iPhone that you want to send to your Kindle, click on your bookmarklet when you have that specific webpage open. The script will send the “code order” so the article will be pending download on your Kindle next time it’s turned on with an Internet connection.

Sending a webpage to Readability from an iPhone

This is a photo of my Kindle Touch after it synced, with the most recent Readability article available at the top of my documents list.

Kindle Reading Selections

I really like the clean presentation of Readability articles on the Kindle. Contrast this with the original article screenshot, which is cluttered with a BUNCH of ads and other distractions.

Readability Article on Kindle Touch

Check out Readability! It’s a free service, and I love the way it now lets me “send articles for later reading” directly to my Kindle Touch. There are other ways to send articles and documents to your Kindle, but this is the slickest and most efficient way I’ve found so far.

Hat tip to Tim Lauer, who shared the article with me featured in the screenshots in this post: What A City Needs by Edward Glaeser about Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.

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4 responses to “Send Web Articles to Kindle from an iPhone with Readability”

  1. Wesley Fryer Avatar

    Additions:

    Readability doesn’t support conversion of PDF files:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/7877120614/

    The Kindle web browser (which is still experimental as of this date) doesn’t support display of PDF files either:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/7877121936/

  2. Wesley Fryer Avatar

    Additions:

    Readability doesn’t support conversion of PDF files:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/7877120614/

    The Kindle web browser (which is still experimental as of this date) doesn’t support display of PDF files either:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/7877121936/

  3. Gesnazo Laurba Avatar
    Gesnazo Laurba

    If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can use the App “Clear Web Text for Kindle”.

    It cleans web and send to your kindle with your email. You don’t have to add new approved emails, and it keeps images!!

  4. the department of joe Avatar
    the department of joe

    Hey there. Thank you very much for this post – I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do this. I followed everything to the letter and get the small icon saying it is ‘sending’ but the documents never turn up! Any ideas? Thanks again, Joe