Raindrop.io has become one of those apps that I use nearly every day. With so much content on the web, we need a place to save what we find helpful. Raindrop does just that. It is a bookmarking service that works on nearly any device and browser.

  • Save and recall interesting content.
  • Save articles and videos to read or watch later.
  • Read articles and make highlights and annotations. Sync highlights with Readwise.
  • Save inspirational images.
  • Share bookmarks with others.
  • Create an RSS feed of a collection that can be shared and consumed in other applications.

Platforms

  • Browser Extension for Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Brave.
  • Mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
  • Desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Organization

Raindrop allows you to create Collections (Folders) and Tags. With the Pro version, you can create nested collections. You can also create Groups to help organize your collections.

I have been using the PARA method to provide a straightforward way to organize content. I like to keep it simple.

  • Unsorted: Things I want to read or watch later. They’ll often be deleted unless they’re worth keeping, then I’ll send them to another collection and add some tags.
  • Shared: I have a shared collection of Microsoft and Focustivity bookmarks.
  • Projects: I create a collection for each project where I gather links and web content. I don’t usually have many projects of this type.
  • Areas: A collection for each area of my life. I’ll store manuals, links to important sites, and other things here.
  • Resources: This is where most of my bookmarks go. I have a single Resources collection that I dump everything into. I add a couple of tags to make it easier to filter later.
  • Archive: Where I keep archived projects.

Highlights

One of my favorite features in Raindrop is the Highlights. Once installed with the browser extension, you can highlight text on a page and save the highlight directly to Raindrop. You can also use this feature now in Raindrop (like the image below). Select a webpage, highlight some text, and add annotations if you want.

These highlights can sync to Readwise (this feature was not announced at the time of this post).

The search functionality is pretty solid, featuring Full-Text search meaning it will find content within your bookmarks and PDFs. You can use the filters to quickly select a tag, date, type, or other criteria.

Pricing

The pricing of Raindrop is reasonable. I think most people can get by with the free version, which includes unlimited bookmarks, collections, highlights, and most features.

The pro version provides extra features like full-text search, nested collections, annotations, duplicate link finder, automatic backups, 10Gb files per month, and priority email support.

Who is Raindrop for?

Raindrop is not going to be a replacement for an academic research tool like Zotero, where you will need citations, PDF annotations, and integrations to note applications like Obsidian.

For anyone who wants to save bookmarks, and does some light highlighting and annotations, then Raindrop is a great option.