Are your web browser bookmarks a mess from all of the webpages that you have saved there to come back to later? Are those bookmarks scattered between different devices and browsers? Pocket provides an easy way to solve this problem and helps you stay organized.
What is Pocket?
Pocket is a free service that allows you to save webpages to read later. It works really well and can be handy to have available in case you run across something on the web that you want to read or interact with in some way at a later time. Some good examples are blog posts, videos, and forms. Of course you could just bookmark the webpages that you would like to come back to, but that can lead to a disorganized mess. Using something like Pocket you can avoid cluttering up your bookmarks. If you are a Chrome user one thing to keep in mind is that it has its own reading list built in. Chrome’s reading list and Pocket both have their good points. As a Chrome user, my approach is to save things that I want to keep in the long term in my general bookmarks, things that I go to daily on my bookmarks bar, and things that I don’t necessarily want to keep but I do want to come back to in the built-in reading list.
We are going to go over how to use pocket on Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. If you use a different web browser the setup and use should be similar to the instructions below. After we cover all of that we will get into whether you should use Pocket or Google’s built-in reading list.
How to Use Pocket on Your Web Browser
Pocket is built into Mozilla Firefox but can be added as a browser extension on other web browsers. I’ll go over how to use it in Firefox and how to add it to and use it in Chrome and Edge. First I will cover how to save webpages to Pocket then I will show you how to access the pages you have saved.
How to Use Pocket on Mozilla Firefox
Go to the Pocket website and create an account or sign in. After you’ve done this your browser should keep you signed in. If for some reason you are ever signed out just go back to the Pocket site and sign back in.
Find a webpage that you want to save.
Click the Pocket button.
How to Use Pocket on Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge
The procedure for both browsers should be the same since they are both Chromium based.
Go to the Chrome Web Store.
Run a search on “Pocket”.
Click “Save to Pocket”.
Click “Add to Chrome”.
Click “Add extension”.
Click the Pocket button.
Sign up for Pocket or log in.
Find a webpage that you want to save.
Right click on the pocket button and choose “Save to Pocket”.
How to view the webpages that you have saved:
- The Pocket website.
- On Chromium browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge right click on the Pocket button and choose “Open your Pocket List”.
- The Pocket app for Android or iPhone.
Pocket vs. the Chrome Reading List
As I said earlier, Google Chrome has it’s own reading list. If you are a Chrome user, which should you use? It depends on what you’re looking for. The built-in reading list is the easy and convenient way to go. It’s already there as a feature of Chrome. You don’t have to sign up for anything. To use it all you have to do is:
Click the star button.
Click “Add to reading list”.
From there just click “Reading list” to get to what you have saved.
On the other hand, if you are looking for complete portability then Pocket may be a more useful way to go. With pocket you can access your saved list on any device or web browser. Judge for yourself between convenience and portability.
With Pocket (or Chrome’s built-in reading list if you prefer) you can easily get more organized and save yourself from a mess in your bookmarks. Give it a try and let me know how it works out down in the comments.