Readwise

Readwise is an application suite to store, revisit, and learn from your book and article highlights. This is a basic library to call the Readwise API to read and write highlights, and manage Reader documents through the Reader API.

This library is not at 100% coverage of the API, so if you need a method that is missing, open an issue or contribute changes!

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'readwise'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install readwise

Usage

First, obtain an API access token from https://readwise.io/access_token.

Highlights API (V2)

The V2 API provides access to your highlights and books:

client = Readwise::Client.new(token: token)

books = client.export # export all highlights
books = client.export(updated_after: '2023-01-17T22:02:48Z') # export recent highlights
books = client.export(book_ids: ['123']) # export specific highlights

puts books.first.title # books are Readwise::Book structs
puts books.first.highlights.map(&:text) # highlights are Readwise::Highlight structs

# create a highlight
create = Readwise::HighlightCreate.new(text: 'foobar', author: 'Joan')
highlight = client.create_highlight(highlight: create)

# update a highlight
update = Readwise::HighlightUpdate.new(text: 'foobaz', color: 'yellow')
updated = client.update_highlight(highlight: highlight, update: update)

# add a tag to a highlight
tag = Readwise::Tag.new(name: 'foobar')
added_tag = client.add_highlight_tag(highlight: highlight, tag: tag)

# update a tag on a highlight
added_tag.name = 'bing'
updated_tag = client.update_highlight_tag(highlight: highlight, tag: added_tag)

# remove a tag from a highlight
client.remove_highlight_tag(highlight: highlight, tag: added_tag)

# get daily review highlights
daily_review = client.daily_review
puts daily_review.id
puts daily_review.url
puts daily_review.completed?
puts daily_review.highlights.size
puts daily_review.highlights.first.text

Reader API (V3)

The V3 API provides access to Readwise Reader functionality for managing documents (articles, PDFs, etc.):

# Get all documents
documents = client.get_documents

# Get documents with filters
documents = client.get_documents(
  updated_after: '2023-01-01T00:00:00Z',
  location: 'new',        # 'new', 'later', 'archive', or 'feed'
  category: 'article'     # 'article', 'email', 'rss', 'highlight', 'note', 'pdf', 'epub', 'tweet', 'video'
)

# Get a specific document
document = client.get_document(document_id: '123456')

puts document.title
puts document.author
puts document.url
puts document.reading_progress
puts document.location
puts document.category

# Check document properties
puts document.read?                    # reading progress >= 85%
puts document.read?(threshold: 0.5)    # custom threshold
puts document.parent?                  # is this a top-level document?
puts document.child?                   # is this a highlight/note of another document?

# Check location
puts document.in_new?
puts document.in_later?
puts document.in_archive?

# Check category
puts document.article?
puts document.pdf?
puts document.epub?
puts document.tweet?
puts document.video?
puts document.book?
puts document.email?
puts document.rss?
puts document.highlight?
puts document.note?

# Access timestamps
puts document.created_at_time
puts document.updated_at_time
puts document.published_date_time

# Create a new document
document_create = Readwise::DocumentCreate.new(
  url: 'https://example.com/article',
  title: 'My Article',
  author: 'John Doe',
  html: '<p>Article content</p>',
  summary: 'A brief summary',
  location: 'new',           # 'new', 'later', 'archive', or 'feed'
  category: 'article',       # 'article', 'email', 'rss', etc.
  tags: ['technology', 'programming'],
  notes: 'My personal notes',
  should_clean_html: true,
  saved_using: 'api'
)

document = client.create_document(document: document_create)

# Create multiple documents
documents = client.create_documents(documents: [document_create1, document_create2])

Command Line Interface

This gem includes a readwise command-line tool for quickly sending HTML content to Readwise Reader.

First, set your API token:

export READWISE_API_KEY=your_token_here

Then use the CLI to send HTML files:

# Basic usage
readwise document create --html-file content.html
readwise document create --url https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2324

# Short form flag
readwise document create -f content.html

# With options
readwise document create --html-file content.html --title="My Article" --location=later

# See all available options
readwise --help
readwise document create --help

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run bundle exec rspec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/joshbeckman/readwise-ruby. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Readwise project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.