If you’re like most people, you use Google Chrome to keep track of the websites you visit and the articles you read. But what if you want to save an article for later? There are a few different ways to do this in Google Chrome. The easiest way is to use the “Read Later” feature built into the browser. This lets you save any article or page for later reading. You can also use “Bookmarks” to save articles for later reading. This is a list of all the pages and articles that are saved in your browser. You can access this list by clicking on the “Bookmarks” button on the toolbar, or by pressing Ctrl+D (PC) or Cmd+D (Mac). Finally, you can also save articles for later reading using “Downloads.” This is a list of all the files that are downloaded from websites that are saved in your browser. You can access this list by clicking on the “Downloads” button on the toolbar, or by pressing Ctrl+O (PC) or Cmd+O (Mac). ..

Installation

Adding the extension is quick and easy but you will need to confirm the installation before you can finish adding Local Read Later to Chrome.

As soon as the installation has finished you will see your new “Toolbar Button” and a brief extension management message. At this point you will need to go into the options to decide how “Saved Websites” are handled after you click on them in the drop-down list.

The only way to access the “Options” is through the “Chrome Extensions Page”…

These are the options for Local Read Later. At the top is the option that will have a large effect on how the extension works for you. If you leave it enabled (default setting) then each “Saved Website” that you click on in the drop-down list is automatically deleted. That is good if you no longer need the link but if you accidentally click on it…ouch.

Disabling the option will leave all websites in the list even if you click on them. How do you get rid of them then you may ask? That is what the “Pages to read (JSON)” text area is for. You can manually delete individual drop-down list entries (or all of them automatically by clicking on “Reset All”). The list can also be copied, saved externally, and restored at a later time if needed (definitely nice).

Local Read Later in Action

Ok, so you have found a website that you want to read later…how do you add it to the list? Use the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Alt + R” and the website is instantly added to the list. You will see a small red blinking box with the text “NEW” in it for a couple of seconds before it transforms into a modified count “box”.

A closer look at the “Toolbar Button” and “Saved Website Count”.

Another website, another “Ctrl + Alt + R” to add it to the list…

Here is our example list now that we are starting to fill it up a little bit.

Curious about how the “Pages to read (JSON)” text area looks now? Here it is with our two websites added to it…

Time to try the saved links out. Open the drop-down list and click on the listing that you would like to view…

The webpage will be opened in a new tab and the listing will be gone from the drop-down list (unless you disabled the removal feature).

Conclusion

This extension is still in the early stages of development but if you have been waiting for “Read It Later” functionality in Chrome then you should definitely give Local Read Later a try.

Links

Download the Local Read Later extension (Google Chrome Extensions