Mozilla to Shut Down Pocket on July 8th, 2025

[Cactus Chef]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/future-of-pocket

Well crap. That will be an especially big blow to Kobo users of Pocket (like myself).

[Frogm4n]

Sadly I got rid of my Kobo, but Pocket was one of the main services I used it with.

[hel]

What? I hope Kobo will provide its own article reading functionality. I can’t live without it, use it all the time. I am worrying though, Kobo still have web browser like experimental functionality. After all these years!

[DNSB]

I asked about potential replacements and evidently Kobo was as blindsided as the rest of us by Mozilla's decision.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I asked about potential replacements and evidently Kobo was as blindsided as the rest of us by Mozilla's decision.

Not surprising. They were equally blindsided when Mozilla announced that Pocket would force migration of all accounts to Mozilla accounts like a year ago, and it was going to completely break Kobo integration on Pocket until they got an 11th hour reprieve.

[vivaria]

Crossing my fingers that the folks on here can find a way to hack together an alternate backend to keep the Kobo Pocket feature alive!

Pocket articles are stored as a simple collection of `.html` and image files, so in theory it shouldn't be too hard to fetch and store articles in the format that Pocket expects? The one feature that Pocket had going for it was extracting `.html` from links, but at the same time, there were so many sources that it would refuse to process. So, maybe we can build something better... >

[vivaria]

Oh, it already exists! KoboOmnivoreConverter: GitHub + Hacker News

[futurekoboreader]

Kobo if you are listening: this should "Just work" out of the box on any Kobo eReader. Make your own browser extension.

[meeera]

I'm using Dotepub for now, putting the resulting epubs in their own collection. It seems to work, though of course the workflow is not the same.

[wherahiko]

Originally Posted by meeera

I'm using Dotepub for now, putting the resulting epubs in their own collection. It seems to work, though of course the workflow is not the same.

Thank you for this tip; I hadn't come across Dotepub before. I've actually been looking for something like this for a while. Using actual (k)epubs rather than Pocket means highlighting, making notes, etc. also become available. And I find it easier to transfer via USB rather than having to connect the Kobo to wi-fi.

Does Dotepub also work with (paid) Substack articles, I wonder? Until now, I have been using Read Email Later to send them from my email to Pocket and then read on the Kobo. (For other paywalled texts, I have just copied-and-pasted them into an email (as Pocket often couldn't save paywalled texts).)

[wherahiko]

Originally Posted by wherahiko

Does Dotepub also work with (paid) Substack articles, I wonder? Until now, I have been using Read Email Later to send them from my email to Pocket and then read on the Kobo. (For other paywalled texts, I have just copied-and-pasted them into an email (as Pocket often couldn't save paywalled texts).)

UPDATE: I've just tried it and it seems to work (though it does strip out images, even with immersive mode disabled). So the solution seems to be to save them via Dotepub directly from the browser, rather than from the email version.

I still can't find a solution for getting actual emails onto a Kobo (other than publishing them as a webpage and then converting via Dotepub?) but this is a start!

[m-p{3}]

Originally Posted by vivaria

Crossing my fingers that the folks on here can find a way to hack together an alternate backend to keep the Kobo Pocket feature alive!

Pocket articles are stored as a simple collection of `.html` and image files, so in theory it shouldn't be too hard to fetch and store articles in the format that Pocket expects? The one feature that Pocket had going for it was extracting `.html` from links, but at the same time, there were so many sources that it would refuse to process. So, maybe we can build something better... >

Personally I'd be happy if Inoreader would take over and offer a Read Later platform for Kobo. They already ingested all of my Pocket links I had.

[shuvashish76]

For KOReader users there is https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Wallabag plugin.

IMO it's a good opportunity for kobo to host such foss based read-it-later service with own branding...premium features for their already existing premium users and some basic features for free users. Why built something from scratch when various foss alternatives already exist?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/future-of-pocket

Well crap. That will be an especially big blow to Kobo users of Pocket (like myself).

When Mozilla bought Pocket in 2017 they said they would "open source" it. Apparently they never kept that promise, which is too bad — someone else could have picked it up.

I wonder if Kobo/Rakuten would consider buying Pocket from Mozilla? (Assuming Mozilla would sell it.)

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by rcentros

When Mozilla bought Pocket in 2017 they said they would "open source" it.

Have you seen https://github.com/Pocket