Instapaper websaite changes and Calibre Instapaper recipe failing

[Che_Boludo!]

Instapaper changed its website today, and URLs for the Home and custom folders, i can still download the newsfeed but there are no articles. It's an empty book. I've included a link to the announcement form thir blog below.

https://blog.instapaper.com/blog/2026/07/28/instapaper-10/

Below is a comment from the blog about an option to use an old.instapaper.com option.

"As some parts of the new website may not work exactly like the old one, we’re going to continue to maintain the previous website at old.instapaper.com through at least the end of 2026."

I've been able to download a news feed using old.instapaper.com URLs, but in that case I only get the article title/heading and TOC but not the article content.

I've tried every variation and combination of old and new URLs I can think of, but I can't make it work. I was able to pull articles using RSS but that way only pulls a limited number of articles.

It's already in Calibre but I am including the standard Instapaper recipe below if it's useful.

Spoiler:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
# Calibre recipe for Instapaper.com (Stable version)
#
# Homepage: http://khromov.wordpress.com/project...alibre-recipe/
# Source: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...tapaper.recipe
# Last updated 10 July 2024


from calibre.web.feeds.news import BasicNewsRecipe

# The Gutenweb stylesheet from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...8&postcount=31
gutenweb = """"html,body,div,span,applet,object,iframe,h1,h2, h3,h4,h5,h6,p,blockquote,pre,a,abbr,acronym,addres s,big,cite,code,del,dfn,em,img,ins,kbd,q,s,samp,sm all,strike,strong,sub,sup,tt,var,b,u,i,center,dl,d t,dd,ol,ul,li,fieldset,form,label,legend,table,cap tion,tbody,tfoot,thead,tr,th,td,article,aside,canv as,details,embed,figure,figcaption,footer,header,h group,menu,nav,output,ruby,section,summary,time,ma rk,audio,video{margin:0;padding:0;border:0;font-size:100%;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline}article,aside,details,figcaption,fi gure,footer,header,hgroup,menu,nav,section{display :block}body{line-height:1}ol,ul{list-style:none}blockquote,q{quotes:none}blockquote:bef ore,blockquote:after,q:before,q:after{content:\'\' ;content:none}table{border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0}html,:root{font-size:16px}body{font-size:1em;line-height:1.5em;margin-top:1.5em;margin-bottom:1.5em;max-width:33em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;text-align:left;word-spacing:normal;hyphens:auto;orphans:2;widows:2;fon t-variant-numericldstyle-nums}body *{max-width:100%}address,article,aside,audio,canvas,foot er,header,ol,ul,dl,pre,section,table,video,img,fig 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td{font-style:italic}caption{font-style:italic;text-align:center;font-style:italic}blockquote{margin-top:2.25em;margin-bottom:2.25em;margin-left:2.25em;margin-right:2.25em}blockquote p{margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;text-indent:0}figure{text-align:center}figure img,figure audio,figure canvas,figure video,figure table{margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0}figcaption{font-size:0.875em;line-height:1.71429em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1.71429em;font-style:italic}img{vertical-align:bottom}code,samp,kbd,var{font-family:Consolas,"Liberation Mono",Courier,monospace;font-size:0.875em;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;line-height:0.875em;padding:0 0.3em}mark{background:#ff0;color:#000}code,.code,s amp,kbd,var{background-color:#f8f8f8;box-shadow:0 0 0.1em 0.1em #ddd}em{font-style:italic}strong{font-weight:bold}abbr{letter-spacing:0.1em}abbr[title]{border-bottom:1px dotted #000}cite,q{font-style:italic}q{font-style:italic;quotes:"\xe2\x80\x9c" "\xe2\x80\x9d" "\xe2\x80\x98" "\xe2\x80\x99"}q:before{contentpen-quote}q:after{content:close-quote}dfn{font-style:italic}sup,sub{font-size:70%;line-height:70%;position:relative}sup{top:-0.5em}sub{top:0.5em}hr{border-bottom:0.0625em solid #000;border-top:0 none;border-left:0 none;border-right:0 none;margin-top:1.4375em;margin-bottom:1.5em}small{font-size:0.875em;line-height:1.71429em;margin-top:1.71429em;margin-bottom:1.71429em}i{font-style:italic}b{font-weight:bold}u{text-decoration:underline}s{text-decoration:line-through}ins{font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline}del{text-decoration:line-through}.caps,.nums{letter-spacing:0.1em}.caps{font-variant-numeric:lining-nums}.code{overflow:auto;padding:0 1em;background-color:#f8f8f8;box-shadow:0 0 0.1em 0.1em #ddd}.code code,.code samp,.code kbd,.code var{box-shadow:none;padding:0}.chapter{page-break-after:auto;page-break-before:always}.note{text-indent:0;font-size:0.875em;line-height:1.71429em;margin-top:1.71429em;margin-bottom:1.71429em}.verse{font-family:inherit;display:table;width:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto}.toc{margin:0 auto}.toc td,.toc th{outline:0 none}.toc th{padding:0 0.5em 0 0;text-align:right;font-weight:normal}.toc td:before{content:"\\2022";padding-right:0.5em}.toc td{padding:0;text-align:left;font-style:italic}@page{margin-top:72pt;margin-bottom:72pt}@media print{body{font-size:12pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",Times,serif}p{margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:0pt}p+p{text-indent:18pt}address,article,aside,audio,canvas,foo ter,header,ol,ul,dl,pre,section,table,video,img,fi gure{margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}h1{font-size:21pt;line-height:36pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}h2{font-size:18pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}h3{font-size:16pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}h4{font-size:14pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}dt{margin-right:18pt}li{text-indent:18pt}blockquote{margin-top:27pt;margin-bottom:27pt;margin-left:27pt;margin-right:27pt}blockquote p{margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;text-indent:0}figcaption{font-size:10pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:18pt}pre{white-spacere-line}abbr[title]{border-bottom:0 none}small{font-size:10pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}hr{border-bottom:0.08333em solid #000;margin-top:17pt;margin-bottom:18pt}.note{font-size:10pt;line-height:18pt;margin-top:18pt;margin-bottom:18pt}}""" # noqa


class InstapaperRecipe(BasicNewsRecipe):
title = 'Instapaper News'
__author__ = 'Darko Miletic, Stanislav Khromov, Jim Ramsay, Stephan Hügel'
publisher = 'Instapaper.com'
publication_type = 'magazine'
description = 'A digest of your unread Instapaper articles'
compress_news_images_max_size = 250
category = 'info, custom, Instapaper'
oldest_article = 365
max_articles_per_feed = 100
resolve_internal_links = True
no_stylesheets = False
timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b, %Y]'
extra_css = gutenweb
masthead_url = 'https://d2kfnvwohu0503.cloudfront.net/img/logo@2x.png'
encoding = 'utf-8'
language = 'en'
remove_javascript = True

recipe_specific_options = {
'days': {
'short': 'Oldest article to download from this news source. In days ',
'long': 'For example, 0.5, gives you articles from the past 12 hours',
'default': str(oldest_article)
}
}

def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
BasicNewsRecipe.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
d = self.recipe_specific_options.get('days')
if d and isinstance(d, str):
self.oldest_article = float(d)

remove_tags = [
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'reflow'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'modal_backer'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'speedTimeRemaining'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'highlight_create_popover'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'highlight_delete_popover'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'summary_highlight_popover'}),
dict(name='script'),
dict(name='section', attrs={'class': 'primary_bar'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'modal_group'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'page_header_read'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'side_drawer_container'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'modal_name'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'highlight_popover'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'bar bottom'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'class': 'evernote_confirm'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'controlbar_container'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'footer'}),
dict(name='div', attrs={'id': 'speedRead'}),
dict(name='label'),
]
use_embedded_content = False
needs_subscription = True
INDEX = 'https://www.instapaper.com'
LOGIN = INDEX + '/user/login'

feeds = [('Instapaper Unread', 'https://www.old.instapaper.com/u')]
remove_empty_feeds = True

def get_browser(self):
br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
if self.username is not None:
br.open(self.LOGIN)
br.select_form(nr=0)
br['username'] = self.username
if self.password is not None:
br['password'] = self.password
br.submit()
return br

def parse_index(self):
totalfeeds = []
lfeeds = self.get_feeds()
for feedobj in lfeeds:
feedtitle, feedurl = feedobj
self.report_progress(0, 'Fetching feed' + ' %s...' % (feedtitle if feedtitle else feedurl))
articles = []
soup = self.index_to_soup(feedurl)
for item in soup.findAll('a', attrs={'class': 'article_title'}):
articles.append(
{
'url': 'https://www.instapaper.com' + item['href'],
'title': item['title'],
}
)
totalfeeds.append((feedtitle, articles))
return totalfeeds


calibre_most_common_ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'

[Che_Boludo!]

I have a correction to my post. I didn't download it as an RSS feed; what I meant was that I was able to download articles as an EPUB, but that only pulls a limited number of articles and also won't let me download several folders at once and into the same book.

[markvdvelde]

I'm having the same problem. From the Instapaper website I can download an epub with 20 articles whereas the Calibre recipe contained max. 40 articles. Also the mobi file that Calibre generated is much more user friendly on a Kindle than a converted epub>mobi from the Instapaper website.

I wish I knew how to fix this, but I have no idea honestly.

[Che_Boludo!]

OP here - I, too, would like the 40 articles from each folder back. Also, I have multiple folders pulled from my newsfeed, making something like my own newspaper. In fact, I do make my own newspapers with folders that act like different newspaper sections.

I might know a way to fix it, but it might take me a little while. I have a few ideas.

markvdvelde - If I figure it out, I will share the fix.

[markvdvelde]

If I figure it out, I will share the fix.

Thanks!