Trying out GoodLinks

December 24, 2024

The weeks leading up to the holidays have been hectic. I’m behind on “internet stuff” since entering Christmas-mode, and have been looking for a better way to capture things I want to look at later. I’ve had this issue before, but solved it in an ad-hoc way. Previously I’d made notes in Bear or used Safari’s Reading List feature, but I wasn’t happy with either option.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Bear for wrangling notes. But when I add a link in Bear, it’s because I want some context around it. It’ll usually be associated with something I’m working on or thinking about, and I want to note those connections. I’ll take some time to add screenshots, links to other notes, and some descriptive text I can search against. I wanted something easier than this, and I also didn’t want to junk up my notes with loose links. In the past, some of those links were tricky to find among the other notes I’d made.

I’m sure Safari’s Reading List solves this issue for many, but I was looking for something with a few more features. Primarily some form of simple categorization. I’ve also never liked how Reading List exists only in Safari’s sidebar. I’m sure I could get used to this, but having another window to handle links fits my workflow better.

While I had some downtime over the past few days, I decided to look at a few apps/services for handling links. I eventually landed on GoodLinks, and have been quite happy with it so far.

GoodLinks cost $12.99 in Canada, and that price includes apps for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Each version of the app fits perfectly on its platform. The apps sync via iCloud, which works well for me. Others might prefer something that works across more than just Apple platforms. I quite like having an app install and already have my stuff, without need for an account sign-in. There’s an additional $6.99 CAD charge for annual updates, which seems fair to me. I really don’t know how developers with one-time app purchases sustain themselves these days.

GoodLinks probably does more than I need, but the extra functionality doesn’t get in the way. It offers a nice share sheet interface, which is how I’ve been adding things to it. When using that, you can also tag a link, and existing tags will autocomplete. Article contents are downloaded per-device — which I could take or leave — but this is handy if I wanted to find a link later based on its contents. The apps offer a good set of customization options, and those can be configured per-device.

I also looked at some other apps and services:

Anybox: this was another Apple-specific app that looked great. GoodLinks won out for me based on a subjective first-glance at the UI. I also liked that GoodLinks felt slightly more simple and focused. Anybox looks like a great alternative, though.
Raindrop: This is something I saw recommended a lot. If I was working across multiple platforms, I likely would have tried this first. There are apps and browser extensions offered for most platforms, as well as a web interface. There’s a generous free plan, and also a nice looking API. There are multiple ways of sorting links, which is overkill for my needs but likely something many others would want.
Matter: I also saw many recommendations for this, although it looks like it focuses more on the “read later” side of things rather than on capturing links. I think that if this was my chosen feed reader app, this might make sense. The focus feels wrong for my purposes, though.
Reeder: Similarly to Matter, the new Reeder app offers read later functionality. I used Reeder 5 for a while on top of Feedbin before switching to using Feedbin directly last year. I haven’t tried Reeder since the most recent version. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but the new Reeder looks excellent from the outside. I may give it another go in the future, but I’d still likely want a separate link-capture app.

I should have started using an app like this a long time ago. It was a nice little project to look into the field while also scratching this itch.