Linkding

08 Jan, 2023

To tame my link collecting I’ve tried everything from Safari’s built-in “Reading List,” Pocket, Instapaper, Raindrop.io, Wallabag.. etc. All require some level of subscription, contain some level of advertising or, like Safari’s Reading List, aren’t built for “hoarding” as it lacks any form of tagging or organization. I also don’t want everything tied to one browser.

If you haven’t heard of or listened to Jupter Broadcasting’s “Linux Unplugged” podcast, I highly recommend it! But even better is their Matrix community, I learn so much by observing and lightly participating in some discussion. I posed the question of a simple self-hosted bookmarking service and got a few suggesstions with one solving my problem called Linkding.

It was an easy setup via Docker on my Synology and they offer a bookmarklet and both a Chrome and FireFox extension. On my iPhone I wanted to be able to send a link via any in-app browser and wrote a simple Shortcut that can be called from the Share Sheet. You’ll notice the use of a free app called Data Jar to store API keys and other info, you can also just paste your token directly in the headers.

Note regarding tags: I got as far as prompting for tags, separating each by space, running a count against the input to use as the array index but am unable to figure out how to dynamically change the array within the tag payload of Apple Shortcuts. I’m guessing it’s just a limitation, but if there is a way, please reach out!