Raindrop is a great tool for organizing bookmarks

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Raindrop is a great free bookmarking tool. I use it to save links to classes I teach and topics I research. I also save collections of links to share with friends, colleagues and students.

These are the best features of Raindrop:

It’s easy and free for any platform

Download Raindrop app for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and any browser. Once you’ve installed the browser extension, it’s easy to save a link to any Web page and optionally add a note or bookmark for future reference. Bookmarks can have as many tags as you like for easy searching. Links can also be placed in a collection, which is a folder.
Price: I recommend the for free system, which allows unlimited links, collections, highlights, devices, social sharing, collaboration, and integration. It has the main features that many people need and there is no pressure to pay.
Pro: I $3/month option ($28/year) adds several luxury features, including:
- Find out repeat or broken links in your collection
- Search i text for every site you save
- Keep automatic copies for each Web page you save in case the website is not connected to the Internet
- Upload 10GB files each month to store your files, photos, PDFs, videos, etc.

All your link collections are private, and you can share them as you wish. Display your links in a list, as cards in a gallery, or as a weather board.

Add participants for a group or family project collection.
Publish collections of links that anyone can access freely without needing to use Raindrop or sign up or register.
Embed link collections to manage them on the website.
Examples: Collections of community links I have saved:
- Income streams for niche journalism ventures. A curated collection of ways to make money.
- Online event forums for the pandemic era. A catalog of a range of apps launched to help people meet online.

Use AI to help organize your links

A new AI organization tool helps organize your links. It will suggest a collection or tag of unsorted bookmarks, or tag. That’s especially helpful if, like me, you sometimes forget to tag or file your saves.

Integration: Automatically sync links across platforms

You can connect Raindrop to other services so you can access your saved links later wherever and however you need them.

Raindrop can automatically log into a Google spreadsheet or a Notion page. You don’t need to add them manually.
Sync links you save in Raindrop to Readwise, Instapaper or Pocket for later reading. You can also import links from those services to Raindrop.
Raindrop works well with IFTTT and Make, services that connect multiple applications. [Here’s my take on IFTTT’s usefulness]. Pairing one of those apps with Raindrop allows it to automatically collect links to your favorite songs on Spotify, your favorite Tweets, or your favorite videos on YouTube. There are over 2600 total combinations possible. That makes Raindrop a useful hub for collecting and organizing all your favorite links from whatever services you use.

Export and import

It’s easy to import and export links with Raindrop.

Release: Instead of dumping your entire cache of links, you can extract the right set of links with a specific tag. Or export a link collection (folder). You can export links as a CSV file for a spreadsheet, as an HTML file, or as text.
Import: Easily import links you’ve saved to other resources. Import links you’ve saved in a browser, Evernote, or apps like Diigo, Dropmark, Goodlinks, etc.

Suggested ways to use Raindrop

Organize project research: Park project materials in the Raindrop collection as you research online. Save links in a neat Raindrop collection instead of printing reams of paper or embedding links in Word or GDocs. You can even annotate links as you go. It’s a simple, free, fast way to create a private or shared digital project file box.
Collect and participate in hobbies: Use it to collect links with friends. If you are part of a club, team, hobby or fan group, you can collectively include your favorite links, with or without annotations.
Share resources for making a presentation or workshop: If you teach or give lectures, Raindrop is useful for sharing presentation links or resources. Share one link in a collection and attendees can see all your materials in one place, including all your links, videos, and PDFs of your slides or handouts.
- Note: I usually choose Craft for sharing resources after a launch because it allows me to create a complete visual document, rather than a list of resources, but Raindrop works well if you’re mainly sharing links.
Create a mood board: For planning an event, party, or renovation, Raindrop can be useful for saving inspiring photos or links. The moodboard layout option gives you a nice visual overview of your links with cover images. It also automatically pulls a description from any link you save.

Warnings

Mobile app visuals. Images in articles saved on Raindrop—especially in paywall publications like I New York Times-may not show all shows when reading on mobile app. I prefer to read saved articles in Readwise Reader (see alternatives below).
Pockets beware. As someone who saves more time than I make, I agree with the digital packrat tendency. Adding another storage hub like this can lead to you getting overwhelmed with a pile of saved items that you don’t have time to review.
Avoid duplicate hubs. There’s no need to add another digital sock cabinet if your organization’s system is already working well. If you have a system well set up in Notion, Coda, Airtable, Obsidian or elsewhere, stick with what works. Those platforms allow you to create your own custom organizational structure with advanced filtering.
A small group. Raindrop was conceived, built, and managed by one person – Rustem Mussabekov, a designer/developer based in Kazakhstan. It has been around for more than a decade, but its continuity is largely dependent on Rustem.

Other notable forms of raindrops

Learn Student it’s my preferred system for catching up on online learning on the subway or plane. (Why I love you). If you save a lot of time for reading, Readwise is well-designed for both online and offline reading and highlighting.
- Tip: It’s also great for watching + highlighting YouTube videos.
Instapaper, In the pocket again Important they are also good options designed to save articles for later reading, although they are not ideal for saving other types of links, such as product pages or images.
My Mind is the ultimate virtual hub for online savings. That’s why I find it useful.
The cloth it’s a new tool I’ve been testing for cutting up visuals I find online. It aims to create an AI-powered way to search all your stuff.
The eagle just launched version 4.0. It’s best to save and organize photos and screenshots you find online. Here’s what I love about the Eagle.
Dropbox it has a new feature to save links and screenshots. That’s useful for organized organization if all your files are already stored in Dropbox.