Unread 4.5 adds Website Accounts, a new capability that lets you view webpage text for paywalled articles.

You can sign in to a website when viewing webpage text for such an article. On Mac, choose Sign In… from the View menu or use the ^⌥L (Control-Option-L) keyboard shortcut. On iPhone and iPad, swipe the screen to the left and choose Sign In… from the resulting menu. The ^⌥L (Control-Option-L) keyboard shortcut is also available on iPads with hardware keyboards. Once you have set up a website account in Unread, Unread will generate webpage text for articles from that website using your account.

You can manage your set of website accounts from under the Settings screen on iPhone and iPad.

You can manage your set of website accounts from the Settings window on Mac.

Caching

From the Settings window on Mac and from the Settings → Website Accounts screen on iPhone and iPad, you can enable an Eligible for Caching setting for each website account. This is off by default because some paywalled websites will block you for aggressively retrieving webpages.

Privacy

Generating webpage text using a website account is done entirely on your device. Unread’s servers are not involved. Unread’s servers do not see any information pertaining to your website accounts.

I updated the Unread Privacy Policy to reflect the addition of this capability with additional details.

Additional Improvements

• This update adds the ability to reload webpage text for an article. On Mac, choose Reload Webpage Text from the View menu or use the ^R (Control-R) keyboard shortcut. On iPhone and iPad, swipe the article screen to the left and choose Reload Webpage Text from the resulting menu. The ^R (Control-R) keyboard shortcut is also available on iPads with hardware keyboards.
• On the Advanced screen under Settings on iPhone and iPad, there is now an In-App Safari button. Tap that button to open an in-app Safari view with any URL that you enter. This can be useful when you want to authenticate in-app Safari with a magic link.
• This update adds a URL scheme making it easy to create a URL that opens Unread and offers to subscribe to a specific feed, or to find feeds associated with a website.
• This update removes both the Omnivore article action and the Pocket article action. Both services have shut down. The Unread privacy policy no longer links to the Omnivore privacy policy or the Pocket privacy policy.
• This update fixes a bug that prevented star (★) characters from appearing in article list summaries.
• Unread now draws light borders around YouTube channel icons when searching for a YouTube channel.
• This update adds minor compatibility improvements around the OS 26 beta versions.

Paying for quality journalism is now more important than ever, so I am particularly excited about this update. The update is available now from the App Store. If you enjoy using Unread, please consider subscribing to its premium features.

I just deployed improvements to Unread Cloud for the benefit of customers who subscribe to feeds of Bluesky accounts. Feed text for Bluesky posts now includes the full post content. This includes formatting, embedded images, and quoted posts. Webpage text for Bluesky posts already included this content, regardless of what type of feed service account (Unread Cloud, Feedbin, Feedly, etc.) you were using. Now this content is available right in the feed text if you are using an Unread Cloud account or a Local account.

When a Bluesky post contains a link to an outside article, Unread will now treat the post as a link article when using an Unread Cloud account or a Local account. If you show Feed and Webpage Text for such an article, you will see the Bluesky post and the full content of the article to which it links. This works just like link articles from Daring Fireball, for example. For customers who subscribe to Unread’s premium features and have webpage text caching enabled, the full text of the linked article will already be stored locally when you open such a Bluesky post. Therefore Unread will display it very quickly.

How It Works

Bluesky provides an RSS feed for each user. Bluesky’s feeds contain the text of and link to each post, but they exclude information such as formatting and embedded images. Fortunately Bluesky has an API that makes it feasible to obtain this additional information. Unread’s webpage text servers have been taking advantage of the Bluesky API to generate good webpage text for Bluesky posts for some time. Unread Cloud now takes advantage of this API so that the feed text for a Bluesky post includes the full content and so that Unread can display any article to which a Bluesky post links.

Webpage Text Settings

For new feed subscriptions, the default settings for a Bluesky feed subscription when in an Unread Cloud account or a Local account make Unread show Feed Text for traditional articles and Webpage Text for link articles. In Feedbin, Feedly, Fever, Inoreader, and NewsBlur accounts the default settings for a Bluesky feed subscription make Unread show Webpage Text. You may wish to update your settings for existing Bluesky feed subscriptions. A more detailed description of Unread’s webpage text capabilities and these settings is available.

The Bluesky changes apply to Bluesky posts made after 3:00 PM Boston time today (Monday).