Web clips and highlights

Reading happens elsewhere: an article in a browser, highlights in a reading app, passages on a Kindle. Varlig keeps what you saved, with a link back to where it came from, and a small inbox so nothing is silently filed away.

Clip a web page

Choose File › Clip Web Page…, paste an address and click Preview. Varlig shows what it would save — the new tags, how many images it can download, and any it couldn’t — before anything is written. Save Note keeps the main text, links and images as a note you can read offline.

The note keeps the page’s address, title and capture date, a [Source](…) link at the top and a #webclips tag. Images that couldn’t be downloaded are marked in place rather than dropped.

When some images failed, the preview offers Try Again. It asks only for those images again, without reloading the page, and keeps the ones already downloaded. The preview then says how many more it got, and any that still fail stay marked Image unavailable.

Save from other apps

Choose Varlig in another app’s Share menu to save text, a link, pictures, PDFs or other files, each up to 100 MB. The Save to Varlig panel shows the text, which you can edit, and lists every file it will attach with a thumbnail or icon, its name and size, under a count and total such as 2 attachments · 3.4 MB. A sentence below says what the note will get, such as Saves your text and 2 attachments as a new note. Files on their own become a note titled Shared files.

With Offer recent notes when sharing to Varlig turned on in Settings › Privacy, a menu in the panel also offers Append to “…” for recently edited notes, and the item goes at the end of the one you choose.

Save Note hands the note’s link, varlig://x-callback-url/open-note?id=…, back to the app you shared from, for apps that use it. The item reaches your library the next time you switch to Varlig. A new note from a share opens there; when an item lands where you aren’t looking, such as at the end of another note, a notice under the note list says so, as in Shared item added to “Reading list”., and Open Note takes you to it.

A page shared from Safari on iPhone or iPad is downloaded by Varlig on that device when the app opens, then syncs here with its source link and captured content. Both devices offer Refresh from Source… for later updates. See Share into Varlig from other apps.

The Clippings Inbox

Clippings Inbox in the sidebar lists everything you’ve clipped or imported that you haven’t dealt with yet. When you’ve done what you needed with a note, choose Mark as Processed from its … menu and it leaves the inbox; Return to Clippings Inbox puts it back.

Marking a note processed doesn’t change its editing date, so your list stays in writing order.

Refresh a clipped page

Pages change. Refresh from Source… in the note’s … menu reloads the address the note was clipped from and shows you exactly what is new, as a list of added passages.

Append Updates adds them under a heading such as ## Updated from source on 22 September 2026. Your own text, notes and commentary are never rewritten — updates only ever go at the end. If nothing changed, Varlig says so and leaves the note alone.

Refresh needs a web address and an editable note; it isn’t available for protected notes.

Import highlights

File › Import Notes… (⇧⌘O) also reads a Readwise CSV export and Kindle’s My Clippings.txt. Varlig makes one note per book or article, headed with the title and author, and lists the highlights with their locations.

Before importing you see how many highlights are new, how many notes would be created or updated, and how many are already in your library.

Re-import the same export later and only genuinely new highlights are added, at the end of each note’s imported section. Anything you wrote yourself between the highlights stays exactly as it is.