I’m in book-highlighting heaven with Clippings.io

As a voracious reader of ebooks, I’ve found immense value in highlighting passages of interest when I’m reading. Highlighting passages allows me to collect bits of information that I want to reflect on, explore further or simply add to my personal knowledge store for future reference. But my highlight capturing system was great:
There were two ways I previously collected my book highlights for safe-keeping:

1. I would highlight passages as I read, and at the end of the book, send a PDF of my notes to my email address. From there I would selected the passages of text and paste them in to Anytype.
2. I would immediately share the highlight to my email. I would then pin this email in my mail client to be processed at a later date.

The problems with my system.

• With the first method of exporting my highlights once I’d finished the book, if for whatever reason I got distracted and moved on to another book, the potential was there for me to never actually export my highlights — effectively loosing the highlights altogether until I returned to the book (if ever). Also, selecting the passages of text in the PDF and pasting into my notes software would be fiddly at best.
• With the second method of sending each highlight by email, going through the whole Share process would interrupt my flow of reading. There was always the potential that I could highlight the passage, but forget to share it. Additionally, if there was a blip in my internet connection, I wouldn’t be able to share it at all. Finally, this method added additional clutter to my mailbox which I try to keep as clean as possible [add link to Inbox zero article]

I discovered clippings.io

I discovered clippings.io as a result of wanting to make highlights in a book I’d side-loaded onto my Kindle. Side-loading refers to books that are from outside the Kindle platform and are not delivered wirelessly. This could be a book direct from an author, or from another platform, or in a format not initially compatible with Kindle. Side-loading books involves using the book software Calibre to convert the ebook to the required format, plugging the Kindle in via USB and sending the book to the Kindle device via USB. But because that book isn’t a part of the Kindle ecosystem, sending highlights via the usual methods isn’t an option.

The My Clippings file

So, my only other option was to access the My Clippings file on my Kindle. This is a text file that is automatically created by the Kindle itself and is a log of every single highlight made using that physical Kindle. As a single text file, it can be a bit tricky to navigate and find what you want using a text viewer such as Notepad, especially if you have hundreds of highlights over a long timespan. This is where Clippings.io comes in.

How Clippings.io works

Once you’ve signed up for a free account with clippings.io, you have the option to install a browser extension or upload your My Clippings file from your Kindle. I’ve found the upload function the most straightforward. This is a simple case of plugging your Kindle in, navigating to Kindle > documents and copying the file to somewhere temporary such as your Downloads folder, and uploading it. This is where the magic happens. Clippings.io reads the file, identifies each individual highlight and the book that the highlight is from, and organises it in a neat, easy to navigate interface.

My workflow with clippings.io

So, for my highlight capture process, what I do is copy each highlight using the copy function in the highlight’s own menu, and paste it into the relevant place in my personal knowledge management software. Once it’s in, I delete the highlight in clippings.io, and move on to the next highlight.

Where clippings.io really excels

Where clippings.io really excels is, it will identify duplicates. Without this function, if you uploaded your My Clippings file again say a month later after reading a few more books, you would get the same highlights appearing. But clippings.io knows which ones are new, and which ones you’ve already processed (i.e deleted).

How clippings.io has helped me

Thanks to clippings.io, my book highlight gathering workflow has become frictionless and much more streamlined. Now, rather than making sure I don’t forget to send a highlight straight to my email, or making sure I don’t forget to export all the book’s highlights once I’ve finished reading it, I simply build uploading the My Clippings file to clippings.io and process my highlights into my monthly routine.