Migrating from Pocket to Recallio: A Step-by-Step Guide

Pocket has been a popular read-later tool for years, but increasing restrictions on the free tier and the 2025 deprecation of the standalone app have sent many users looking for alternatives. If you're moving to Recallio, this guide covers the complete migration.

Step 1: Export your Pocket data

1. Log into getpocket.com in a desktop browser.
2. Go to [your username] → My List → Export.
3. Click Export HTML file.

Pocket generates a file called ril_export.html containing all your saved items — both your active list and archived items.

Step 2: What's in the Pocket export

The HTML file contains:

• The URL of each saved item
• The page title
• The date saved (as a Unix timestamp)
• Whether the item was archived or in your active list
• Tags you applied in Pocket

Notably absent: Pocket doesn't export your highlights or any notes you added. If you have important highlights, copy them manually before migrating.

Step 3: Import into Recallio

1. Log into Recallio and open Import from the sidebar.
2. Pick Pocket as your source and click Next.
3. Upload your ril_export.html and click Import.
4. You'll see how many items were imported and how many were skipped as duplicates.

A couple of things worth knowing going in: Recallio's Pocket import uses the same generic HTML parser as any other browser export — it reads the URL, title, and save date from each entry. It doesn't distinguish active items from archived ones (everything lands in Unsorted), and it doesn't read Pocket's tags from the file. If archive state and tags matter to you, plan on a manual pass after import: move things you'd archived in Pocket into Recallio's Archive, and re-apply the tags you care about (Recallio's bulk-select-and-tag makes this fast for groups of similar links).

Step 4: What to do with archived items

Pocket's archive is a final resting place for many people — things you read years ago and haven't touched since. If you move everything you'd archived in Pocket into Recallio's Archive after import, that collection may end up large.

Options:

• Leave it as-is: the archive is searchable, so old items are still findable when you need them.
• Prune it: filter Archive by date (oldest first) and delete anything older than 2 years that you know you'll never revisit.
• Re-tag and organise: if you want to actually use your archive as a reference, spend some time tagging the most valuable items.

What Recallio gives you that Pocket didn't

Feature	Pocket	Recallio
Collections (folders)	✗ (just one list + archive)	✓ (unlimited)
Full-text search	Pro only	✓
Tags	✓	✓
Smart Collections	✗	✓
Automatic tagging	✗	✓ (rule-based)
Browser extension (Chrome + Firefox)	✓	✓
Public collection sharing	✗	✓
Public API	✓	✗ (internal only)

The biggest practical difference is collections. Pocket was a single-list tool — everything went into one list, filtered by tags and archived/unarchived state. Recallio's collection structure means you can maintain multiple distinct lists for different purposes simultaneously.

Keeping Pocket running during transition

You don't need to delete your Pocket account immediately. Run both in parallel for a few weeks. When you're confident that Recallio has everything you need and your workflows are solid, cancel Pocket.