Reader Mode
Reader Mode opens the current page in a clean, distraction-free reading view — no ads, no sidebars, just the post. It reuses Social Archiver's per-platform extraction, so social posts render with faithful text and media instead of the messy result a generic reader would give you. Read, highlight, chat with a local AI about the content, and archive or clip it — all without leaving the page.
Available in Chrome extension 1.7.0 and later. Works signed in or signed out.
Open Reader Mode
- Toolbar icon — click the extension popup's book icon (only shown on
http/httpspages) - Right-click menu — Open in Reader Mode on the page
- Switch behavior — while the reader switch is on (the book icon glows), opening the extension on any supported page flips it straight into the reading view. Closing the reader with ✕ or
Escturns the switch off.
Close with the ✕ in the top bar or Esc. The original page is untouched underneath.
Reading Controls
The Aa button opens the typography panel:
- Font size, line height, and column width steppers
- Sans / Serif toggle
- Light / Dark / Auto theme
Settings sync across your devices through your browser profile.
Platform-Specific Views
Reader Mode uses the same extractor as Clip, so what you get depends on the page:
| Page type | What renders |
|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, Reddit, LinkedIn posts | The post text, media, quoted/shared post, and link cards — read straight from your logged-in session, so login-walled posts work |
| YouTube videos | A synchronized transcript reader |
| Naver Blog, Kakao Brunch, Substack Notes, Bluesky, Mastodon | Platform-native article/post rendering |
| Any other web page | A generic article view (readable content extracted from the page) |
Comments load on demand — click the speech-bubble icon in the top bar to pull the platform's comment thread, rendered in the same reader typography. Facebook mentions and shared links render as real links (with l.facebook.com tracking redirects unwrapped).
YouTube Transcript Reader
On a YouTube video, Reader Mode shows the transcript beside the player and keeps them in sync:
- Pinned player stays visible while you scroll the transcript
- Active line highlights as the video plays
- Auto-scroll follows playback
- Click any line to jump the video to that moment
Each of these can be toggled in the reader's YouTube settings. Transcripts come from YouTube's caption track when available, the on-page transcript panel as a fallback, or Social Archiver's own transcription.
Highlighting
Select any text to highlight it:
- Five colors with an optional note per highlight
- Click an existing highlight to change its color, edit the note, or remove it
- Highlights are saved locally in your browser, per page — reopen the reader on the same page and they reappear
When you clip or archive, your highlights travel into the saved note as ==marked== text, so they show up highlighted in Obsidian too.
Archive & Clip From the Reader
The top bar has Archive and Clip buttons — the same actions as the popup, without leaving the reader. Highlights are included automatically.
Archive with Chat
If you've chatted with the AI about the page, a Include chat when saving toggle appears. Turn it on and your conversation is appended to the saved note under an AI Chat heading (questions as callouts, answers as Markdown). The post's own text is never altered, so search and highlight positions stay intact.
For local clips the toggle defaults on; for cloud archives it defaults off, because a cloud archive can become a public share link — you decide whether the chat goes with it.
AI Chat
With the Local Media Helper installed, the reader can chat with Claude Code — your own local CLI agent — about whatever you're reading. Click the sparkles icon in the top bar to open the chat drawer.
- The page's title, author, and full text are given to the assistant as context, so you can ask "summarize this", "what's the counterargument here?", or "explain the third paragraph" and get answers grounded in the post.
- On a YouTube video, the transcript is the context.
- Pick a model (Default, Sonnet, Opus, Haiku) from the drawer header.
- Everything runs locally through your own Claude Code subscription — no Social Archiver server call, no credits, and it works even signed out.
What you need
- Local Media Helper — the same paired localhost app used for video muxing. Install guide · Download (macOS)
- Claude Code CLI — installed and signed in. See AI CLI Setup.
If either is missing, the chat drawer shows a setup card that walks you through the remaining step.
Privacy & safety
The AI reads untrusted web content, so the reader runs Claude Code with its tools disabled — it answers questions but cannot run commands or touch your files. Conversations use your Claude Code plan's usage and are stored in your local Claude Code session history.