A Pocket alternative that helps you remember
Pocket shut down on July 8, 2025, and Mozilla closed its export page on November 12, 2025. If you used it to save articles and videos you rarely got back to, Recl is a different kind of replacement: it saves from your phone or browser, summarizes each save, sorts it into topics and quizzes you so you remember it.
Compiled from Mozilla's notice on Pocket's shutdown on 2026-10-22. Features and prices change — confirm current details at support.mozilla.org.
What Pocket did, and what Recl does
| Feature | Recl | Pocket (until 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A memory system: a summary, topics and spaced recall for every save | A read-it-later app that grew into story recommendations |
| Status | Active: Web app, Android, iOS, Chrome extension | Shut down July 8, 2025; exports closed and data deleted from November 12, 2025 |
| Save from a browser | Chrome extension: toolbar, right-click menu or Ctrl+Shift+S | Browser extensions, and built into Firefox until June 24, 2025 |
| Save from your phone | Share sheet from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X or any browser | Android and iOS apps |
| Organizing saves | Sorted into topics automatically | A list, an archive, favorites and tags |
| Notes and highlights | Highlight passages in a summary's long read and add private notes | Notes and highlights on saved articles |
| Summaries and recall | AI summary on every save; quizzes and nudges with gaps of 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 and 60 days | Not described in Mozilla's shutdown notice |
| Discovery | A feed of your saves and curated library content (mobile app) | Curated recommendations, now on Firefox's New Tab and the Ten Tabs newsletter |
| Price | No free plan; every plan has every feature | Free, with Pocket Premium as a monthly or annual subscription |
What happened to Pocket
On May 22, 2025, Mozilla removed Pocket from the app stores, stopped new sign-ups and ended monthly Premium renewals. Pocket shut down on July 8, 2025, when annual Premium subscribers were refunded on a prorated basis. The web export page stayed open until November 12, 2025; that day the Pocket API was switched off and accounts and data began to be deleted. Mozilla’s stated reason: the way people use the web has evolved, and it is putting its resources into projects that match how people browse now.
If you did not export your saves by November 12, 2025, Mozilla’s notice says the data was queued for permanent deletion, so there is nothing left to bring over.
What to look for in a replacement
- Saving where you already are. Pocket was one tap away in the browser and on the phone. Whatever replaces it should be just as close on the devices you actually use.
- Something that happens after you save. For many people a read-later list becomes a backlog. If that was you, look for a tool that does some of the reading for you — summaries, topics, search — rather than another list.
- A way out. Pocket users had a few months to export. Before you commit years of saves to any service, check how you would get them back. Recl’s privacy policy gives you the right to a copy of your saved content in a machine-readable format, and you can delete your account and everything in it yourself.
- How it is paid for. A service that costs you nothing is funded by something other than you. Recl’s paid plans are how it covers the cost of reading and summarizing every save — the full argument is here.
When a read-later app is the better replacement
If what you miss most is Pocket itself — a place to keep articles and read them later — a dedicated read-later app is closer to what Pocket was, and several of them can import a Pocket export. Mozilla’s own notice lists Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Matter, GoodLinks, Raindrop.io and Futurwise as services that support importing Pocket data. It describes Instapaper as “a simple tool for saving web pages to read later on iOS, Android, computer or Kindle”; our Recl vs Readwise and Recl vs Raindrop pages go into two of them in detail.
Recl is not trying to be a better reader. It is for the things you want to remember after you have read or watched them.
Moving your Pocket saves to Recl
If you exported before November 12, 2025, you have a file with your list, archive, favorites, notes and highlights. Recl has no bulk importer, so do not try to move all of it. Open the export, pick the 10 or 20 links you still care about, and paste them into Recl on the web or share them from your phone. Each one gets a summary, topics and a quiz, which is a better use of an old backlog than filing it again.
Where Recl fits better
- Your Pocket list was mostly things you meant to learn from and never reopened.
- You save a lot of video — YouTube, reels, TikToks — not just articles.
- You want each save summarized and sorted without tagging it yourself.
- You want reminders that bring the important ideas back.
Where a read-later app fits better
- You mainly want a calm place to read full articles later, start to finish.
- You want to import your Pocket export file — several read-later apps accept it; Recl does not.
- You work by highlighting and annotating the full text, or listening to it read aloud.
- You want an app built around reading rather than remembering.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Pocket still available?
- No. Mozilla shut Pocket down on July 8, 2025. Saves could be exported until November 12, 2025; on that date the export page and the Pocket API were switched off and accounts and data began to be deleted.
- Can I import my Pocket export into Recl?
- Not in bulk — Recl has no importer today, and it is not on Mozilla's list of services that import Pocket data. Paste the links you still care about into Recl on the web, or share them from your phone, and Recl summarizes and sorts each one.
- Does Recl have a free plan?
- Not right now. Recl is a paid app — monthly and yearly plans both unlock every feature, and you can cancel anytime.
- Does Recl save articles as well as videos?
- Yes. Paste any link or use the Chrome extension: articles, newsletters such as Substack and Medium, PDFs, YouTube videos and playlists, podcasts, and posts from X, Instagram and TikTok.
Read more
Try Recl
Save one video today and see if you still remember it next month. Every plan unlocks every feature.