Readwise
Import your Readwise highlights and articles into your Pile.
Readwise centralizes your highlights from books, articles and tweets. Pile imports them, groups highlights by source and makes them searchable by meaning. Your best ideas stop sleeping in a separate app.
Extracted, ready to revisit
- Each highlight with its exact text, the source (book, article, tweet, podcast) and the page or location.
- The title and author of the source, kept to group all highlights from the same book or article.
- Personal notes attached to a highlight, indexed alongside the passage.
- Readwise tags set on a highlight, imported as Pile tags.
- The highlight creation date in Readwise, used to filter by reading period.
Connect Readwise
- 1
Export from Readwise
In Readwise, run the export of your library (CSV or Markdown). You get your highlights grouped by source.
- 2
Drop into Pile
Open Connect, pick Readwise, drag in the file. Pile recognizes the highlights + source structure.
- 3
Pile groups and summarizes
Highlights are attached to their source, summarized and tagged by your AI. You see a book's synthesis before rereading each passage.
- 4
Search and export
Search your ideas in natural language, file them into vaults, re-export to Obsidian whenever you want.
Concretely, what for
Review notes without reopening Readwise
All your book and article highlights land in Pile, grouped by source. Search "decision-making" and Pile surfaces highlighted passages across five different books, without opening Readwise or hunting down each title.
Synthesize a book before citing it
You need to cite a book you read a year ago. Pile groups all your highlights from that title, summarizes them and indexes them. You find the central argument and the exact passage in under a minute.
Connect ideas across sources
A highlight from an article and a passage from a book say the same thing. Pile makes them searchable together by meaning, not just by keyword. You spot thematic connections that Readwise does not link.
Practical tips
- Prefer the Markdown export if you then plan to push everything to Obsidian: the structure stays readable.
- Readwise sources (book, article, tweet) become filters in Pile: isolate your book highlights in one click.
- Re-export regularly from Readwise: Pile only imports new highlights.
If something breaks
Some imported highlights have no associated source
Readwise attaches a source to each highlight in its export, but manual imports or web clips without a title can have an empty "Title" field. Pile groups them under a "Untitled" source and shows them with their full text: you can correct this by editing the card from your Pile.
I imported the Readwise CSV but book highlights are not grouped by title
The Readwise CSV has a "Book Title" column: Pile uses it to group. If you exported the "highlights only" format without extended metadata, those columns are missing. Export from Readwise with the "Include metadata" option, or use the Markdown format which always includes the title.
My Readwise Reader highlights are not appearing
Readwise and Readwise Reader are two separate products with separate exports. Pile imports Readwise exports (books, articles, tweets). For Readwise Reader, export separately from the Reader interface and drop that file into Pile.
Frequently asked
Does Pile keep the grouping by source?
Yes. Each highlight stays attached to its original book or article, and you can filter by source.
Do I need a paid Readwise subscription?
No: as long as you can export your library, Pile imports it. Export is a standard Readwise feature.
Do my personal notes come over?
Notes attached to a highlight in the export are kept and indexed alongside the passage.
Keep filling your Pile
Ready to connect Readwise?
Connect your first source in 30 seconds. No card, no account to try.