SOLVED

Reading List - Discussion

Microsoft

Hello everyone and thanks for your feedback around reading lists in Microsoft Edge. Based on user feedback from legacy Microsoft Edge, there was more work to do with the previous Reading list experience. We heard from users that it was confusing and was also missing some key features like offline reading support. With the next version of Microsoft Edge, we want to ensure we’re building something our customers will love. So, we aren’t shipping reading list immediately in the new Microsoft Edge. We’re going to take our time to ensure we get this right. In the meantime, read on for features currently in the preview builds of the next version of Microsoft Edge that we think could help in the interim. As always, we welcome your feedback to help us continue to evolve and build the best experience possible.

Alternatives for a reading list

To save your articles for reading later in the new Microsoft Edge, you can use Favorites, and there are many 3rd party extensions such as Pocket. You can also try a new feature called Collections that helps you collect and organize web pages. We believe together they can help serve most of the unmet needs and requirements of reading lists. We understand this isn’t a one to one replacement and your feedback will help us further understand what’s needed.

How to access my reading list data

Your reading list data is migrated from the old Microsoft Edge to the new Microsoft Edge via Favorites. To access your data, click: Settings and more --> Favorites --> Other favorites --> Reading list.

Send feedback

We appreciate the feedback we have received so far on Reading list, please continue to share with us what you'd like to see, what you think is missing or anything else.

Thank you,

- The Microsoft Edge Team

48 Replies

@MissyQ I would like to appreciate the decision. While I used Reading List a lot, I will also acknowledge that Collections are way better than the Reading List, and bringing Reading List again to browser means duplication of features. Just want Collections to be available on mobile super soon!

I like the decision, just add collection support on adroid

@MissyQ 

I do not like this decision. I will miss location that stores your pages offline.

I would like to point three issues with this decision.

1. No way to store page offline, the one file format is still not supported - mhtml.

2. The reading list on the mobile device will be not synced anymore.

3. Collections are much slower in performance than reading list. (opening reading list less than 1 sek, opening collections more than 3 sek).

@matt_bits Collections opens much more slowly than any of the things from legacy edge because legacy edge utilized windows 10 for all those things because it was so deeply embedded with the code while new edge uses itself since it has to run on other platforms. 

I also would love to store pages offline, (although reading list was blocked on school computers, so I never was able to use it), but unless it used a folder separate from the browser, it would take up huge amounts of space and lag down the browser.

@Deleted
1.) Yeah, collections are much much slower (I really hate to use it performance wise, but I like them because of their features and future potential for them)
2.) I'm using beta edge on android. Collection sync works fine from android to desktop, but it's not working from desktop to android.
3.) since collections are there on android now, Reading lists should be removed from android (coz they aren't necessary anymore and are discontinued from edge desktop.)

Note: The most important thing I can think of for collections right now, is IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE. THEY FEEL SLOW AS HELL .
Offline extensions are a good start. It should also be faster to add to Collections. In Reading List the addition tool was lightning-fast. Also, you should be able to go to a page, like edge://bookmarks, to show all your collections in a page instead of a popup.

@Freddie-Zhang   The ability to manage Collections in an edge:// page, similar to managing Favourites and History, is a good idea.  Have you suggested it to the Edge developers?

@Elliot Kirk While I added many items to my Reading List in Edge Legacy, I found that I rarely went back to review those and to actually use them. They became a form of storage. As such, I think the newer "Collections" fit that use better, especially since we can a collection to Excel, OneNote, or Word. Export to an HTML page might be a good addition.

 

Those can be stored locally (and offline as needed), so I would not need an ability for a Reading List to be stored offline. In addition, if Reading Lists were stored offline, people wanting to reduce local hard disk space might need a toggle to disable that.

One possible way to improve this (Reading List just becoming another place for storage) would be if the 2 newest and 2 oldest entries were to optionally appear on the ‘New Tab’ page (Safari on iOS does this by occasionally offering URL bar suggestions from the user’s reading list).

With the demise of ‘Set-Aside Tabs’, there isn’t a last-in, first-out (LIFO, or stack) place to bookmark individual pages. I (and I imagine many others) end up just spawning links in countless tabs for later reading.

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<dreaming>

Perhaps someday, a browser will allow one to right-click on a link and select “To review” (and/or other more arbitrary tags); before closing the browser (and/or on ‘New Tab’ pages) the user would then be presented with a message “Madam, you expressed interest in reviewing the following links:”, perhaps with each link even showing a tooltip showing from whence it came, and an option to save the links as a folder of favorites or to keep them on the list for future sessions.

Perhaps also someday, favorites / bookmarks (and their associated metadata; e.g. where from, date bookmarked, etc.) will be stored in a database so the browser user could search parametrically. For example, one could quickly filter favorites/bookmarks to show:
- only those I added in the last half of May
- only those links I bookmarked from pages on Wikipedia
- all favorites that point to *.microsoft.com/*.
- all favorites that _do not_ point to a particular site / domain / TLD
- all favorites added more than 2 years ago
- favorites I’ve never clicked on

</dreaming>