Read-it-later applications are a popular tool for reading web content and saving information for offline use, and I started using Instapaper after both of the read-it-later apps I had been using for years shut down within a year of each other (Omnivore in 2024 and Pocket in 2025). Instapaper is a popular choice since it has a free tier option and several accessibility settings for visual impairment, and it’s a helpful option for students who want to read content with a consistent background color, font size/style, and limited distractions. Here is an overview of Instapaper accessibility for visual impairment, including options for low vision and blind/nonvisual access.
Author note: This post was previously an overview of Pocket app accessibility for visual impairment. Because Pocket announced they were shutting down in May 2025, I have updated this post with information about Instapaper, so that readers can have up-to-date information on read-it-later apps for low vision. In many instances, the features between Instapaper and Pocket are so similar, I just had to replace the word “Pocket” with Instapaper.
What is Instapaper?
Instapaper is a free cross-platform application designed to save articles, webpages, and videos from the internet for offline viewing. After saving an article, the content is sent to the user’s Instapaper library, where it can be read as it originally appeared on the website (browser view) or with a consistent font size/background color (article view). Users can also add tags to organize their Instapaper content and customize how content is viewed with various Instapaper accessibility settings and text settings.
To save articles or content to Instapaper, users will need to create a free account so that they can access their content from any device. It is important to make sure users sign in with the same account credentials across all of their devices to ensure that articles are synced correctly.
Instapaper Premium settings
Instapaper Premium offers additional features across all platforms for $5.99 USD per month or $59.99 USD per year. Available settings for Instapaper Premium include:
- Unlimited speed-reading for articles
- Full-text search
- Text-to-speech playlists and text-to-speech speed up to 3x.
- Unlimited notes
- No ads
- Send-to-Kindle bookmarklet
- Unlimited highlighting for articles
- Permanent library: if an article is deleted from the internet, users can still access their saved copy in Instapaper.
As of 2025, Instapaper does not offer a student discount for Instapaper Premium.
Related links
How to set up Instapaper across devices
Instapaper supports saving web content such as articles, webpages, and videos that have a hyperlink. Users cannot upload files from their device to access in the Instapaper app. However, if users have an existing account with another service (e.g. Pocket), they can import their saved articles from their other service into Instapaper.
To save content to Instapaper, select the Add icon from the Instapaper app and paste a link, or use one of the following options.
Web browsers
The Instapaper extension is available for many popular web browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge, and can be added by searching “Instapaper” on the Extensions page of the web browser. With the extension enabled, users can save web content to their Instapaper account by selecting the Instapaper icon in their web browser and adding any tags that they want.
Mac
After downloading Instapaper for Mac on the Mac App Store, users can save to Instapaper in one of two ways, outside of using browser extensions. One way is by copying a URL and then opening Instapaper for Mac and using the keyboard shortcut Command+S, though users will need to make sure the http:// or https:// part of the URL is included in order for it to save correctly. Another method is by dragging the website icon (called a favicon) to the Instapaper app icon on the dock, and the content will automatically appear at the top of the user’s list.
iOS and iPad OS
After downloading the Instapaper app, users have the option to enable the Instapaper share extension within their web browser by selecting the Share button and then the Instapaper icon— users may need to select More > Edit within the Share menu to add Instapaper to the list of applications on the Share sheet the first time they use it. Users can then save content by selecting the Share button and tapping on the Instapaper icon and adding any tags they want.
Android
After downloading the Instapaper app, users can save content to Instapaper from their Android device by tapping the Share button within their web browser (or most apps that have the default share menu) and selecting the option “Add to Instapaper”, adding tags if they want.
Kindle
There are a few options for adding Instapaper content to a Kindle library, including:
- Use Instapaper for Kindle and transfer Instapaper content via USB at no charge.
- Set up automatic wireless delivery to transfer recent Instapaper articles to Kindle every day or every week. This uses the Send-to-Kindle email address and requires adding Instapaper to the Approved Personal Document Email list.
One difference between Pocket and Instapaper is that Instapaper does not have an Amazon Alexa skill for reading articles. There are third-party integration apps that offer the option to connect Instapaper and Alexa, but in my experience they are not very straightforward to use.
Add content via email
Users can add content to their Instapaper library by sending an email from their email address to their Instapaper-generated email address (which can be found in Settings > How to save > Email articles, and can be added as an email contact to streamline the process), pasting the link they want to save in the body of their email. Users can only send one link per email, but the content will be saved to Instapaper within a few seconds. This is the most common way that I use Instapaper when I am on a computer or phone, so I can read an article on my iPad later.
Related links
- Sideloading and Low Vision
- How I Use Send-To-Kindle With Low Vision
- Helpful Ways To Bookmark Websites For Low Vision Users
- How I Organize Emails In College With Low Vision
Instapaper app interface
The Instapaper app consists of the following components:
- Home Screen: View recently saved articles. Within the Settings menu, users can customize the view of the Home Screen to have a grid layout or list layout, as well as choose whether they would like to see image thumbnails. Because the font size isn’t very large for article titles on the Home Screen for iOS, I personally use the grid view and have thumbnails turned on.
- Liked: Saved articles that have been “liked” by the user can help with locating items quickly.
- Archive: Articles that have been read can be moved to the Archive, where they will be stored for safekeeping without creating visual clutter in the library.
- Videos: Saved videos from YouTube or Vimeo
- Notes: Comments or highlights from articles are visible here. Requires Instapaper Premium for unlimited notes or highlights (otherwise users can have 5 notes per month)
- Tags: A list of tags added by the user, which can help with filtering the library.
- Settings: A list of options for customizing the Instapaper experience, most of which have an on/off slider. Some of these settings include options for opening articles, full screen reading, and app colors.
When an article is open, users can do the following:
- Highlight text by long pressing and dragging to select text. On the free tier, users can add five highlights per month, and add annotations or other notes in text. The default highlight color is yellow.
- Add tags for an article by selecting the More menu, which can help with organizing information
- Select the More menu and select the Speak icon to hear text read out loud at any given time. Word-level highlighting is used as the text is read out loud, and the voice speed can be adjusted from 0.5x to 2.5x in increments of 0.5x
- Delete an article from the More menu
- Select the Heart icon to add the article to Liked.
- Select the Archive icon on the left side of the screen to move an article to the archives. This does not delete an article, but it removes it from the main Saves list.
To share articles publicly, consider setting up a public folder so that anyone can see the article(s) in a given folder on a user’s Instapaper profile— though private folders can also be used as well. Users who want to save paywalled content may need to log in first before they can view content within article view.
Related links
Using Instapaper with large print and screen magnification: Instapaper accessibility settings
The Instapaper interface supports the system font size in the Settings menu, but the Home Screen and some of the other components of the app are in smaller font sizes and do not support System fonts for iOS (I didn’t have this issue in the Android app). Instapaper can also be used with screen magnification to enlarge text or icons.
When opening a Instapaper article, users have the option to read content as it appears on the web (browser view) or with a simplified reading display that applies a consistent font size, style, and background color to text while removing nonessential graphics. These can be configured by selecting the Text Settings icon when reading an article.
Instapaper display settings and customization available for the free tier include the following options. Instapaper display settings are not synchronized across applications, so users will need to configure settings on individual applications.
Instapaper colors
Instapaper offers two light modes and two dark modes for reading, which include:
- White background, black text
- Sepia background, dark brown text
- Dark gray background, light gray text
- Black background, light gray text
Within the Settings menu of the app, users can also enable a “true black” background for dark mode, instead of a rich black color.
Instapaper font options
Note that some fonts are only available for the mobile applications.
- Elena (serif)
- Lyon (serif)
- Tisa (serif)
- Ideal Sans (sans serif)
- San Francisco (san serif) (iOS only)
- Meta (sans serif)
- Proxima Nova (sans serif)
- FS Me (sans serif) (iOS only)
- Verdana (sans serif) (iOS Only)
- Helvetica (sans serif) (iOS only)
- Georgia (serif) (iOS only)
- Hoefler Text (serif) (iOS only)
- Palantino (serif) (iOS only)
- Baskerville (serif) (iOS only)
- Dyslexie (sans serif, listed as OpenDyslexic on Android)
Instapaper font sizes
- On the web browser application, Instapaper offers six font sizes ranging from 14px to 24px. 24px is equivalent to approximately 18 pt font.
- On the Android application, Instapaper offers nine font sizes, ranging from approximately 12 pt font to 48 pt font.
- Instapaper offers 25 font sizes for the iOS app, with the largest size measuring at the equivalent of approximately 48 pt font.
Instapaper line width, line spacing, and pagination
Within text sizes, users can configure line width (margins) and line spacing to adjust how text is displayed on the screen. Additional line spacing can be helpful for line tracking and for users with double vision.
Within the iOS app, users can also turn on multi-column view and Justified alignment for text. I have both of these options turned off.
Another option for making Instapaper content easier to read is to enable Pagination, which allows users to horizontally swipe from left to right instead of scrolling vertically to read. Pagination is hidden in the More Settings menu of the Android app, and is not in Text Settings.
Instapaper Speed Read and low vision accessibility
Instapaper offers a Speed Read feature that can be unlocked for unlimited use with a premium subscription. Speed Read shows one line of text at a time (or one word at a time, depending on the speed) and automatically moves through the text at a speed between 200 words per minute and 650 words per minute. The font size cannot be adjusted when Speed Read is turned on, and longer words may spill over into a new line.
Related links
- A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- High Contrast and Low Vision
- Customize Accessibility Settings For Specific Apps
- Zoom Magnifier and Low Vision
- A to Z of Assistive Technology For Low Vision
Using Instapaper with a screen reader and text-to-speech
Instapaper can be used with VoiceOver and TalkBack to read articles out loud, and all buttons are labeled for screen reader users. With the Speak tool, users can listen to text read at up to 2.5x speed, which can be adjusted in increments of 0.5.
On Android, users can access text-to-speech/Select-to-speak by selecting the accessibility shortcut, which will read the article from Instapaper out loud. For iOS, Speak Selection and Speak Screen can both be used to read on-screen text with the system voice settings. Word-level highlighting or sentence-level highlighting settings are supported, but may be difficult to see against text that has been highlighted in the Instapaper app. I also was able to open Instapaper content in Google Reader Mode, which I have pinned as an accessibility shortcut.
Related links
- How To Use VoiceOver With Low Vision
- How To Use Select-to-speak on Android
- Low Vision Accessibility Settings For Android Phones
- How To Make iPad Accessible for Low Vision
- iPhone Accessibility Settings For Occipital Stroke
- How To Use Text-To-Speech With Low Vision
- Google Reader Mode and Low Vision
How I use Instapaper with low vision
I’ve used Instapaper and similar applications in many assistive technology lessons over the years as an option for downloading articles to read on another device and for helping students organize information for classes. Examples of how I personally use Instapaper in my own workflows include:
- Saving blog posts and articles that I want to share during a meeting, presentation, or assistive technology lesson so that I don’t have to connect to the internet or search for them later.
- Reading web articles for my classes in a simplified reading display, which is easier than navigating a complex website with a lot of visual content.
- Emailing articles to myself that I might want to use for a post or project— I usually take notes in a different application while reading the articles in Instapaper.
- Reading web articles on my phone— having an option for large print helps to minimize horizontal scrolling that can get disorienting/tedious after a while.
Related links
- Simplified Reading Displays and Low Vision
- The Best Study Tips For Visually Impaired Students
- How I Outline Research Papers With OneNote
More resources on Instapaper and low vision accessibility
- Want to learn more about accessing digital text with low vision? Read A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- Interested in learning more about read-it-later apps? Check out Free Digital Bookmarking Tools For Low Vision
- Want more posts on assistive technologies and strategies for reading and writing with low vision? Check out Reading And Writing Archives | Veronica With Four Eyes (veroniiiica.com)
Published March 28, 2020. Updated January 2025