Skip to content
Acorny logo Acorny Docs
Open Acorny

User Documentation

What is Acorny?

Acorny is a Readwise alternative that helps you capture highlights and review them with spaced repetition. It is designed for readers who already save useful passages but want a practical way to remember and reuse those ideas later.

Most highlight tools stop at storage. Acorny focuses on the next step: turning saved text into recall cards, scheduling those cards, and helping you practice the ideas over time.

What Acorny helps you do

Section titled “What Acorny helps you do”

Acorny supports three connected jobs:

  1. Capture highlights from web pages with the browser extension.
  2. Import or sync highlights from supported reading tools.
  3. Review saved ideas as recall cards.

You can start small by saving one web highlight, or you can migrate an existing library from a source such as Readwise, Kindle, Moon+ Reader, Cubox, Diigo, PDF, CSV, or compatible import APIs.

How Acorny is different from a notes app

Section titled “How Acorny is different from a notes app”

A notes app is good for organizing writing, projects, and long-term reference material. Acorny is narrower. It keeps highlights tied to their source, then makes them available for review.

That makes Acorny useful when you care about questions like:

  • Which ideas from this book should I remember?
  • Which highlights have I reviewed recently?
  • Which passages are ready to become recall cards?
  • How do I keep old highlights from disappearing into an archive?

How Acorny compares with Readwise

Section titled “How Acorny compares with Readwise”

Readwise popularized the workflow of collecting highlights and resurfacing them. Acorny follows the same general goal, but it is built around Acorny’s own import, sync, and review experience.

Use Acorny when you want:

  • A highlight library that can receive data from multiple export formats.
  • Review sessions built around recall cards.
  • A public beta product where saved highlights remain central to the experience.
  • A workflow that can start with files, browser highlights, or connected services.

If you are moving from Readwise, start with Import from Readwise. If you are still comparing tools, read How review sessions work and How spaced repetition works.

What happens to a highlight

Section titled “What happens to a highlight”

When a highlight enters Acorny, it belongs to a source. The source may be a web page, a book, a feed item, or an imported file. Acorny keeps the highlight text and any supported metadata such as title, URL, author, note, tag, date, or location when the source provides it.

After that, the highlight can appear in your library and become eligible for review. Review sessions show recall cards so you practice remembering the idea. Your rating tells Acorny whether the card should return sooner or wait for a longer review interval.

When Acorny may not be the right tool

Section titled “When Acorny may not be the right tool”

Acorny is not a general bookmark manager, a full writing workspace, or a replacement for every reader app. It does not promise that every field from every third-party export will transfer. Provider-specific guides explain what Acorny can preserve for each source.

If you mainly need a searchable archive, you may still want a notes app alongside Acorny. If you want highlights to become reviewable memory prompts, Acorny is designed for that workflow.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”