# Save links for later: Read later and Favorites > **TL;DR** A save-links-for-later app works when it keeps the link where you already look and lets you mark it for later separately from how you file it. In Shareling, Read later and Favorites are two private flags on any link in your library, sent, received or kept for yourself. Each has its own list in the sidebar, neither is a folder, and nothing about them reaches the person who sent you the link. A save-links-for-later app is only useful if you open it again, so the link has to land somewhere you already look, with a mark that says "read this" kept apart from where you filed it. Shareling gives every link in your library two private flags for that, Read later and Favorite, each with its own list on Mac, iPhone and iPad. ## What is the best way to save links for later? Save the link in the same place you keep the rest of your links, and mark it for later with a flag you can clear, not a folder you have to empty. If links reach you in a DM, a message thread and a browser tab, and you copy the good ones somewhere by hand, that somewhere is the place you forget to open. If everything you save lives in Safari, Safari's Reading List is the built-in answer. Apple's guides say Reading List items can be read without an internet connection, marked read or unread, and on Mac searched, with an Unread button that hides what you have read. On iPhone you can touch and hold a link and tap Add to Reading List without opening it. With iCloud for Safari on, the Reading List stays the same on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, and removing an item on one device removes it everywhere. Offline reading is where Safari wins outright: Shareling keeps the link, its title and your note, not a copy of the page. Shareling fits a different pile: links people send you, links you send them, and links you keep for yourself, all in one library. Read later and Favorites work across all three. ## How do Read later and Favorites work in Shareling? Each is an on/off flag you set on one link, from that link's menu. On the Mac, right-click (Control-click) a link in the library and choose **Read later** or **Favorite**; on iPhone and iPad, touch and hold it and choose **Read Later** or **Add to Favorites**. In list view, every row also has a star button that favorites or unfavorites the link in one click. A favorited link shows a star on its card in grid view. To undo either, open the same menu: it now says **Remove from Read later** (Mac) or **Remove from Read Later** (iPhone and iPad), and **Unfavorite** or **Remove from Favorites**. Two details decide how the lists behave day to day: 1. **Opening a link does not clear Read later.** Opening marks the link read, which is a separate flag. The link stays on your Read later list until you remove it, so the list is what you chose to come back to, not what you have not clicked yet. 2. **A link can carry both flags at once.** Star it and mark it Read later, and it appears in both lists. You set both flags on a link once it is in your library. Saving or sending a link does not set them: the one capture command every save path calls takes the address, a title, folders and a destination, and no Read later or Favorite. ![Shareling's library on the Mac in list view: the sidebar lists Favorites and Read later under All links and Recents, and each row ends in a star, filled on the favorited link](/content/read-later-and-favorites/library-favorites-read-later.webp) ## Are Read later and Favorites the same as folders? No. In Shareling's data model, a link's folders, its read state, whether you hid it, Favorite and Read later all sit together on one private record, the annotation, but folders are a list of names and the other four are separate yes/no flags. A folder works like a tag: one link can sit in two folders, the trade-off [tags vs folders for bookmarks](/guides/tags-vs-folders-for-bookmarks) walks through. Read later and Favorite are not folders you can rename or delete; they are built into the sidebar. That separation is deliberate. A link filed under "Design" and marked Read later keeps its folder when you take it off Read later, so clearing your reading pile never undoes your filing. It also means you can type a folder called "read later" if you want one; Shareling treats it as an ordinary folder, unrelated to the flag. ## Does the sender see that I saved or read their link? No. Shareling writes your Read later and Favorite flags, your read state and your folders only into your own private annotations zone, never into the zone of the person who sent the link. The sender has no way to learn that you starred their link, saved it for later, opened it or ignored it. This is a decided rule in Shareling's design, not an accident of storage. The ruling on read state says whether you have read a link lives in the recipient's private zone, and that telling the sender would have to be a deliberate product decision rather than a side effect of where a field landed. What does travel with a link is the note the sender wrote when they sent it; [sharing links with someone instead of a bookmark folder](/guides/share-bookmark-folder-with-someone) covers what else crosses between two people. Your own marks on it stay with you. ## How do I find my Read later and Favorite links again? Open **Read later** or **Favorites** in the library sidebar. On the Mac and iPad they sit in the sidebar under All links and Recents; on iPhone they are in the library's drawer. Each list shows only the links carrying that flag, whether you sent them, received them or kept them for yourself. Search works inside the list you are in: typing in the library's search field narrows Read later or Favorites by the link's title, address, note and page description, and every word you type has to match the start of a word. Links you have hidden are left out of both lists. An empty list tells you what goes there: Favorites says "No favorites yet. Star a link to keep it here.", and Read later says "Nothing saved for later." The flags are kept in your own annotations zone, not only on the device where you set them. Shareling's design puts them there because a local-only flag would break the moment you use two devices, so a link you mark Read later on your iPhone is meant to show up in Read later on your Mac. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the best way to save links for later? Keep them in one place you already open, and mark what you mean to read separately from how you file it. Safari's Reading List does this inside Safari, with offline reading. Shareling does it for links you send, receive and keep, with a Read later list and a Favorites list on Mac, iPhone and iPad. ### Is Read later a folder in Shareling? No. Read later and Favorite are on/off flags on a link, stored next to its folders but separate from them. A link can be in two folders, marked Read later and starred all at once, and removing it from Read later leaves its folders alone. ### Does the sender know if I save their link for later or favorite it? No. Shareling writes Read later, Favorite and read state only into your own private annotations zone, never into the sender's. Nothing about what you do with a link they sent reaches them. ### Does opening a link take it off my Read later list? No. Opening a link in Shareling marks it read and leaves the Read later flag as it was. The link stays in Read later until you choose Remove from Read later. ### Can I search inside Favorites or Read later? Yes. The library search runs inside whichever list is selected, matching the link's title, address, note and page description. Links you have hidden are left out of both lists.