Active reading system

Remember what
you actually read

You finish a book, and two weeks later it's gone. That's not your memory failing — that's what passive reading does. ClearRead turns reading into something that stays.

Try it free — no signup See how it works
$29 once, not monthlyNo account neededWorks offlineYour files stay on your device
ClearRead on a laptop showing a highlighted PDF of Walden with a handwritten margin note, and on a phone showing a book section with underlined sentences

You read the book. You highlighted it. You understood it.

A month later, someone asks: “What was it about?”

“It was… good.”

The problem isn't you. The problem is that reading only goes one way.

How it works

Four steps, every section

Active recall and spaced repetition — two of the best-supported techniques in learning research — built into the way you read.

Four phone screens: predict before reading, read and underline, explain in your own words, then compare with the key points
01

Predict

Guess before you read. Even a wrong guess primes your memory.

02

Read & underline

Short sections. Underline in three colors: important, agree, doubtful.

03

Explain it

Say it in your own words. Where you stall is where you didn't understand.

04

Prove it

Compare with the key points, grade yourself — it comes back on the right day.

PDF · EPUB · TXTYour own books
Kindle · Kobo · Apple BooksImport highlights
EN · DE · FR · TRInterface languages
OfflineNo internet needed
Exam mode

It tells you exactly what to study today

Set your exam date. ClearRead estimates how much you'll still remember on that day, splits what's left across the days you have, and hands you one button: start.

  • A readiness score based on your real reviews
  • Today's plan: reviews plus new sections
  • Your blind spots, ranked
  • A one-page cheat sheet, laid out to fit, if your instructor allows one
Exam mode showing 19 days until the exam, a 41% readiness score and today's plan, next to the review schedule

For novels

Lost track of who's who? Tap the name.

Fiction gets its own rhythm: long chapters, one question at the end. X-Ray finds the people and places on its own, and when you come back after a break, “Where was I?” catches you up in ten seconds. Everything stops at the page you're on — nothing is spoiled.

A novel chapter, the X-Ray panel for a place name with its first appearance and latest mentions, and the Where you left off recap
Searching the word time across four books, with every matching sentence listed
Your library, connected

Your books start talking to each other

Type a concept and see every sentence it appears in, across every book you've read. While you read, ClearRead points out ideas you've already met somewhere else.

  • One word searches your whole library
  • Save the results as a study card
  • Every highlight keeps its source
Look it up. Cite it.

The two things that used to pull you out of a book

Long-press a word for its meaning and a translation in any language, then turn it into a flashcard with the sentence you found it in. Need a quote for a paper? Copy it with a citation that's actually right.

  • APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago
  • Paste an ISBN or DOI — the details fill themselves in
  • Only the word or ISBN you look up is sent, never your document
Dictionary panel with an English definition and Spanish translation, next to a citation panel in APA style
Preview of imported Kobo highlights grouped by book, with a note under one highlight
Bring your highlights

Years of highlights, finally put to work

Your e-reader is full of sentences you meant to remember. Bring them in and each one joins your daily review — with the note you wrote next to it.

  • Kindle: My Clippings.txt or the app's notebook export
  • Kobo: the Kobo.com export, or every book straight from the device
  • Apple Books: copy from iPhone or iPad, or all books at once on a Mac
  • Import again later — only new highlights are added
  • Export your cards to Anki (.apkg) or as plain text for Quizlet

Also included

A PDF reader that doesn't lose your work

Sometimes you want the document exactly as it is — figures, tables, layout. So there's a serious PDF reader in here too.

PDF reader showing a page of Walden highlighted in yellow, blue and green, with a handwritten note in the margin

Mark it up like paper

Tap a word or a whole sentence to highlight. Draw with a pen, write a note by hand, turn it sideways in the margin.

Reflow for small screens

Two-column papers become one readable column at any size. Your highlights stay anchored to the text.

Search the whole document

Every page indexed; the match flashes on the page when you jump to it.

Night mode that keeps figures

Brightness flips, colors don't — diagrams stay readable.

Export everything

Highlights, drawings and notes out as Markdown — or a PDF with your marks on it.

Backed up to your Drive

Each document is its own file in your Drive. Clear your browser and it comes back.

Private PDF toolkit

The PDF chores, without uploading anything

Most “free PDF tools” send your file to someone's server and cap you at a few a day. These run entirely on your device — no uploads, no daily limits.

  • Merge, split, rearrange and compress
  • Photos to PDF, fill & sign, scan to text (OCR)
  • Compare two versions, word by word, with the page of each change
  • Redact names, emails, phone numbers and SSNs — the text is really gone
PDF tools screen, a comparison of two contract versions, and a redaction of personal data
Install it. Keep it. Own it.

An app you keep, with data that belongs to you

It installs like a real app on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows, and opens right where you left off — your last book is the first thing you see.

  • Works with no internet at all
  • Reminders when a review is due
  • Connect your own Google Drive to sync phone, tablet and laptop
  • No account with us, no password to remember

On iPhone: open in Safari, tap Share (↑) → Add to Home Screen.

Home screen with reviews ready today, a 12-day streak and a Keep reading card for Meditations

No shortcuts

AI doesn't read it for you

ClearRead runs no AI while you read. Your text is never sent to a server and nothing is summarized for you. The point isn't for a machine to understand the book — it's for you to understand it, and still have it a month later.

Pricing

Pay once. Keep it forever.

No subscription. No monthly creep. Unlimited books, unlimited time.

Full version
$29 once

Lifetime access · Free updates

  • Unlimited PDFs, EPUBs and text
  • Exam mode, cheat sheets and novel mode
  • X-Ray, dictionary, citations and “Where was I?”
  • Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books import · Anki export
  • Private PDF tools: sign, OCR, compare, redact
  • Google Drive sync across devices
  • Works offline · use on 3 devices
Get ClearRead — $29

Want to try it first? Open the free version

A typical reading or study app$8–12 / month
That's one year$96–144
Three years$288–432
ClearRead$29 · once

Subscriptions exist because most apps keep your library on their servers, and servers cost money every month. ClearRead runs on your device and syncs to your own Drive — there's no server bill to pass on to you.

I built this for myself. I'd read a book a month for a year and realized I couldn't tell you what any of them said. Highlighting felt like studying — it wasn't. So I made the thing that forces me to say it back.

— the maker of ClearRead

FAQ

Questions

Does it really work offline?

Yes. Once you've opened it, ClearRead works with no internet at all. Add it to your home screen and it opens like any other app — reading, reviews, notes and PDFs, all on your device.

Where is my data stored?

On your device. If you connect Google Drive, a copy is kept in a private area of your own Drive so it follows you across devices and survives a browser reset. We run no server and never see your data. You can also export a backup file at any time.

What files can I import?

PDF, EPUB, TXT, Markdown, and text you paste in. You can also bring in highlights from Kindle (My Clippings.txt or the app's notebook export), Kobo (the Kobo.com annotation export, or the device's database for every book) and Apple Books (copied from iPhone or iPad, or all at once on a Mac). Kobo.com only exports books bought from Kobo; the device route covers everything else.

Can I study my cards in Anki or Quizlet?

Yes. Word cards, memory-box sentences and highlights export as an Anki deck (.apkg) that opens in Anki, AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid — the hidden words become cloze cards. Export again later and Anki updates the cards instead of duplicating them. There’s also a plain-text export that Quizlet and Anki’s File › Import both read.

Is redaction really permanent?

Yes. Redacted pages are rebuilt as images, so the hidden text isn't underneath the black box — it's gone. When it finishes, ClearRead checks the new file and confirms none of the redacted words can be found. Pages you didn't redact stay exactly as they were.

Do the PDF tools upload my files?

No. Merging, splitting, compressing, signing, scanning to text, comparing and redacting all run in your browser on your own device.

Why isn't this a subscription?

Because there's nothing to bill you for monthly. Your books and progress live on your device and in your own Drive — we don't host them.

How many devices can I use?

Three with a single license — a phone, a tablet and a laptop.

Does it use AI?

Not while you read — that experience is AI-free and offline. Optionally, when you import a book, a small model can run on your own device to pick key concepts more accurately. It's your choice, and everything works with it turned off.

Which languages does the interface support?

English, German, French and Turkish. The content language is independent — you can read a book in any language.

Keep reading.
This time, keep it.

No signup, no card. Try the sample and see the whole loop in two minutes.

Try it free See pricing