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Read

Books, PDFs, articles, bookmarks, and feeds live in the sidebar: eBooks, Files (PDFs), and Articles. Anything you open becomes a tab, so two books or a book and an article can be open at once. Reading does not require an AI provider.

Books

Import EPUB, MOBI/KF8, FB2, or CBZ files. The reader includes pagination, table of contents, typography controls, and independent light, sepia, and dark themes.

Select text to highlight it or attach a note. A synced book includes its metadata, progress, and private annotations. Book files can back up to Blossom.

New books stay on this device. Use the book menu to enable or stop encrypted relay sync.

Public shelves

You may explicitly share a book or annotation publicly. Viewing as: you in the sidebar lets you open another person's npub and browse the public part of their shelf without changing your own library.

Only items that their owner shares publicly are visible through this lens.

Every book also appears in Files › eBooks. Drop an EPUB on any Files folder to add it to the library. Open the book's card menu and choose Inside the book to browse its chapters and pictures.

Articles

Discover finds long-form Nostr writing. The last list opens at once. New articles appear after the network check. Scroll for more. Use Filter for a topic, or the search field to narrow the list. The gear opens the News settings list of feed relays. Open a relay for its information document. Open a card to read it. Close the tab to leave. A link in the article opens in a new browser tab. Each card loads the author name from the relay that held the article. Click the author chip for author and article ids you can copy, which relays held the article, and a kind 0 check that starts there. Click the author picture to see it full size. Highlights and comments load when you open the article. They stay on this device for 60 days. Click Highlights to open them in a side rail over the article. The meta row shows the reading time. Listen reads the article aloud with the browser voice; the paragraph being read is marked and the page follows it. Pause, stop, or change the speed from the bar at the top while it reads. One article plays at a time.

Bookmarks

Bookmark an article from the reader to keep it in your library. Opened articles are cached locally so they can reopen without another fetch.

When enabled for one bookmark, PlebChat syncs its metadata, not the article text. Web content is fetched again when needed.

Save from another app

Share a page to PlebChat and it opens in the reader, bookmarked.

Android and desktop Chrome. Install PlebChat first (browser menu → Add to Home screen or Install). Then, in any app, tap Share and pick PlebChat.

iPhone and iPad. Safari does not show web apps in the share sheet. Use a Shortcut instead. Install it from this link: (coming — see below). Or build it yourself in the Shortcuts app in one minute:

  1. Open Shortcuts → + → name it Save to PlebChat.
  2. Tap the i (details) → turn on Show in Share Sheet → under Share Sheet Types keep only URLs.
  3. Add the action URL and set it to https://plebchat.me/?share=1&url= — then tap the field and insert Shortcut Input right after the =.
  4. Add the action Open URLs. Done.

Now Share → Save to PlebChat from Safari or any app. If you use PlebChat as a Home Screen app, the page opens in Safari instead; that is an iOS limit.

A link to a nostr article (an naddr, an njump link) shared this way opens natively from the relays.

PDFs

Drop a PDF into Files or use Import. PlebChat remembers the page. Each PDF starts local and has its own encrypted sync control. PDFs do not support PlebChat highlights.

Feeds

Paste a feed or article URL into Feeds:

  • Feed URLs open a preview you can subscribe to.
  • Article URLs open a cleaned reading view.

Feeds refresh only when you ask. Cached subscriptions open without a network request; use Refresh to fetch new items. Unsubscribe removes that feed's cached items from Discover.

The desktop app can fetch any RSS feed directly. The web version needs a Firecrawl key or an optional RSS CORS proxy, because browsers block most hosts. Nostr articles need no extra service.

Sync and privacy

Private library records are encrypted to your Nostr key before relay sync. Each book, PDF, feed, and saved article has its own sync control. Public sharing is a separate action. See Privacy, storage, and sync before publishing.