POLAR makes it easy to manage your reading.

Main Polar PDF document showing an deep learning book

Features

Polar allows you to keep all your documents, annotations, and flashcards in one place. Never lose track of what you're reading again. Annotate documents directly while reading them and sync with spaced repetition systems like Anki.

PDF support

We have first-class PDF support thanks to PDF.js. PDFs work well when reading content in book format or when reading scientific research which is often stored as PDF.

Captured Web Pages

Download HTML content and save them as offline documents which can be annotated. Captured pages are rendered for greater readability using CSS browser emulation.

Pagemarks

Easily keep track of what you're reading and the progress of each document. Pagemarks enable a form of non-linear reading named incremental reading and the ability to suspend and resume individual documents for later consumption.

Offline-first

All content is stored locally which means you can use Polar while offline. Polar cloud sync allows you to use Polar with other computers as well. And our webapp allows you to access your data anywhere.

Hackable

The entire system is based on Electron, Node, pdf.js, React and other web standards. If you're a developer - welcome home!

Standards Based

All content is stored as JSON in a well documented schema. Annotations never change the original content which keeps your document repository safe.

All Your Documents in One Place

All your PDFs, eBooks, and web content are kept in one place - the Document Repository. Once you're done reading a document it can be archived and is hidden by default but can be referenced at any time.

Polar Document Repository for all your PDFs and eBooks

Annotations Viewer to Track your Highlights and Notes

Polar includes an integrated annotation viewer to keep track of all your notes. Search, filter by tags, and sort all your highlights, comments, and figures in one place.

Polar Annotation Viewer

Manage your Reading Queue with Incremental Reading

Your queue can be managed by both flags and tags. The document repository shows the progress of each document and you can filter by tags to narrow down what you want to read next.

Document Repository filtering by tag

Track Your Reading Progress

Polar supports integrated statistics to keep track of your reading. Set a goal per per day and make sure you're making long term progress.

Polar Reading Progress

Desktop, Web, and Fully Cloud Aware

Polar is fully cross-platform and supported on MacOS, Windows, Linux, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Polar is also fully cloud-aware and supports synchronizing your documents across multiple devices. Based on Google's Firebase, Polar supports real-time synchronization of your documents to other devices.

But we don't stop there. Polar also supports the web so you can access your data anywhere.

If you just want to keep your data locally we won't force you to use the cloud. Polar allows you to work local and offline without using any cloud resources whatsoever. Just make sure to backup your data!

Polar supports all platforms including MacOS, Windows, Linux, and Firefox.

Highlight and Annotate

Annotations are a central feature to Polar. While reading documents you can underline text or create area highlights. Once created, you can attach additional metadata to annotations such as comments and flashcards.

Polar supports text annotations

Captured (and Offline) Web Content

Polar supports reading and annotating HTML documents. We call this process 'capturing' content and we store the document permanently in your own private archive.

Since most pages aren't designed for reading and have ads, chrome, and other annoyances within the page, we render the content as a tablet device to make the content more readable.

Browser emulation

Emulate multiple browsers and mobile content to make sure pages captured are rendered properly.

Personal Archive

All content is stored in a personal archive which allows you to refer back to important documents and view annotations over time.

Captured Content

Integrated Annotations Sidebar

All annotations are easily accessible in the sidebar. You can create flashcards, add comments, and jump to any text highlight in the main document at any time.

Annotation Sidebar