How to save links without making an account

You shouldn't need to hand over an email address to keep a few links. Most of the time you just want to save something now and find it later, on the same phone or laptop.

Here are the honest options, and what each one costs you.

Browser bookmarks

The original no-account save. Press the star, done. They're fine for sites you visit often. They're bad at the things people actually save today: posts and videos from inside apps, which never pass through your browser. And bookmark search only looks at the page title.

Safari Reading List

Built into every iPhone and Mac. Tap Share, then Add to Reading List. It's a good "read this later today" queue, but there's nowhere to write why you saved something, and it only lives on Apple devices. We wrote more about Safari Reading List alternatives.

Messaging yourself

Plenty of people send links to themselves on WhatsApp or Telegram. It works until you need to find one: chats aren't built for searching saved things, and the reason you saved it gets lost in the scroll.

SaveSearch, free with no account

SaveSearch's free plan keeps everything on your device: no sign-up and no email. On the website, open use.savesearch.app and paste a link. That's it. The save lives in your browser, and you can add a note about why you saved it.

To show each link's title and picture, SaveSearch looks the link up for you and keeps nothing about it. Search covers the title, the caption and your note, and every result tells you why it matched.

What you give up

Being honest: a library with no account lives on one device. Clear your browser data, or lose your phone, and it goes with it. Two easy fixes:

• Keep a backup. SaveSearch's Settings has a backup button that downloads a file of everything.
• Get Pro when it matters. Pro is the paid plan. It puts your saves in your account so they follow you to the website and Chrome, and to the iPhone and Android apps when they arrive, and everything you saved on the device comes with you.

Start with no account. Add one only if you want your saves everywhere.