How to import your Pocket export into Barside after the shutdown

Pocket is gone, but your saves do not have to be. If you downloaded your Pocket export before the deadline, Barside imports it into its Reading inbox, a free read-it-later app on your computer. This guide explains what Mozilla's shutdown means, which file you need, and how to bring your saves back to life.

What happened to Pocket

Mozilla announced on May 22, 2025, that "Pocket shuts down July 8, 2025". It stopped new downloads and Premium subscriptions that day, and said: "Users can export saves anytime until October 8, 2025, after which their data will be permanently deleted." The Pocket API stopped working on October 8, 2025 too.

That means two things today:

• If you have your export file, you can import it.
• If you never exported, Mozilla deleted the data, and no app can get it back. Start fresh: Barside's Reading inbox saves new articles from any browser.

Find your Pocket export

Mozilla's export emailed you a download link. Look in your Downloads folder for:

• A ZIP file with part_000000.csv inside (the CSV export, with more files for large libraries), or
• ril_export.html, the older HTML export.

Mozilla's help page said the export "will include links (URLs) of your saved items" and "does not extract the text of saved links". It covered all your saves, archives and favorites.

Import the export into Barside

1. Open Settings & backups → Notes from other apps → Import next to Import notes, or type import in the search bar.
2. Find Pocket and choose Choose file.
3. Pick the ZIP or ril_export.html.
4. Barside shows Ready to import with the number of reading items it found.
5. Choose Import. Your saves go to Reading, not to your notes list.

Articles you already have in Barside are skipped, so importing again is safe.

What comes along

Bring the articles back

An imported item has its link, title and tags. To read it in Barside:

1. Open the item in Reading.
2. Choose Get article text. Barside downloads the article and keeps a readable copy on your computer.
3. Read it in Reader Mode, highlight passages, or have Barside read it aloud.

Some old links will no longer work: websites move and close. Search the title on the web to find a new copy, and save it with Barside.

If something looks wrong

• Barside does not recognize the file. Pick the ZIP from Mozilla's download link, or ril_export.html. A file saved from the email itself, or a bookmarks file, is not a Pocket export.
• Your library is split across several CSV files. Large exports have part_000000.csv, part_000001.csv and so on in one ZIP. Pick the ZIP, and Barside reads them all.
• An article will not download. The website may be gone or block downloads. Search the title on the web and save the new copy with Barside.
• Fewer items than you remember. Articles you already had in Barside are skipped, and Pocket's export covered your saves, archive and favorites, not lists you followed from other people.

Reading in Barside from now on

• Save from any browser with the search bar or the save web pages feature, which keeps the layout and pictures for offline reading.
• Highlight while you read; highlights appear in each item and in one list.
• Get newsletters by email into Reading with your own Barside address.
• Search everything you saved, and ask Library AI questions about it with the AI account you connect.

Read the full guide to Barside's read-it-later inbox, compare options in the Pocket alternative guide and the best read-it-later apps, or move another reading app with the Instapaper and Matter guides.