Readwise Reader Document Management

CRUD operations on the Reader document library via API v3.

Commands

List Documents

readwise list                                    # All documents
readwise list --limit 20                         # First 20
readwise list --tag "proxy advisors"             # By tag
readwise list --category pdf --location archive  # By category + location
readwise list --updated-after 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z
readwise list --html --json                      # With full HTML content

Filter values:

Flag	Values
--location	new, later, shortlist, archive, feed
--category	article, email, rss, highlight, note, pdf, epub, tweet, video
--tag	Any tag name (server-side filter, up to 5 for AND logic)

Get Document

readwise get <id>                  # Summary view
readwise get <id> --json           # Full JSON
readwise get <id> --html --json    # With HTML content

Save URL

readwise save https://example.com/article
readwise save https://example.com/article --tag research

Update Metadata

readwise update <id> --location archive
readwise update <id> --category article

Delete Document

readwise delete <id>

Tags

readwise tags           # List all tags
readwise tags --json    # As JSON

Highlights & Books (v2 API)

readwise highlights                              # All highlights
readwise highlights --search "fiduciary"         # Keyword search
readwise highlights --book-id 12345 --json       # By source

readwise books                                   # All sources
readwise books --category articles --search "law"

Piping & Scripting

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

# Get IDs of all PDFs
readwise list --category pdf --json | jq -r '.[].id'

# Count highlights per book
readwise books --json | jq '.[] | {title, num_highlights}'

# Export all tags
readwise tags --json > tags.json