Safari reading list in Python

safarireadinglist is a Python package to load your Safari reading list into Python, and to export it, including thumbnail icons.

Sample results

Installation

Install the safarireadinglist package from PyPI:

pip install safarireadinglist

Note: before using, you need to give the terminal full disk access in the system preferences. Go to Settings/Security & Privacy/Full Disk Access. Navigate to /Applications/Utilities/ folder and choose the Terminal app. If you are launching the command from VS Code you will need to add this as well.

Alternative local installation:

pip install -e .

Note: setuptools is the only requirement. For dev purposes, you may want to install the exact versions in pip install -r requirements.txt.

Usage

In the command line, execute:

export-safari-rl export

The reading list will be in reading_list.json. You may also provide other options: export-safari-rl --help.

You can also export the icons from the reading list:

export-safari-rl export-icons

The icons will be in the reading_list_icons folder.

See also the README in the examples folder for more examples.

Python package

The package is a Python package and can also be used as such. See example_python.py for an example.

Example of output format

See reading_list.json. The format is a list of dictionaries, where each dictionary conforms to the safarireadinglist.ReadingListItem dataclass.

Website

To generate the website from the website folder, run:

cd website
python website.py reading_list.json reading_list_icons

The output is in the website_out folder.

Known errors & solutions

If you are getting some error like this:

cp: /Users/XXX/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist: Operation not permitted

You need to give the terminal full disk access. Go to Settings/Security & Privacy/Full Disk Access. Navigate to /Applications/Utilities/ folder and choose the Terminal app. If you are launching the command from VS Code you will need to add this as well.