Google Chrome Canary Deploys Read Later Feature To Save Articles

Google has quietly tested a later reading feature for Chrome on Android, and it looks like the search giant is set to roll it out in a future stable version for everyone.

With the release of Chrome 90, currently available on the Canary Channel, Google added a Read Later feature to Android. This feature is accessible on the Canary Channel even without activating a feature indicator.

Essentially, Read Later works by allowing users to save a web page for later reading. If you’ve used a service like Pocket before, this is essentially a sophisticated way to save bookmarks. Incidentally, Firefox has deep integration with Pocket, as Mozilla acquired the service in 2017.

Oddly, Google Chrome has had a later read feature working on iOS since 2017, but not on Android or PC. However, in the middle of last year, we actually found out that Google was working on a Read Later feature for Chrome for Android.

The functionality is quite easy to use. When you want to save a link, press and hold on a link, and the usual actions will be listed, including “Open in new tab”. You will also see a new “Read Later” option. The articles you have saved are in your bookmarks, where you will see a “Reading List” folder.

It’s not the most interesting feature Google has ever introduced in Chrome, but it potentially makes users less dependent on similar “read on” services.

Google recently introduced Chrome 88, which introduced tabbed search and improved password protections. This latest feature makes it easy to identify and fix weak passwords, as well as update multiple usernames and passwords at once.

With Chrome 88 now available, we have a few more versions left before a Read Later feature is no longer widely available. But once it’s available we’ll be sure to let you know. If you want to test the feature now on desktop and mobile, turn on this Chrome flag: chrome: // flags / # read-later.

Thanks to XDA member Some_Random_Username for the tip!

This article was updated at 12:40 a.m.ET on January 27, 2021 to clarify that the feature is available to Canary Channel users.