Guide

01Install

ReadingWiki is a desktop app with no account to create. Download the installer for your system and open the app.

macOS

1. Open the downloaded .dmg and drag ReadingWiki into your Applications folder.
2. If the first launch says the developer can't be verified or the app is damaged, open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway near the bottom.
3. If it still won't open, run xattr -cr /Applications/ReadingWiki.app in Terminal and try again.

Windows

1. Double-click the downloaded .exe to install.
2. If you see "Windows protected your PC", click More info → Run anyway.
3. The installer adds Microsoft's WebView2 runtime if you don't already have it.

Why these warnings? This is a beta, and the installers aren't notarized by Apple or signed for Windows yet, so your system asks once more. The app never uploads your content. Future versions will tell you when an update is available.

02Add API keys

ReadingWiki doesn't include an AI account. AI features use your own API keys, and you pay the model provider directly. You'll be prompted on first launch, and you can change them any time in Settings → API settings. Keys are stored only in your system keychain.

1. DeepSeek (required): chat, translation and wiki extraction.
2. SiliconFlow (required): vector search and reranking, so finding things is more accurate.
3. Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (optional): transcription for podcasts, videos and other audio.
4. Tavily / Bocha (optional): web search; Bocha gives better results in Chinese.

Each one has a Get key link. Create a key in the provider's console, then paste it back and save.

03Browser extension: save any page in one click

Found a good article? Click the ReadingWiki icon in your toolbar and the article is saved to the app. Works in Chrome, Edge, Arc and other Chromium-based browsers. The extension only talks to ReadingWiki on your own computer and never contacts any outside service.

Install

1. Unzip the download and keep the folder somewhere it won't get deleted, such as Documents. The extension loads from that folder, so removing it breaks the extension.
2. Open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions in Edge) and turn on Developer mode in the top-right corner.
3. Click Load unpacked and choose the folder you just unzipped.
4. Click the puzzle icon in the toolbar and pin the ReadingWiki extension.

Connect it to ReadingWiki

1. In ReadingWiki, go to Settings → API settings, find "Browser extension · Connection info" and click Copy.
2. In your browser, right-click the extension icon → Options, paste the token and save.
3. Click Test connection. Once it says you're connected, you're done.

From then on, click the extension icon on any article. A green ✓ on the icon means it's saved. Saving the same URL again updates the existing item instead of creating a duplicate.

Why Developer mode? The extension isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet, so for now it's installed this way. Once it's listed, this step becomes a one-click install.

04Connect Claude

Once connected, Claude can work with everything you've collected in ReadingWiki: browse your topics, search your sources and read the originals. It can also save links, write summaries and put together your daily feed briefing. Claude's requests go through the ReadingWiki relay to the app running on your computer; the relay only passes them along and never stores your content. It works in Claude on the web, desktop and mobile, and connecting once makes it available everywhere.

Connect in three steps

1. In ReadingWiki, go to Settings → API settings and find "Connect Claude". You'll see a 6-digit pairing code there.
2. In Claude, open Settings → Connectors and add a custom connector with the URL https://mcp.readingwiki.com/mcp.
3. Claude opens a page asking for the pairing code. Enter the code from step 1 and you're done.

You only pair once. Codes are valid for 10 minutes; if one expires, click Generate new code in ReadingWiki. When the status dot there says "Connected", everything is working.

Using Claude Code?

Run this in your terminal. The first time it's used, your browser opens the pairing page; enter the code from ReadingWiki.

claude mcp add --transport http reading https://mcp.readingwiki.com/mcp

Try it

Keep ReadingWiki open, start a new chat in Claude and ask:

• What topics are in my library?
• What do my sources say about attention mechanisms?
• Save this link to my "Product design" topic: https://…
• Anything worth reading in my feeds today?

Will it mess with my data? Looking things up never changes anything. For anything that writes, like saving sources, editing pages or following feeds, Claude asks for your permission each time, and it confirms again in the chat before deleting anything.

?FAQ