TL;DR: I built my first macOS app (in fact my first app in general) called ShareBridgely which acts as a bridge between Chromium-based browsers and macOS, in order to trigger the full macOS share sheet from a bookmarklet, so I can share links to articles and blog posts with Reeder, where I can then read them later.

I recently made some changes to my reading setup. Previously, I used Readwise Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds, save articles to read later, and forward email newsletters, to read all and everything within a single app. It is lovely to have a single environment for all kinds of digital reading. Nevertheless, Readwise has been doubling-down on AI-powered features I have not used until this day. According to a recent newsletter I received from them, they will continue to double-down on those AI-powered features. Since my subscription renewal was right around the corner, I questioned myself whether I could still justify the steep pricing of nearly $100 per year, especially when my use-case is solely reading and capturing highlights, without touching all the advanced, or AI-powered features. After a thorough evaluation and some research on RSS and read-it-later app alternatives, I decided to cancel my Readwise subscription.

Besides Readwise Reader, I used another RSS reader app casually, which was Reeder by Silvio Rizzi, creator of Mela, and the beloved (now called) Reeder Classic. I took part in the beta testing phase, and enjoyed its new approach of supporting a wide range of content (not only RSS feeds) like videos, podcasts, social media posts, and more, and seamlessly integrating everything into a unified timeline.

After the beta phase ended, Reeder introduced a subscription, which you needed in order to keep using the app. For $10 per year it was a no-brainer for me to become a paying subscriber.

Therefore, I did not have to search for a Readwise Reader alternative that long. I moved over all my RSS feeds, and after that I quickly stumbled across an issue, an issue which disrupted my workflow of using Reeder not only for my RSS feeds but also to save articles and blog posts I stumble across online to read them later.

Reeder offers a share extension, which gives users the ability to share links directly to Reeder, for example from Safari's share menu.

Here is the thing though: I do not use Safari. Since a couple of years, Vivaldi has been my browser of choice. And after I made the switch to Reeder, I tried to figure out how I could access the macOS share extensions in Vivaldi, in order to get access to the "Add to Reeder" share extension. I quickly did some research, and suddenly stumbled across a Desktop Feature Request in the Vivaldi Forum, which exactly requested what I was looking for: adding a button for the native macOS share menu to the toolbar of Vivaldi. The request has been made in October 2024, but since then no update has been shared, in fact such feature is still not available in Vivaldi. The forum post mentioned a workaround by leveraging the Web share API and the navigator.share() method which is available in modern browsers. Attached to the post, I also found a demo on Codepen, which immediately worked in Vivaldi, but not to the full extent. While I managed to create a bookmarklet to trigger the macOS share sheet, it did not show all share extensions I turned on initially, and the one for Reeder was among the ones which did not get displayed.

It seemed like the Web Share API had its limitations. I do not have all the insights here, but my impression was that macOS might restrict certain extensions, especially those that require deeper system integration or even user authentication, from being triggered via the Web Share API. I did some more research, and found out that there have been discussions and conversations about adding a system share menu item to Chromium-based browsers on macOS for years. And by years, I mean that there is one issue in Chromium which dates back to March 2015. And another one dating back to 2013. Additionally, I found out that Opera apparently built their own way to give their users access to the macOS share extensions. But, I am not going to switch to Opera, just to get access to that feature.

Besides that though, I was able to access all my share extensions via the "File" menu. So, clicking on "File", moving my cursor to "Share", and then to the dedicated share extension would do the trick. But that did not feel as satisfying and as streamlined, as clicking on a single button in Safari, in order to trigger the share sheet.

After that perception, I felt a certain motivation. I discovered an issue with my reading workflows and my reading setup. I identified a problem I wanted to solve. I found a super niche use case I wanted to support. Perfect setup to dive back into SwiftUI and macOS app development. Let us dive into it.

My goal was build a small, simple, and native macOS app which listens for a custom URL scheme (like share://) or a clipboard trigger. It should then receive the title and URL from Vivaldi (or any other Chromium-based browser) via clipboard or the URL scheme. And as a last step, it should present me the native macOS share sheet, giving me access to all share extensions, so I can add links to articles I would like to read later to Reeder.

Let me introduce to you: ShareBridgely.

It is a super simple and niche macOS app, that solves my issue of not being able to share the current page's URL in Vivaldi to my RSS and read-it-later app, Reeder. ShareBridgely gets triggered via a Bookmarklet, receives the current page's title and URL from Vivaldi, and opens the full macOS share sheet, including the Reeder extension. The bookmarklet acts as a bridge between Vivaldi and ShareBridgely, ensuring that I can trigger the share sheet with all options.

In case you are facing a similar niche use-case, you can join the ShareBridgely TestFlight. If ShareBridgely is useful to a couple of people, I might submit it to the App Store, but for now I will keep it in TestFlight, share it online, write about my experience building it, continue to refine it (if needed), and simply soak in the joy of having built my first macOS app which supports my workflows. It is not a biggy at all, and in fact, it might be quite overkill to build an macOS app in order to access the macOS share sheet in a different way from your browser of choice. But still, I had fun looking into this, building it, and writing this post, and ultimately, I now enjoy using Vivaldi and Reeder even more, because I have this nifty application that allows me to access the macOS share sheet in a way that is suited to workflows and habits. Well, after giving the bookmarklet a nickname in Vivaldi, I can now open the share sheet even faster, by using Vivaldi's Quick Commands interface. So now, I hit CMD E, type "Stm" (short form for "Share to macOS"), and it will immediately trigger the bookmarklet, and revealing the share sheet. Lovely.

Once you downloaded and installed ShareBridgely you get access to the bookmarklet which you can easily drag and drop from ShareBridgely into your browsers bookmarking app. There, right-click on it, and give it a new name, since by default it will use the javascript code as name, which is not that visually-appealing. And after that, you are good to go. Whenever you stumble across a link online that you would like to share and therefore, access to the macOS share sheet is needed, click on the bookmarklet which will bridge to ShareBridgely, which then opens up the macOS share sheet with all your extensions.

To keep up with ShareBridgely, you can subscribe to my blog via RSS where I will post updates, you can also subscribe to my personal newsletter Datest, where I will share more casual updates and quick bits, or you simply follow me on Mastodon and Bluesky. And if you want to support my work, you can do that by sharing ShareBridgely online, or buying me a coffee, both is much appreciated.