A Pocket Alternative for People Who Save Images
Pocket shut down in July 2025 and deleted user data that November, sending millions of people looking for a read-later replacement. Nearly every “best Pocket alternative” list answers the same question: where do I save articles now? But a lot of people used Pocket as a catch-all and saved images too — and for that half, the usual answers (Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Raindrop) are the wrong shape. Here’s the image-first version.
Two different Pocket habits
Be honest about which one you had, because the right tool depends on it:
- Articles to read later. Long reads, recipes, docs. Any read-later app handles this — Raindrop (free, unlimited) is the default recommendation.
- Images and screenshots to reference later. Design inspiration, UI screenshots, product shots, things you saved to look at, not to read. Read-later apps are built around article text and struggle here.
If you were purely (1), pick a read-later app and move on. If (2) was a real part of your Pocket use, keep reading.
Why article apps fail image savers
The mechanics are the same problem Raindrop has, and it’s worth naming: read-later tools are built around a URL and its text. They extract the article body, strip it clean, and let you search the words. An image has no article body and no words to extract, so the whole engine idles. You end up with a link list where the visual thing you saved is the one thing you can’t see or search well.
The image-first options
Kelu — a tag-first library built for images: screenshots and references you save from anywhere, tag once, and find from your iPhone, Mac, or the web. Share-sheet capture saves the image itself, and search runs on your tags, not absent article text. First 2,500 items free. It doesn’t do article read-later, so pair it with a text app if you have both habits.
Raindrop — still the best pick for the article half, and it can hold images too; just know its search and layout favor links. Good if you want one app and mostly save URLs. (See the Raindrop alternative for visual people if the image side is dominant.)
mymind — saves both articles and images with AI tagging and OCR, but it’s subscription-only from $4.99/mo with no free tier.
How they compare
| Kelu | Raindrop | mymind | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Save images/screenshots | ✅ First-class | Stores them | ✅ |
| Save & read articles | ❌ | ✅ Excellent | ✅ |
| Search across images | ✅ Your tags | ❌ Text/URL | ✅ AI/OCR |
| Phone saves the image | ✅ Share sheet | Saves the URL | ✅ |
| Free tier | ✅ 2,500 items | ✅ Unlimited links | ❌ From $4.99/mo |
Bottom line
- Just articles? Any read-later app; Raindrop free is the safe default.
- Mostly images? Kelu — it treats the picture as the thing, not as a link with a thumbnail.
- Both, and willing to pay? mymind does the lot behind a subscription.
The lesson from Pocket’s shutdown is worth keeping: pick a tool you can export from and actually own, so the next sunset doesn’t take your library with it — and stop tool-hopping once you’ve chosen.