How to save a web content to Notion: A guide to web clipping tools for Notion.

There are several tools that allow you to save web content to Notion available today, but none of them is perfect.

I often get asked why I’m building Clipio instead of using other tools like Save to Notion or the official Notion Web Clipper. This article takes a close look at these tools, listing their pros and cons.

After reading, you should be able to pick the best tool for your needs.

Please note the tools are listed in random order.

Notion web clipper

Notion’s official browser extension simplifies saving articles into Notion. However, it’s quite limited in functionality and doesn’t seem to be a focus for the company. It is a very simple tool that does its job if all you want and need is to save links or article content.

Pros:

• Official extension from Notion
• Works out of the box and is easy to use

Cons:

• Limited to storing only URLs and page content; lacks the ability to set other database properties
• Cannot create presets to save common workflows (eg. save link to book to specific DB with tag “To Read”).

Save to Notion

Save to Notion is a third-party browser extension with a range of interesting features that will probably fit the needs of most regular users.

For example, you can create a “form” (a preset in Clipio terminology) with predefined values for a page (eg. Title, prefilled DB properties like tags,..). Aside from the official extension, you can edit the DB properties as well.

Pros:

• Allows the creation of forms (similar to Clipio’s presets) with predefined values for a page (e.g., Title, pre-filled database properties like tags)
• Ability to update values for database properties during save
• Can save tweets, though this feature can be buggy

Cons:

• Sometimes buggy (e.g., saving tweets didn’t work for me, issues with text highlighting, has also mixed reviews on the Chrome Store)
• Sometimes you have to click a lot to save what you want (eg. when I want to save a book to my "To read" list from Amazon with cover images as well)
• In the free plan, you can have only 5 forms (presets)

Other notes:

• offers a paid plan with extra features and more generous limits on some functionality
• It uses Notion’s private API and your Notion auth token. This gives the extension some extra features not available to public API (e.g., set Notion template for the page). But I don’t consider this ideal in terms of security since the extension has access to everything you have in Notion.

Readwise

Readwise isn’t specifically built for Notion. It’s a generic tool for saving highlights and articles from various sources and aggregates them in the Readwise app. You can review them there or export them to different apps.

Pros:

• Supports saving from a large number of sources (excellent Twitter support, can save images, great highlighting)
• Allows exporting to more apps than just Notion
• Has a dedicated Readwise Reader app, which combines an RSS reader, a read-it-later app, and a newsletter aggregator

Cons:

• Generic tool, so Notion support and customization are limited
• Relatively expensive to sync with external tools ($7.99 per month, billed annually as of March 2024)

Other notes:

• Standalone app with its own reading view and sync options
• Great fit for those who use all its features, but may be expensive and limited in value for others

Due to the generic nature of the tool you can’t customize the exported data. In my case, that means additional work to connect notes from Readwise into my notes system. And because the sync is not in real-time, I often forget about these notes.

With Clipio I plan to replace some parts of the Readwise in my flows to eliminate this need to fine-tune the notes in Notion after saving.

Clipio

I am currently working on Clipio, a browser extension set to release at the end of March or the beginning of April 2024. It draws inspiration from other products and is focused on quick and easy saving without interrupting the user's flow.

Pros:

Cons:

• The first version will be released at the end of March 2024, and some features might not be available at that time.

Other:

• Uses the public API, allowing users to select which pages the extension can access, and this access can be easily revoked
• Some Notion features are not supported by the public API (e.g., file upload, Notion templates)
• Will offer both free and paid plans with additional features and higher limits

Clipio aims to provide a quick and easy way to save anything to Notion, be it an article, a great quote, a tweet, or an image of your dream home.

Conclusion

There are various options for saving web content to Notion, and the best choice depends on your needs. For basic usage, the official extension is probably good enough. If you want more advanced features, both Clipio and Save to Notion can be good fits, and you should compare their offerings to see what works better for you.

If you are looking for a more generic tool that can export content to other places as well, then Readwise is the way to go.

Clipio will be released soon. Join the waitlist to be among the first to try it.