Send to E-Reader

Convert web articles to EPUB and email them straight to your e-reader. Works with any device that accepts emailed files — Kindle, PocketBook, or anything else with a similar service.

Built with Express 5 + TypeScript. Hosted at read.atanasov.fi.

How it works

You paste an article URL and your e-reader's email address.
The server fetches the page, runs Mozilla Readability over it to strip ads/chrome, builds an EPUB, and emails it to the address you gave.
The EPUB is deleted from the server immediately after sending.

Supported devices

Any device that accepts files via email works — the app doesn't restrict by domain.

Device	Email pattern
Amazon Kindle	`*@kindle.com`
PocketBook	`*@pbsync.com`
Anything else	whatever address your device gives you

You'll need to add the sender address (the Gmail account this app sends from) to your device's approved-senders list — that's a one-time per-device setup.

Prerequisites

Node.js 20 or newer
An SMTP-capable email provider. Defaults are set up for Resend — sign up (no waitlist), verify your domain, grab an API key.

Local development

git clone <your-fork>
cd send_to_kindle
npm install
cp .env.example .env   # then fill in GMAIL_USER and GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD
npm run dev

Server listens on http://localhost:3000 (override with PORT).

Production build

npm run build
npm run start

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Default	Notes
`SMTP_HOST`	no	`smtp.resend.com`	Any SMTP server works
`SMTP_PORT`	no	`465`	`465` = SSL, `587` = STARTTLS
`SMTP_USER`	yes	—	For Resend, literally the string `resend`
`SMTP_PASSWORD`	yes	—	For Resend, your API key (`re_…`)
`MAIL_FROM`	yes	—	Sender address, e.g. `read@atanasov.fi`. Must be from a verified domain on your provider.
`PORT`	no	`3000`	Listen port

Resend setup (quick)

Sign up at resend.com.
Add your domain (e.g. atanasov.fi) and add the SPF/DKIM/return-path DNS records they generate. Verification usually completes in a few minutes.
Create an API key.

In .env:

SMTP_USER=resend
SMTP_PASSWORD=re_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MAIL_FROM=send@read.atanasov.fi

For a different provider, just point SMTP_HOST / SMTP_PORT / SMTP_USER / SMTP_PASSWORD at it — any standard SMTP service works.

API

POST /send-article

{
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "readerEmail": "your-device@kindle.com"
}

Response on success:

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Article sent to your e-reader",
  "title": "Article Title"
}

Limitations

Articles must be publicly accessible — no paywalled or login-required pages.
Server-side fetch means JS-heavy SPAs may extract poorly (the page must render meaningful HTML without JavaScript).
Some sites block non-browser user-agents; the app sends a Chrome UA but can still be refused.

Stack

Express 5 — HTTP server
@mozilla/readability — article extraction
jsdom — DOM for Readability
@lesjoursfr/html-to-epub — EPUB generation
nodemailer — SMTP via Gmail

License

GPL-3.0-only. See LICENSE.

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