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

1. You paste an article URL and your e-reader's email address.
2. 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.
3. 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)

1. Sign up at resend.com.
2. 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.
3. Create an API key.
4. 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.