How to Install Wallabag for Read-It-Later

How to Install Wallabag for Read-It-Later

Wallabag is a self-hosted read-it-later application that saves web articles for offline reading. It strips away ads, navigation, and clutter, presenting just the article content in a clean, readable format. Running Wallabag on your Breeze gives you a private reading list that syncs across all your devices without sharing your reading habits with any third party.

Prerequisites

• A Breeze instance with at least 1 GB of RAM
• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• A domain or subdomain (e.g., read.example.com)

Step 1 — Create the Docker Compose File

Set up a directory and create the configuration:

mkdir -p ~/wallabag && cd ~/wallabag
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
version: "3.8"
services:
  wallabag:
    image: wallabag/wallabag:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:8880:80"
    environment:
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_DRIVER: pdo_pgsql
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_HOST: db
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_PORT: 5432
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_NAME: wallabag
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_USER: wallabag
      SYMFONY__ENV__DATABASE_PASSWORD: your-db-password
      SYMFONY__ENV__DOMAIN_NAME: https://read.example.com
      SYMFONY__ENV__SERVER_NAME: "Wallabag"
      SYMFONY__ENV__FOSUSER_REGISTRATION: "false"
    volumes:
      - wallabag_images:/var/www/wallabag/web/assets/images
    depends_on:
      - db
      - redis
  db:
    image: postgres:15-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: wallabag
      POSTGRES_USER: wallabag
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: your-db-password
    volumes:
      - wallabag_db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
  wallabag_images:
  wallabag_db:
EOF

Step 2 — Launch Wallabag

docker compose up -d

Wait about 90 seconds for the database migrations to complete. The default credentials are wallabag / wallabag. Change these immediately after your first login under Config → User Information.

Step 3 — Configure the Reverse Proxy

Set up Nginx to forward traffic to Wallabag:

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name read.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8880;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port 443;
    }
}

Step 4 — Browser Extensions and Apps

Install the Wallabag browser extension for quick article saving:

• Firefox and Chrome extensions are available from their respective stores
• Android — the official Wallabag app from F-Droid or Google Play
• iOS — available on the App Store with offline reading support
• eReaders — export articles as EPUB files for reading on Kobo or Kindle devices

Step 5 — Reading and Organizing

Wallabag provides several tools for managing your reading list:

• Tags — categorize articles by topic for easy retrieval
• Starred articles — mark important pieces for quick access
• Archive — articles you have finished reading move to the archive
• Annotations — highlight text and add notes directly on articles
• Search — full-text search across your entire article library

Automatic Saving

Configure Wallabag to automatically save articles from RSS feeds. Go to Config → Import and set up feed URLs. You can also configure email-to-article import by setting up a dedicated email address that forwards messages to Wallabag's import handler.

Export Options

Wallabag supports exporting articles in multiple formats including PDF, EPUB, MOBI, CSV, and plain text. This makes it easy to transfer articles to eReaders or create backups of your reading archive.