How does the Readwise to Tana export integration work?

Before you can export your Readwise highlights to Tana, you'll need to create an API token for your Tana workspace:

1. In the Settings panel of Tana (represented by a gear icon), click API Tokens.
2. Select the Workspace you want your Readwise exports to appear in.
3. Click the + Create button.
4. Once the token is created, click Copy to save it to your clipboard.
5. In your Readwise account, go to the Tana setup page and paste the token into the API field.
6. Click Save.

You'll then be directed to the integration options page.

The export has a variety of customization options (outlined in the customization section below), but the default format will create a node for each document and tag it with the Supertag #Readwise. The highlights from the document will be nested underneath the document node and tagged with #highlights.

Note: If you plan to customize your formatting, we recommend doing a test export by enabling the "Select Items to Be Exported" option and choosing a few documents with a variety of metadata, to ensure that the export works as you expect. Once you've tweaked the options to your liking, you can re-export those few documents using the "refresh" icon on the far right of the document.

This interactive tutorial will guide you through the process of generating your API key and configuring the Readwise integration:

What happens when I take new highlights? Will those automatically sync with Tana?

Yes! You can configure the Readwise Tana integration to automatically sync any new highlights that come into Readwise. If the highlight is from a new book, article, or Twitter account, a new node will be created in your Tana account. If the highlight is from an existing book, article, or Twitter account, the highlight will be appended to below the existing node. Because the Readwise integration is append-only, nothing in Tana will ever be overwritten.

How do I trigger a new sync to Tana?

By default, the Tana integration will export any new highlights as soon as they appear in Readwise. (Note that it may still take a few minutes for them to appear in your Tana account.) If you've disabled that option or simply want to force a fresh sync, you can click the "Start export to Tana" button on the Tana Export settings page.

Can I edit the text of a book, article, or Twitter page in Tana?

Yes! You can edit the text of a highlight as you wish and the Readwise integration will not overwrite any changes you make. New highlights will be appended as a new node.

What happens when I update highlights in Readwise? Will those changes automatically sync with Tana? (Or vice versa?)

Currently, no. New updates to existing highlights will not be reflected in already synced highlights. We want to make sure we don't overwrite any manual edits you might have made in your Tana workspace.

Where does the Location link after each Kindle highlight take me?

If you have the Kindle app installed on your desktop, clicking the Location link will launch the Kindle app and jump you to the highlight in the book. More on those links here: Can I jump to a highlight directly in the Kindle app?

Can I customize how my notes appear in Tana?

Absolutely! See the customization section below for more information on how you can customize the title, metadata, and more.

Can I add new properties to my tags in Tana?

Yes! You can add as many new properties to the tags within Tana as you'd like and Readwise won't overwrite them in any subsequent syncs.

Do note that if you make any changes to the properties that Readwise creates (e.g. author, title, etc.), Readwise may not recognize it as the same schema on the next sync and may create a duplicate. If that happens, you can merge the tags as needed.

How do I reset the integration so I can start over fresh?

You can reset the integration by creating a new API token in your Tana workspace and replacing the previous one in your Readwise account. (You can access the token setup page from the link at the bottom of the export options page.)

This will prompt a fresh export the next time you sync, ignoring any previously exported content. This is also useful if you want to sync your Readwise account to a different Tana workspace.

How can I customize the Readwise to Tana integration?

One of the most powerful features of the Readwise to Tana integration is the ability to customize exactly how you would like the formatting of your notes to appear in Tana.

The customizable elements include:

• Note title
• Highlight formatting (links to original, tags, notes, etc)
• Metadata (such as author, URL, category)

You can customize your export by going to the Tana export preferences page and turning on the "Use Custom Formatting" toggle.

Each component of the export customization has a "template" using the Jinja2 templating language. You can customize each of these templates to achieve your desired format in Tana.

Title

By default, Readwise will append "(highlights)" to each node so you can differentiate a Readwise created node from your own. Here's the default template:

{{title}} (highlights) #{{category}}

Notice the {{ title }} variable. When a note comes into Tana, that {{ title }} will be replaced with the document's actual title.

The #{{category}} variable is also included here so that Tana will recognize the document categories (books, articles, etc.) as tags. This will allow you to view your notes by category and to add or edit the Supertag properties for them.

Note: All documents exported from Readwise will also be appended with the #Readwise tag. This is not a customizable part of the template because it is part of the integration's core functionality and shouldn't be removed.

You also have some other variables available to you. For example, here's how you can prepend each title with the name of the author:

{{author}} - {{title}} #{{category}}

Of course, you can customize the title significantly further, using inline-if statements, Jinja2 filters, and much more. The templating language is quite powerful!

Highlight

This section is a little more complex, but can support some powerful workflows. Here's the default template:

{{ highlight_text }} #highlight
{% if highlight_location_url %}
    Readwise Location:: {{highlight_location_url}}
{% endif %}
{% if highlight_tags %}
    Topics:: {% for t in highlight_tags %} {{t}}{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
{% if highlight_note %}
    Notes:: {{ highlight_note }}
{% endif %}

Note the indentation above. The highlight text is shown at the top level, with the default #highlight tag inline with it. Nested under the highlight text are the location information (e.g. page number, link back to article/tweet, etc.) and any notes or tags attached to that highlight, if they exist.

Why might you want to customize the highlight text? For one, if you'd just prefer to change the default formatting, for example by putting notes inline or at the parent level.

Here's an example of how you might add the highlight date as a new field:

{{ highlight_text }} #highlight
{% if highlight_location_url %}
    Readwise Location:: {{highlight_location_url}}
{% endif %}
{% if highlight_tags %}
    Topics:: {% for t in highlight_tags %} {{t}}{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
{% if highlight_note %}
    Notes:: {{ highlight_note }}
{% endif %}
{% if highlight_date %}
    Date Highlighted:: {{ highlight_date }}
{% endif %}

There is, of course, much more you can do with this by using the Jinja2 templating language.

Metadata

Below the highlights template, you'll find a series of toggles that allow you to enable/disable and rename the fields that Readwise will create for each document node. (Note that these are the document-level properties, not the highlight-level properties.)

The default settings look like this:

You can enable or disable any of these fields simply by clicking the corresponding toggle on or off. In the fields to the right, you can customize what the titles of the fields will be when exported to Tana. For example, if you already have a field called "Title" that you use as a different part of your Tana workflow, you could change "Title" here to be "Document Title" instead.