Favorites System

What is the Favorites System?

The favorites system lets you mark any article with a ⭐ to save it permanently. Unlike read/unread status, favorites are intentional. You’re saying “I want to come back to this.”

How to Favorite an Article

There are three ways to favorite an article:

1. Click the star icon (⭐) in the article list next to the headline
2. Open an article and click the star in the reading toolbar
3. Keyboard shortcut: press S while an article is focused

The star turns golden instantly, and the article is persisted to the database immediately.

Accessing Your Favorites

Click “Favorites” in the sidebar to open the dedicated favorites view.

In this view:

• All favorited articles appear, sorted by when you starred them (newest first)
• You can filter by folder or feed
• Search within favorites only
• Unfavorite any article by clicking the ⭐ again

How Favorites Are Stored

Favorites are stored directly in the articles table:

UPDATE articles
SET is_favorite = 1
WHERE id = ?;

Because favorites are in your local SQLite database:

• They persist forever, even if you remove the feed
• They’re instantly available, with no server round trip
• They can be backed up by copying the .db file
• They’re yours. No cloud service can delete them

Favorites vs. Read Later

SparkFeed’s favorites system is intentionally simple. It’s a single “star” without categories or tags.

Here’s how to use it effectively:

Use case	Recommended approach
Want to read later	Star the article
Ongoing research reference	Star + use search to retrieve
Share with someone	Star + open original link
Archive important content	Star (it’s stored permanently)

Tags, categories, and annotation features are on the roadmap for a future release.

Export Favorites (Coming Soon)

A future release will allow you to export your favorites as:

• JSON: structured data for processing
• Markdown: a reading list you can paste anywhere
• OPML: standard feed list format (for the feeds, not articles)