Offline Reading

How Offline Reading Works

SparkFeed is local-first by design. Every article you fetch is stored in your local SQLite database, not in memory or browser cache.

This means:

• Articles are always available: even if your internet goes down
• Content is preserved: even if the original website goes offline or deletes the article
• Reading is instant: no network round trips for already-fetched content

The diagram below shows the difference between an online and offline session:

Online session:
  RSS Server → Fetch → Parse → Store in SQLite → Render

Offline session:
  (no network needed)           SQLite → Render

What Gets Cached

When SparkFeed fetches a feed, it stores:

Data	Stored?
Article title	Yes
Article summary	Yes
Full article content (if provided by feed)	Yes
Published date	Yes
Author	Yes
Link to original article	Yes
Images (embedded in content)	Partial
External images (linked)	No (requires network)

Full content vs. summaries

Not all feeds provide full article content. Some publishers (especially news sites) only include a short excerpt in the feed and require you to visit their website for the full article. SparkFeed displays whatever the feed provides. If the content is limited, a “Read original” link is shown.

Offline Limitations

There are a few things that require an internet connection:

• Fetching new articles: New content can only come through an active network
• Loading external images: Images hosted externally won’t load offline
• Clicking “Read original”: Opens the external website, which requires connectivity

These limitations are inherent to the web. SparkFeed can’t fetch the original website on your behalf without storing it locally (a feature planned for future releases).

Reading Without Internet

To use SparkFeed offline:

1. Make sure you’ve fetched your feeds while online
2. Disconnect from the internet
3. Open SparkFeed as normal. It starts the local server from cached assets
4. Browse and read any article that’s already been fetched

The entire UI works offline, including search, favorites, and folder navigation.

Tip for travelers

Before a flight or period without internet, open SparkFeed and click “Refresh All” to ensure you have the latest articles cached. You’ll have fresh reading material for the whole trip.

Future: Full Article Caching

A planned feature will allow SparkFeed to fetch and store the complete HTML of the original article, not just what the feed provides. This will enable truly 100% offline reading for any article.