"Read later" bookmarking service Instapaper has been down in Europe this week as it tries to untangle the new GDPR legislation brought in by the European Union.

Go to Instapaper.com and you are just faced with an apology, explaining that the site is unavailable as it continues to "make changes in light of the General Data Protection Regulation".

That might result in a better, less intrusive service in the long run but is no great shakes for those who want to use their existing Instapaper bookmarks.

There is one way you can get round that though. You can actually export your saved articles on Instapaper and used the links on a separate, similar service: Pocket.

Here's how:

  • Download a HTML export of your saved articles by heading to http://www.instapaper.com/user/export and selecting "Download HTML file"
  • Save that file to your computer and remember where
  • Sign up for a Pocket account at https://getpocket.com/
  • Head to https://getpocket.com/import/instapaper
  • Hit the "Choose file" button on that page and select the Instapaper file you previously downloaded
  • Hit the "Import" button and wait for your saved articles to upload to Pocket
  • Job done - continue to read your saved articles

You could also always wait for Instapaper to come back up, of course. At present though, we don't know when that might be.