Getting started

Welcome to Cowpin. This page gets you from zero to a working, organized library.

1. Create your account

Sign up with email or Google. Your library is private by default — nothing you save is public unless you deliberately make it so.

2. Save your first bookmark

From the Bookmarks page, click Add bookmark, paste a URL, and save. Cowpin fetches the page title and description for you. Add a few tags (see below), or let the AI suggest tags based on the page.

Two faster ways to save as you browse:

• Bookmarklet — a one-click "Save to Cowpin" button you drag to your browser toolbar. Works in every browser.
• Save by email — every account gets a private address; email a link (or forward a newsletter) and it lands in your library.

3. Organize with tags

Tags are the heart of Cowpin. Add as many as you like to a bookmark, then:

• Filter the list by any tag.
• Browse the Tags page — a tag cloud sized by how much you use each tag.
• Save a set of tags as a bundle for a one-click filtered view (e.g. reading + ai).

Prefer folders? Tags do everything folders do and more — a bookmark can live under several at once, which keeps a large library tidy without deep nesting.

4. Use Read Later

Flag anything you want to get back to as read later. Cowpin's optional Focus picks a few items from that pile that are actually worth your time — handy when the list gets long.

5. Bring your existing bookmarks

Already have a library on Pinboard (or an HTML export from any browser)? Import it in about two minutes without losing a tag — see Importing from Pinboard.

Keyboard and power-user notes

• Search matches titles, URLs, and notes — and, on archived pages, the page contents.
• Everything you can do in the UI, you can do over the Pinboard-compatible API, so existing scripts keep working.
• You can export your whole library to Pinboard-compatible JSON at any time.

That's the core. The rest of these docs go deeper on importing, tags, and the API.