relego.

Revisit your highlights, delivered to your Kindle. For free.

Why relego.

Relego comes from the Latin relegere: to read again, go over carefully, review. That is the core idea of the project: bring your highlights back to Kindle so they can be revisited, not forgotten.

Capabilities:

• E-ink first: recaps delivered as native Kindle documents, not push notifications on your phone
• Free and self-hosted: no subscription, no data leaving your infrastructure
• No lock-in: your highlights stay yours, in an open format
• Multiple import sources: Kindle and Kobo are supported today, with a documented source registry for future integrations
• Privacy: your reading habits are not sent to any cloud service

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How it works

1. Connect a Kindle or Kobo via USB and run relego import to import highlights from My Clippings.txt or .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite
2. The server selects a daily or weekly subset of highlights using spaced repetition (weighted by your preferences)
3. A recap is sent through your configured delivery channel: Send-to-Kindle for Kindle, or the regular inbox email channel for Kobo users
4. Open the recap on your Kindle or in your inbox and revisit what mattered

relego import uses an open highlight-source registry. Kindle and Kobo are built in today; if both are connected, Relego imports both in one run and reports any per-source failure without stopping the other import. Contributors can add another source by implementing IHighlightSource and registering it once. See CONTRIBUTING.md and docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the design.

What a recap looks like

Each recap is an EPUB document delivered to your Kindle. Here's an example of what you'll see when you open it:

Relego Daily Recap (2026-05-21 18:00)

• "Care About Your Craft" — The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas & Andrew Hunt

• "Clean code is simple and direct." — Clean Code by Robert C. Martin

• "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." — The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

• "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." — Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

• "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." — Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Each highlight includes the quote, the book title, and the author, making it easy to recall context at a glance. The number of highlights per recap is configurable (default is 5).

Interactive mode

Run relego without arguments to open the interactive TUI:

Use the TUI to configure the server, browse highlights, and manage exclusions. For automation and scripting, use the CLI commands directly (see CLI reference).

Theme selection for TUI:

• RELEGO_THEME=dark (default)
• RELEGO_THEME=light

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Getting started

1. Connect your reading device

Connect your Kindle or Kobo device to your computer via USB cable.

No device handy? Sample Kindle and Kobo files are included under docs/examples/.

2. Run the server

Fill in KINDLE_EMAIL and the SMTP_* variables in docker-compose.yml, then:

docker compose --profile server up -d

Important

Amazon Send-to-Kindle only accepts emails from approved senders. Add the email address you are going to use in your Amazon "Approved Personal Document E-mail List" before testing delivery.

Tip

Gmail and Outlook personal accounts do not support SMTP with password authentication anymore.

Use a free SMTP relay like AWS SES, Resend, MailerSend or Mailgun instead. They offer free tiers with generous limits, suitable for Relego's everyday usage. Otherwise, you can use your own SMTP relay server.

If you don't have or don't want to setup any SMTP server now, replace the SMTP settings in the relego-server block with the demo-mode block from docker-compose.yml, then run the demo profile: docker compose --profile demo up -d.

3. Import your highlights

It's time to import the highlights from your device.

Using the sample data in docs/examples? Append the local path to the import command shown in this section

Docker (no install)

Windows:

The simplest option is copying My Clippings.txt in the repo's root folder and mount that path:

docker compose run --rm `
  -v "$(Get-Location):/kindle:ro" `
  relego-cli import "/kindle/My Clippings.txt"

If you don't want to manually copy and paste the file, follow the Microsoft documentation to allow WSL to access the Kindle device.

macOS (Kindle mounts at /Volumes/Kindle):

docker compose run --rm \
  -v "/Volumes/Kindle/documents:/media/host/Kindle/documents:ro" \
  relego-cli import "/kindle/My Clippings.txt"

Linux (Kindle mounts at /media/$USER/Kindle):

docker compose run --rm \
  -v "/media/$USER/Kindle/documents:/media/host/Kindle/documents:ro" \
  relego-cli import "/kindle/My Clippings.txt"

Windows

winget

winget install Krusty93.Relego
relego

Binary

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Krusty93/relego/main/install.ps1 | iex
relego import

The installer detects your Windows architecture automatically and prints the path where relego.exe was saved.

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Krusty93/relego/main/install.sh | sh
~/.local/bin/relego

The installer detects your OS and architecture automatically and prints the path where relego was saved. If ~/.local/bin is not already on your PATH, add export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" to your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.profile), then open a new terminal.

4. Set the recap destination

Set your Kindle email:

# Docker
docker compose run --rm relego-cli config kindle-email "email@kindle.com"

# Binary
relego config kindle-email "email@kindle.com"

Optionally, set an "Also Email Recap to" address to also receive an HTML recap in any regular inbox (in addition to Kindle). Kobo users should set this regular inbox address, because Kobo devices do not have a Send-to-Kindle-style email channel:

# Docker
docker compose run --rm relego-cli config delivery-email "you@example.com"

# Binary
relego config delivery-email "you@example.com"

Leave this blank if you only want Kindle delivery. Clear it at any time with relego config delivery-email "".

5. Explore the TUI

The TUI lets you sync highlights from Kindle or Kobo sources, browse your library, manage exclusions, and adjust settings, all without leaving the terminal. To open it, launch the CLI without any argument:

# Docker
docker compose run --rm relego-cli

# Installed CLI
relego

If you prefer the CLI over the TUI, see the CLI reference below.

That's it. The server is now running and will send recaps on the default schedule (every day at 18:00 in the server's local time zone).

6. Your first daily recap

If you don't want to wait for the scheduled send, use the following command to force the send:

# Docker
docker compose run --rm relego-cli recap trigger

# Installed CLI
relego recap trigger

If you've been using the demo mode, open http://localhost:5000 to view the captured email with the EPUB attachment, download it and forward it to your real Kindle email

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
relego recap trigger returns an error	Verify the server is up with docker compose ps.
Trigger returns No eligible highlights available	No highlights imported yet. Run the import step first.
No email in smtp4dev	Check that the demo profile is running, and that the relego-server environment block is using ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Development, SMTP_HOST=smtp4dev, and SMTP_PORT=2525.
smtp4dev web UI is blank	smtp4dev renders after a moment. Refresh the page.

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CLI reference

Command	Description
relego	Open interactive TUI
relego import [path]	Import highlights from a detected Kindle or Kobo source
relego status	Show server status and next recap
relego config show	Show all current server settings
relego config schedule <daily|weekly> [HH:MM]	Set recap schedule
relego config schedule show	Show current schedule
relego config count show	Show current highlights-per-recap setting
relego config count <1-15>	Set highlights per recap (default: 5)
relego config email kindle <address>	Set the Send-to-Kindle email address
relego config email inbox <address>	Set the inbox email address for HTML recap delivery. Pass "" to clear
relego exclude add <highlight|book|author> <id>	Exclude an entity from future recaps
relego exclude remove <highlight|book|author> <id>	Re-include an excluded entity
relego exclude list	List all exclusions
relego rename-book <id> <title>	Rename a book
relego weight set <id> <1-5>	Set highlight weight
relego weight list	Show weighted highlights
relego recap trigger	Trigger a recap immediately
relego --version	Print version

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Known Limitations

The current version imports highlights from Kindle My Clippings.txt and Kobo .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite sources. Kindle recaps can be delivered through Send-to-Kindle email; Kobo users use the regular inbox email channel because Kobo has no Send-to-Kindle-style address.

Additional import sources and delivery targets are planned. If you wish to add your own, see the next section.

For contributors

Relego is an open source project and the highlight-source layer is built to be extended. The quickest way to understand the project is to read the product context in docs/prds/prd-mvp.md, the source registry overview in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, then the contributor guide section on adding a new highlight source.

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Supply chain verification

Verify Docker image origin via GitHub CLI:

gh attestation verify \
  oci://ghcr.io/krusty93/relego.server:latest \
  --owner Krusty93

gh attestation verify \
  oci://ghcr.io/krusty93/relego.cli:latest \
  --owner Krusty93

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines. Useful documentation:

• MVP Product Requirements Document
• Developer Experience Design
• Architecture
• Architecture Decision Records

License

MIT, see LICENSE.