Digest Schedules

Choose when and how you receive your summarized newsletters

What is a digest schedule?

A digest schedule is like setting a delivery time for your morning newspaper. Instead of newsletters arriving whenever they're sent — interrupting your focus throughout the day — Readless collects them and sends you a clean summary at exactly the time you choose.

Schedules answer the when; your Sources page answers the what. A schedule holds the cadence and format; Sources decide which newsletters and feeds land in it. Pro lets you run up to 3 schedules at once; the Max plan raises that to 8.

Digest Schedule page listing three schedules with badges and source previews — Your schedule list — one row per schedule with badges, timing, and a preview of routed sources

The setup wizard

Creating your first set of schedules? The dashboard opens a short wizard that walks you through cadence, summary style, source routing, and a final confirmation — so you can go from nothing to a working digest in under a minute.

Setup wizard step 1 of 4 with Once a day / Twice a day / Custom cadence presets — Step 1 — pick a cadence preset or design your own schedules

Setup wizard style step showing Concise, Detailed, and Synthesis cards with Synthesis selected — Step 2 — choose a summary style. Synthesis is available on the Max plan

Setup wizard routing step listing sources that flow into the digest — Step 3 — sources start in one digest; add feeds or split them across schedules

You can always add, edit, or pause schedules afterwards on the Digest Schedule page below.

Choosing your days and time

The weekday picker is built for speed: use presets like Weekdays (Monday through Friday) or Every day when you want a daily rhythm, or tap individual days if your week is uneven.

The time you pick is saved using the timezone on your account when you create or update the schedule. Readless handles daylight saving changes automatically for that saved timezone, but if you later travel or move to a different timezone, edit the schedule to save the new one.

Schedule edit form with the schedule name, weekday picker, delivery time, and sources — The schedule form — set the name, delivery days, time, and which sources feed it

Summary styles

Every schedule has a summary style that controls how the digest reads. Pro includes two; the Max plan adds a third.

Concise — A short summary for each newsletter, one quick paragraph you can skim in seconds.

Detailed — A summary for each newsletter, grouped by topic, with the key points called out as bullets. More depth, still skimmable.

Synthesis — Instead of a summary per newsletter, everything is merged into one briefing, organized by theme, with links back to each source. Synthesis is a Max feature.

Summary style picker showing Concise, Detailed, and Synthesis cards with Synthesis selected and marked MAX — The three summary styles — Synthesis carries a MAX badge

Use Concise to skim, Detailed when you want the key points, and Synthesis when several newsletters cover the same stories and you'd rather read them as one briefing.

Customize tone & focus

On the Max plan, each schedule also has a Customize tone & focus field. Write plain-language instructions — like “lead with the biggest takeaways” or “skip promotions and job postings” — and Readless applies them to every digest on that schedule, on top of the style you picked.

The Customize tone and focus field with a text box and three example instruction chips — Custom instructions apply to every digest on the schedule (Max plan)

MAX

Synthesis and custom tone & focus

Both are part of the Max plan. On Pro they appear on the form but stay locked, with a prompt to upgrade.

The Default schedule toggle

Exactly one of your schedules is marked as the Default schedule. Any newsletter or RSS feed you haven't explicitly routed — and any newly-detected sender that starts arriving tomorrow — automatically rides along on the default. It's the catch-all so nothing slips through the cracks.

Turning on Default schedule on a different schedule swaps the flag over atomically — the previous default stops being the catch-all the moment the new one takes over.

Managing which sources land in a schedule

You won't find a sender checklist or an RSS manager on the schedule form — those live on the Sources page, where every newsletter and feed is listed together. Use the routing pill on each source row to send it to this schedule, another schedule, or skip it entirely.

Pausing a schedule

Each schedule has an active/paused toggle. Pausing stops digests from running on that schedule until you turn it back on — nothing is deleted, and it's handy for vacations or when you want a break without rebuilding your settings later.

How it connects

Sources — Route newsletters and RSS feeds to specific schedules
RSS Feeds — Add website feeds so they appear in a schedule's digest
Substack — Connect a Substack publication into a schedule
Getting Started — Back to setup overview