Your data
The short version: your reading is private to you by default. A few things are public, or can be made public, so they’re portable across the Atmosphere.
Most of the public things live in your PDS: the part of your Atmosphere account that holds what you publish, readable by anyone and by any Atmospheric app. Saves are different: Skyreader doesn’t store them on your PDS. Backing them with Semble or Margin publishes them as a public collection in that app. Everything else stays on Skyreader’s servers and your devices, private to you.
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”| What | Where it lives | Visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Read state | Skyreader’s servers + your devices | Private |
| Subscriptions | Skyreader’s servers (+ your PDS if you opt in) | Private; public if Atmospheric sync is on |
| Saved articles | Skyreader’s servers + your devices | Private; public if backed by Semble or Margin |
| Uploaded PDFs and EPUBs | Skyreader’s servers | Private, even when your saves are backed |
| Newsletters | Skyreader’s servers | Private |
| Search and saved searches | Skyreader’s servers | Private |
| Highlights and notes | Skyreader’s servers + your devices | Private; a highlight you publish is public |
| Shared links (linkblog) | Your PDS | Always public |
| Recommends | Your PDS | Always public |
| Reading rooms | Your PDS (joins); Skyreader’s servers (reads) | Joining is public; reads are an anonymous count |
| Links from your follows | Skyreader’s servers, for a week | Private |
| Bluesky likes/bookmarks | Skyreader’s servers (the links in them) | Private |
| Guest data | Your device only | Private |
Subscriptions and Atmospheric sync
Section titled “Subscriptions and Atmospheric sync”Your feed list is private, stored on Skyreader. Turning on Atmospheric sync (Settings → Library & privacy → Subscriptions) also stores it on your PDS, where it’s backed up, portable to any Atmospheric app, and publicly visible. That last part is the tradeoff to weigh: sync makes your subscription list something anyone can look up.
Your folders go along with the list, so an Atmospheric app that reads it can group your feeds the same way. If another app already put some of these feeds on your PDS, sync adds your Skyreader folder to any that has none, and leaves alone a folder set elsewhere. This happens when you turn sync on, and whenever you choose Check for changes in the same panel.
Sync also treats a feed’s http:// and https:// addresses as the same feed. If another app saved a feed you follow under the other address, you’d see that feed twice. Sync keeps one copy. On your PDS it keeps the https:// record. In Skyreader it keeps the copy you put in a folder, along with any name you gave the feed, and the kept record gets that folder. If another app already put the record in a folder, that folder stays, here as well as there.
Sync covers subscriptions. It does not touch your saves, highlights, or read state.
Either way, you can walk away with your list at any time: Settings → Library & privacy → Export OPML.
Private feeds
Section titled “Private feeds”Some feeds are meant for you alone: a member-only podcast from Patreon or Supercast, or a feed whose link carries a personal key. Anyone who has that link can read the feed as you, so publishing the link gives the access away.
You can keep any such feed off your PDS. It stays on Skyreader’s servers and works on all your devices; only Atmospheric sync leaves it out, and the rest of your list syncs as usual. Skyreader spots the likely ones from their links:
- Adding one from the + button or a subscribe link while sync is on, Skyreader asks first: Keep it private, or Sync it publicly.
- Turning sync on in Settings, Skyreader lists the feeds you already have that look private and asks the same question before anything is published.
- Importing an OPML file, or adding from another reader app, nothing stops to ask, so a feed that looks private is kept private.
To change your mind about a feed, right-click it in the sidebar, choose Edit, and check or uncheck Keep private, even with Atmospheric sync on. That works for any RSS or Atom feed, including one Skyreader didn’t flag.
Skyreader judges from the link alone, so it can miss one. If a private link does reach your PDS, treat it as seen: get a new feed link from the service if it offers one. Keeping the feed private, or unsubscribing, removes the old link from your PDS.
Saved articles
Section titled “Saved articles”Saves live on Skyreader, private to you. They are not stored on your PDS. The copy of each article captured when you saved it stays with the save, just as private, and is deleted when you remove the save.
The one way a save becomes public is choosing it: backing your Library with Semble or Margin (Settings → Library & privacy → Saved articles) turns the list into a public collection in that app. Saved newsletters and uploaded PDFs and EPUBs stay private either way.
Highlights and notes
Section titled “Highlights and notes”Highlights are private to Skyreader and sync across your devices through Skyreader, not through your PDS.
If you’d like to share a highlight publicly, you can share an individual highlight to Margin, which publishes that one highlight to your public PDS.
You can take your saves, highlights, and notes with you at any time, as Markdown or BibTeX: see Exporting.
Your linkblog
Section titled “Your linkblog”Shared links are always public. That’s their point: a linkblog is a publication in your PDS, readable across the Atmosphere, with a public page and RSS feed. See Sharing.
Recommends
Section titled “Recommends”Recommending an article writes a public record to your PDS, so anyone can see what you’ve recommended. Take a recommend back and the record is deleted. See Recommending.
Reading rooms
Section titled “Reading rooms”Joining a room writes a public record to your PDS, so anyone can see you’re reading along. What you read in a room shows up only as an anonymous count, stored on Skyreader. See Reading rooms.
Links from your follows
Section titled “Links from your follows”If you turn on From your follows, Skyreader reads your Bluesky Following timeline and keeps the links it finds for a week, privately. Reading your follows never posts anything; Skyreader posts to Bluesky only when you tick Also on Bluesky on a share, post a highlight there, or post from an article’s Discussion.
Your Bluesky likes and bookmarks
Section titled “Your Bluesky likes and bookmarks”If you add your Bluesky likes or bookmarks as a source, Skyreader reads them and keeps the posts that link somewhere as articles, privately. Removing the source deletes them. Reading your bookmarks needs your permission, because they’re private on Bluesky; your likes are already public there.
Seeing for yourself
Section titled “Seeing for yourself”The Atmosphere is inspectable. Settings → Library & privacy links to a viewer showing everything in your public PDS data, so you can verify what’s there rather than take this page’s word for it.
Guests
Section titled “Guests”Guest reading stores everything on your device. Nothing leaves it until you sign in, at which point your saves, highlights, and read state migrate to your account.
Taking it with you, or deleting it
Section titled “Taking it with you, or deleting it”- Subscriptions: Settings → Library & privacy → Export OPML.
- Saves, highlights, and notes: Download a copy, as Markdown or BibTeX. See Exporting.
- Your linkblog: Settings → Linkblog → Delete linkblog removes every link post from your PDS.
- Your account: email [email protected] to ask for a copy of what Skyreader holds about you, or to delete it. Deleting your account removes your data from Skyreader’s servers. What you put on your PDS stays there, under your control, and anything in Semble or Margin stays with that app.