A few hours ago, Google announced that the company will be shutting down Google Reader on July 1.
Today, CloudPull allows you to back up Google Reader subscriptions and starred articles. That functionality will remain in place until very close to the July 1 date. I will then release an update that no longer attempts to back up Google Reader data but that still provides access to your existing Google Reader backups.
I added support for Google Reader into CloudPull in May of 2011. At that time the app also backed up Google Reader Liked and Shared articles. Customers who started using CloudPull before that time and who keep outdated items “Indefinitely” will still have links to Liked and Shared articles in their backups. After the concept of Liked and Shared articles was removed from Google Reader, I removed backup of those items from CloudPull. I was hesitant to continue supporting a feature that did not exist in Google Reader anymore.
As it stands today, subscriptions can be restored into an OPML file, suitable for import into NetNewsWire. Starred articles can be restored to the Finder as Web Location files, which can them be imported into Safari.
I am immediately shifting my development focus to a CloudPull update with these improvements:
- Reinstated ability to backup Google Reader Liked and Shared articles
- The ability to restore Google Reader Starred articles, Liked articles, and Shared articles into a single HTML file suitable for import into Safari or Chrome as bookmarks
I hope that this update will make it easier for customers to keep their Google Reader data and to transition that data to other apps or services.
I will make this update available through this web site within the next week and through the Mac App Store as soon as possible thereafter.