Archive
Mobile · 2026
An offline-first mobile app for saving links, organizing resources, and syncing quietly in the background.
- Role
- Solo developer
- Impact
- Saving a link never waits on the network
Challenge
Saving something to read later usually happens in a hurry, on a phone, sometimes with bad signal. Most bookmark tools are built around the browser and a live connection, so a save can hang or fail right when you need it.
Contribution
I built it with Expo, SQLite and Drizzle. Saves go to the local database first, and link details and Supabase sync catch up in the background with retries. I also added saving from the Android share sheet, search across titles, URLs and notes, collections, and import and export.
Outcome
Saving is instant online or off, and the app only ever reads from the local database. Sync problems show up in Settings instead of interrupting you, and the whole archive can be exported as a backup or a readable HTML page.
Details
Most bookmarking tools are browser-first and fall apart the moment you're offline or moving quickly between apps. Archive is built mobile-first instead: save a link, and it writes to local SQLite immediately. The UI never waits on a network round-trip.
Metadata enrichment and Supabase sync happen asynchronously in the background, with retry-aware state so a flaky connection doesn't lose anything. On top of that: full-text search across title, domain, URL, notes, and summary text, Android share-intent capture so links can be saved straight from any app, and archive import/export.
The architecture is deliberately local-first: SQLite and Drizzle ORM are the source of truth for the interface, Supabase is the sync layer, not the dependency.
Stack
Expo · React Native · TypeScript · SQLite · Drizzle ORM · Supabase
