Issue Mint

Add the page you're reading to your next issue, in two clicks.

Add the page you're reading to your next issue, in two clicks. Issue Mint is the platform for curated link newsletters: an intro up top, then links grouped under categories, each with a short note from the curator. This extension handles the collecting half of that job. The page in front of you becomes a saved, categorised link, and you never leave the tab. See the platform for curated link newsletters at https://issuemint.com/ HOW IT WORKS 1. Open a page worth sharing. 2. Click the Issue Mint icon in your toolbar, or press Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd+Shift+M on a Mac). 3. Pick the issue, write your one-line note, and add it. The popup reads the page for you. The title, the meta or Open Graph description, the canonical URL and the lead image are already filled in by the time it opens. Most days the only typing you do is the sentence that makes the link yours. WHAT'S IN THE POPUP • An issue picker listing your draft and scheduled issues, newest first. Sent issues never appear, so you can't accidentally add to something that already went out. • The picker also offers "New issue…", which starts the next issue for you when there isn't a draft open yet. • "Save to library" is there for links you want but can't place yet. Drop them into your links inbox and decide at writing time. • A category picker that remembers your last choice per newsletter, so Tools links land under Tools without any extra clicks. • A newsletter picker, if you run more than one publication. With a single newsletter it stays out of the way. • Title and description prefilled from the page's own metadata. The note field takes Markdown, so any emphasis and links in your commentary survive all the way to the send. • Inline errors that say what actually happened. If an issue was sent moments ago, the popup tells you and offers the ones still open. Save, and the toolbar icon flashes a tick while the popup closes itself. You're back to reading. THE RIGHT-CLICK MENU AND THE KEYBOARD Right-click any page, or any individual link on a page, and choose "Add to Issue Mint" to open the popup prefilled with your defaults. Prefer the keyboard? Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd+Shift+M on a Mac) does the same. You can rebind it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts, and the popup always displays the shortcut Chrome has actually assigned. SAVE NOW, CURATE LATER The library is your links inbox, shared with your newsletter's website: pages you clip for later sit alongside links your readers submit. When you sit down to write, the composer shows the library in a slide-over. One click inserts an item into the issue under the category you choose, and marks it used so nothing gets featured twice. THE PLATFORM BEHIND IT The extension is one piece of Issue Mint. A newsletter on Issue Mint also gets: • A newsletter composer built for curated link roundups, where you drag links into order under your intro and your categories: https://issuemint.com/features/composer/ • A hosted newsletter website with a subscribe form, an issue archive, a submit-a-link form and a sponsorship page. It goes live on a free subdomain immediately and moves to your own custom domain when you're ready: https://issuemint.com/features/website/ • Newsletter sending that works out of the box, with the option to send through your own Amazon SES or SMTP credentials on your own domain: https://issuemint.com/features/sending/ • Newsletter link tracking and analytics, including automatic UTM tagging, per-link click counts and list growth: https://issuemint.com/features/link-tracking/ • Newsletter sponsorship management, from a simple enquiry form up to a bookable sponsorship calendar: https://issuemint.com/features/sponsorships/ The full feature tour is at https://issuemint.com/features/ PRIVACY AND PERMISSIONS The permission list is short on purpose: • "activeTab" and "scripting" let the extension read the page you're on (title, description, canonical URL, lead image) at the moment you invoke it. Nothing runs on any page until you click. • "storage" keeps your pairing token and remembered defaults on your machine, in Chrome's extension storage. • "contextMenus" adds the right-click item. • The only site the extension is permitted to talk to is app.issuemint.com. No browsing history is read or collected, and there is no analytics or tracking code inside the extension. Connecting never involves typing your password into the extension. You sign in to the Issue Mint app as normal, the app shows a one-time eight-character code that expires after ten minutes, and you type that code into the popup. Every connected extension is listed in the app's settings with a revoke button. Disconnect, on the extension's own options page, revokes the token server-side as well, so it's dead even if the laptop it lived on isn't yours any more. GETTING STARTED You'll need an Issue Mint account, because the extension saves into your newsletter there. 1. Start a free trial. No card is required, and you can send real issues during it: https://issuemint.com/pricing/ 2. Install this extension and click "Connect to Issue Mint". 3. Type the eight-character code and you're paired. Set your default newsletter and category on the options page and the two-click flow gets even shorter. Newsletter pricing is tiered by subscriber count: https://issuemint.com/pricing/ SWITCHING FROM ANOTHER NEWSLETTER TOOL? Issue Mint is a modern take on the curated.co format, and collecting links as you browse is exactly the workflow this extension exists for. If you're weighing up where to run a link roundup: • curated.co alternative: https://issuemint.com/compare/curated/ • Substack alternative for curated link newsletters: https://issuemint.com/compare/substack/ • beehiiv alternative: https://issuemint.com/compare/beehiiv/ • Buttondown alternative: https://issuemint.com/compare/buttondown/ QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK Does it work without an account? No. It saves into your Issue Mint newsletter, so it needs one. The trial is free and doesn't ask for a card. Does it send anything by itself? Never. Nothing leaves your browser until you press save, and the extension only ever talks to app.issuemint.com. I run several newsletters. Will it cope? Yes. The newsletter picker appears when your account has more than one, and your default category is remembered for each. What happens if I try to add a link to an issue that just went out? You can't. Sent issues are missing from the picker, and the server refuses to attach links to anything that isn't editable, whatever a client asks for. Your archive stays exactly as your readers received it. TIPS AND SUPPORT Guides on writing and growing a curated newsletter are on the blog: https://issuemint.com/blog/ Stuck, or spotted a bug? https://issuemint.com/contact/ or info@issuemint.com. A human reads both.