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Frequently Asked Questions

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Getting started

What is Acta?+
Acta delivers articles and newsletters as clean, ad-free, properly typeset EPUBs to your e-reader — or as a printed magazine mailed to your door. Paste a link for an instant send, or follow a publication to get every new post automatically.
Where does the name "Acta" come from?+
The Acta Diurna (Latin for "Daily Acts") was ancient Rome's public information digest. Posted daily in Rome's forum for centuries, it gathered information about military campaigns, weather, trade, farming, political decisions, and other news from the far reaches of the Mediterranean and beyond.

Acta Digest is today's equivalent, gathering your favorite writing from the far reaches of the internet and letting you read it in peace, away from distracting, sleep-disturbing screens.
What's the difference between a "quick send" and a "subscription"?+
A quick send is a one-off: you paste a single article URL and it's delivered once. A subscription is ongoing: you follow a newsletter or blog, and Acta checks it automatically and delivers new posts as they're published — instantly, or bundled into a daily/weekly digest, depending on what you choose.
What are the free plan limits?+
The free plan includes 1 subscription and 3 quick sends per week, with full EPUB formatting and no credit card required. Paid tiers remove both limits — see pricing.
What's your cancellation policy?+
You can cancel a paid subscription at any time from the billing portal in your dashboard — there's no lock-in and no need to contact us. Canceling turns off future auto-renewal only; it doesn't cut your current billing period short. You keep full access to your paid tier through the end of the period you already paid for (whether that period is a month or a year), and your account then moves to the Free tier.

If you'd rather get your money back than ride out the period, you can request a refund within 14 days of a payment and we'll refund it in full. After 14 days, that payment is final — we don't issue partial or prorated refunds for the unused part of a billing period, including the unused months of an annual plan. See our Terms of Service for the full policy.

Devices

Which e-readers does Acta support?+

Acta delivers by emailing a file straight to your device's document inbox — the same approach Amazon popularized with "Send to Kindle." Support depends on whether a given device actually offers that kind of inbox:

  • Kindle — fully supported. Uses Amazon's Send to Kindle email system.
  • PocketBook — fully supported. PocketBook devices have a built-in "Send-to-PocketBook" email address (Settings → Accounts and Synchronization).
  • Kobo — supported, with one extra one-time step. Kobo has no direct send-to-device email, so we route through Dropbox: set up Kobo's free "email to Dropbox" feature once at kobo.com/dropbox, then use the email address it gives you as your Acta device address. Your Kobo picks up new files the next time it syncs over Wi-Fi.
  • BOOX — supported. It has no special device inbox, so enter any regular email address you already check on it — new articles arrive as attachments, tap one to open with NeoReader. For hands-free automatic delivery, BOOX also has native WebDAV support — see below.
  • reMarkable — not currently supported. It offers no reliable way for Acta to deliver files automatically without you being actively present at the device, so we don't advertise support we can't back up. We may add a real integration later.
  • Any other e-reader — if your device or its companion app/account offers an email-based document delivery address, enter it during setup and it should work.
What is WebDAV sync, and which devices support it?+
WebDAV is a vendor-neutral way for a reading app to automatically pull new articles from Acta, without emailing anything — no manual tap-to-open needed. Enable it from your dashboard to get a URL, username, and password; enter those into your reading app's WebDAV or cloud-storage settings, and it'll sync periodically on its own. BOOX supports this natively (Library → Cloud Storage settings), and KOReader (which runs on Kobo, many Android devices, and others) has a built-in Cloud Storage → WebDAV option. PocketBook can also use it, but needs a third-party WebDAV app since it's not in PocketBook's own settings menu.
My Kindle isn't receiving anything — why?+
Amazon only delivers documents from senders on your approved list. Jump straight to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List and add noreply@actadigest.com there. (That link is for amazon.com — if you're outside the US, swap in your own country's Amazon domain, e.g. amazon.co.uk or amazon.de, and the same link works.) Otherwise, go to Amazon → Manage Your Content & Devices → Preferences → Personal Document Settings → Approved Personal Document E-mail List manually.

Browser extension

Do I need the browser extension?+
Not for basic use — quick sends and RSS-based subscriptions work without it. You need the extension for two things: saving pages with one click from wherever you're browsing, and capturing paywalled articles/newsletters you already have access to via subscriptions (which would otherwise be unreadable by Acta).
What does "I have access to paid/paywalled articles on this site" mean?+
It's a per-subscription flag, not a payment or login credential — checking it just tells Acta you personally have a way to read that publication's paywalled posts (e.g. your own subscription to it). When a locked post from that publication shows up in your library, open it in your browser while logged in and the extension detects the full text automatically within moments — no button press needed. If it doesn't, the extension's "Save this page" button is a manual backup.
Why does a post show up as "Locked"?+
Acta never bypasses paywalls or logs in on your behalf. A "Locked" post is one our automated feed check could only see a teaser of. If you have real access to it, opening it in your browser (with the extension installed) is how it gets unlocked into your library — see above.

Digests and the print magazine

How often do digests send, and what's included?+
Daily and weekly digests each have their own on/off switch and their own delivery time — and, for weekly, day of the week — set in your dashboard's subscriptions section, all in your own timezone (detected automatically when you signed up; change it there if it's ever wrong). Free and Epaper accounts need to keep at least one of the two on; only Print + E-ink subscribers can turn off both, since they still have the print magazine as a delivery channel. Each digest bundles every post from every publication you've included for that cadence into a single EPUB — not one file per publication. If you subscribe to a feed mid-cycle, your first digest still catches you up on that feed's posts from earlier in the current day (daily) or week (weekly), not just what's published after you subscribed.
Is the print magazine available right now?+
The Print + E-ink tier's digital delivery is fully active today. Physical print fulfillment is still in beta and hasn't launched yet.
How does Acta pick what goes into my print issue?+
Each issue is drawn from articles and newsletters published during the prior calendar month. If you sign up in July, your first issue will ship in early August, once the 72-hour review period has passed or you've finalized your article choices. At the start of each month, you get 72 hours to log in and choose which articles to include. If you don't, we fill the issue automatically: a random mix of your eligible articles, with at least one from each publication you follow, up to 80 pages of articles.
What format is the print magazine?+
A full-size magazine: 8.5″ × 11″, perfect-bound with a glossy cover and a black-and-white interior laid out in magazine style — multi-column text, pull quotes, and full-width images. Each issue runs up to 80 pages of articles, plus front matter with a table of contents.

For publishers

Where can I read Acta's privacy policy?+
See our Privacy Policy.
Does Acta store our content long-term?+
No. Content is retrieved at a user's request, delivered to that single user's device, and not archived long-term or shared with other users. See What We Retrieve and Deliver on our Publishers page for details.
Does Acta bypass our paywall?+
No. Acta does not circumvent paywalls or authentication — content behind a login or subscriber wall is only retrievable by users who are already authenticated on your site. See What We Retrieve and Deliver on our Publishers page for details.
Is Acta creating commercial anthologies, distributing them widely, and selling them to the public?+
No, that's not the operating model. Each issue is generated individually for a single user, from only the newsletters and articles that user has personally subscribed to and approved for print — it's never pooled with other users' content, resold, or made available to anyone besides that one subscriber. Acta charges for the formatting and delivery service, not for the content itself, and only reproduces material a user already has lawful access to, using the same paywall-detection and browser-extension mechanism described above.

However, if you'd prefer your content not be used with Acta at all, submit an opt-out request and we'll block and remove it.
I want to opt out of having Acta use my content.+
Submit the publisher opt-out form and we'll block and remove your domain's content from Acta.

Troubleshooting

I can't subscribe to a blog+

Whether you're using the Newsletter and Article Feed Subscriptions box in your dashboard or the Chrome/Safari extension, you need to point Acta at the blog's actual RSS/Atom feed — not its homepage. These are different URLs. For example, to follow Marginal Revolution, you wouldn't use marginalrevolution.com — you'd use its real feed, https://feeds.feedblitz.com/marginalrevolution.

What to paste, by platform:

  • Substack: just the publication's homepage (e.g. https://name.substack.com) — Substack always serves its feed at a predictable path, so Acta finds it automatically.
  • Ghost: also just the homepage — Ghost publications serve their feed at a predictable /rss/ path the same way.
  • Beehiiv: Beehiiv doesn't turn RSS on by default or use a predictable feed address — see the next question for your options if Acta says it can't find one.
  • Everything else: paste the actual feed URL if you have it. Most blogs link to their feed somewhere on their homepage (often in the footer), or search "[blog name] RSS feed."

If Acta can't find a feed at the URL you gave it, it'll say so — that error links back to this section.

My newsletter is on Beehiiv — why can't Acta find its feed?+

Beehiiv doesn't turn RSS on by default, and even when a publisher does enable it, the resulting feed address is randomly generated — there's no predictable URL Acta (or anything else) can guess. If you pasted a Beehiiv newsletter's homepage and got this error, that's almost certainly why, not a mistake in the URL you used.

Your options, in order of least effort:

  • Email forwarding — works regardless of whether a feed exists. Set it up from the dashboard's Devices and Delivery tab and forward each issue to your Acta address as it arrives.
  • Quick-send from the extension — open a post in your browser and use the Acta extension's "Save this page" button to send it individually, as new issues come out.
  • Ask the publisher — some Beehiiv newsletters do have RSS enabled, with a real (if unguessable) link. Ask them directly for their feed URL, or check their website's footer or about page for one.

Still stuck?

Where can I get help?+
Use our Contact page — tell us what's going on and we'll follow up by email.