Hilite

Highlights that are still there when you come back.

Hilite is a free Chrome extension for highlighting web pages and adding notes. No account, no ads, no servers: your highlights stay in your browser.

Add to Chrome See how it works

Free. No premium tier. Built for desktop Chrome.

Hilite on an article page. A selected sentence has a toolbar of colour dots and a note button above it, and highlighted text shows in colour. The animated version also shows a note being added, then the popup listing the highlight.
Select, highlight, add a note. The popup lists it.

What Hilite does

They come back when you revisit

Select text once and Hilite puts the highlight back when you return to the page. That includes single-page apps, where the address changes without a reload, and pages that load their content late.

Highlights are painted with the browser’s CSS Custom Highlight API, so your text is not wrapped in new elements. Hilite’s own toolbar sits in a separate shadow-DOM element.

If a page rewrites or removes the text, a highlight may not come back. It is not deleted: it stays in your list, and the popup marks it ‘Not found on this page’. The FAQ explains the limits.

Notes, a popup and a searchable library

Click one of six colours, or press Alt+Shift+H (Option+Shift+H on a Mac) to highlight with your last colour. Click any highlight to recolour it, add a note, copy the text or delete it. Undo with Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z.

The toolbar popup lists the highlights on the current page, and a click jumps to one. The Library searches every highlight you have saved, across all your pages.

Private and free, with no account

There is no account, no sign-in, no ads, no analytics and no premium tier. Hilite has no servers and makes no network requests of its own. Your highlights and notes live in chrome.storage.local, inside your own browser profile.

Nothing is public and nothing is shared, because Hilite has no server to send it to. Export to Markdown or JSON whenever you like, and import JSON back.

Hilite's popup beside an article, listing three highlights from the page with colour bars. One has a note. The footer shows the highlight shortcut.
The popup lists a page’s highlights, with their notes.
A dark web page with two highlights, one yellow and one blue, in dark text on pale colours so that both stay readable.
Highlights stay readable on dark pages.

Made for the way you read

Students, researchers, professionals, writers and language learners all come back to what they read. Hilite gives each of them persistent highlights, notes, search and export, with no account to create.

  • Students

    Open a reading or lecture page again before an exam and your highlights are back on it. Add a note to any highlight, then search all of them in the Library.

  • Researchers

    Mark key passages across many sources and add a note to each. They sit in one searchable Library, and you can export to Markdown for your notes app.

  • Professionals

    Save the key lines from docs, policies and articles, and find them later by search. Hilite needs no account, so there is nothing to sign up for.

  • Writers and journalists

    Collect quotes with the page they came from, and add a note for context. Markdown export includes each page’s title and link.

  • Language learners

    Collect phrases and sentences in context, with the page they came from. Type a translation into the note, then find it again with search.

Hilite works on web pages in desktop Chrome. It saves the text and address of a page, not a copy of the page. It has no PDF support, sync or sharing: see what version 1 does not do.

How it works

  1. Select text

    Select text on a web page. A small toolbar appears above it, with six colours and a note button.

    An article with three highlighted passages in yellow, green and pink. Hilite's toolbar, with six colour dots and a note button, floats above a selected sentence.

  2. Highlight it, and add a note if you want

    Click a colour, or press Alt+Shift+H (Option+Shift+H on a Mac). Use the note button to write a note, or click an existing highlight later to edit it.

    A highlight menu open on a pink highlight, with colour dots, note, copy and delete buttons, and a text box holding the note 'Check the 1890 edition for this claim'.

  3. Come back to it

    Reopen the page and Hilite puts your highlights back. The toolbar icon lists the highlights on the page, and the Library searches all of them. Export a copy to Markdown or JSON when you want one.

    The Hilite Library. A list of pages on the left, and on the right one highlight found by searching for 'margins', with buttons to export all highlights as JSON or Markdown and to import JSON.

What version 1 does not do

Hilite 1 is small. If you need any of these today, it is not the right tool yet.

  • No PDF supportWeb pages (http and https) only.
  • No sync between devicesHighlights stay in one browser profile.
  • No mobile versionBuilt for desktop Chrome.
  • No sharing or collaborationNothing is public.
  • No push to Notion or ObsidianMarkdown export works with both.
  • English interface onlyThere is no translated interface.

Some of these may come later. None is promised.

How Hilite compares

A plain comparison with three popular highlighters. Hilite is behind on sync and PDF, and the table says so.

Hilite compared with Weava, Glasp and Web Highlights
Tool Free private highlights No account needed Export your data Sync across devices PDF support
Hilite YesNo premium tier. Stays on your device Yes YesMarkdown and JSON, free. JSON import NoOne browser profile NoWeb pages only
Weava Not checkedFree plan with unlimited highlights Not statedSign-up offered PaidFile exports on Premium Yes Yes
Glasp NoPublic by default. Private highlights need a paid plan Not statedFree account offered YesMarkdown, HTML, CSV and JSON on every plan Not stated Yes
Web Highlights Not checkedFree plan available YesFor local use YesMarkdown copy on every plan PaidPaid plans and the trial Yes

Checked against each vendor’s public pricing and product pages on 10 October 2026. ‘Not stated’ means the page does not say either way. ‘Not checked’ means this table has no verified fact for that cell. Plans change. If a cell is out of date, open an issue and it will be corrected.

Need PDF highlighting or sync today? Weava, Glasp and Web Highlights list PDF support. Weava lists sync, and Web Highlights lists it on paid plans. Hilite 1 is for people who want free, private highlights with nothing to sign up for.

Weava, Glasp and Web Highlights are trademarks of their respective owners. Hilite is not affiliated with them.

Questions

Straight answers, including the awkward ones.

Is Hilite good for studying?

It can be, if your study material is on web pages. Highlight a passage, add a note, and your highlights come back when you reopen the page. The popup lists a page’s highlights, and the Library searches all of them, so you can review before an exam.

It does not work on PDFs, and lecture slides and papers are often PDFs. It does not sync between devices and has no mobile version. If a course site rewrites its pages, a highlight may show as ‘Not found on this page’. Try Hilite on one page of your course site before you rely on it.

Can I use it for research?

Yes, for research on web pages. Mark passages across many sources, add a note to each, and search them all in one Library. Markdown export includes each page’s title and address, so you can move quotes into your notes app. JSON export gives you a full backup.

Hilite does not read PDFs, which many papers are. It has no citation export, sync or sharing. It saves the text you highlight and the page address, not a copy of the page. If a page is edited or removed, you keep the quote but not the page.

Why is it free?

There is no premium tier, no ads and no data collection. Hilite has no servers to pay for, because everything runs in your browser. The cost to you is the list of things it does not do yet: sync, PDF, mobile and sharing.

Where are my highlights stored, and can anyone see them?

In chrome.storage.local, inside your browser profile on your device. The developer cannot see them, because they never leave your device unless you export them. Anyone who can use your browser profile can open them.

Each highlight stores its text, a few words around it, its position on the page, its colour, any note, and the address and title of the page. The privacy policy has the full list.

Does it sync between my devices?

No. Hilite does not use chrome.storage.sync, so nothing is copied to your other devices or browsers. That is how it keeps its no-account, no-servers promise. To move your library by hand, export JSON on one computer and import it on another.

Does it work on PDFs?

No. Hilite runs on http and https web pages in desktop Chrome. It does not run on PDFs opened in Chrome, on chrome:// pages or on the Chrome Web Store. If you spend most of your time in PDFs, a PDF-first tool will suit you better today.

Is Hilite open source?

No. Hilite is free to use, but the code is private. The GitHub page holds the privacy policy, screenshots and release downloads.

A private codebase is a fair reason to be careful with a privacy-focused extension. Chrome shows you the permission list before you install, and Hilite does not ask for the tabs or history permissions. The privacy policy states what is stored and that Hilite makes no network requests of its own.

What happens when a page changes?

Hilite stores the highlighted text with a few words either side, and looks for it again on each visit. That includes after single-page-app navigation and when content loads late. It works best on articles and documentation that stay the same.

If a page rewrites or removes the text, the highlight may not reappear. It is not deleted: it stays in your list, and the popup marks it ‘Not found on this page’.

How do I back up my highlights?

Open the Library and choose ‘Export all JSON’ for a full backup, or ‘Export all Markdown’ for notes you can read anywhere. ‘Import JSON’ restores a backup. The popup also shows a backup reminder with one-click export.

Back up now and then. Removing Hilite or losing your browser profile deletes your highlights, because there is no server copy and no sync to restore from.

How do I report a site where highlights fail?

Open the Hilite popup and choose ‘Report a site’. It opens a new GitHub issue with a short set of prompts and the Hilite version filled in, and you add the site yourself. You can also open an issue directly. Posting an issue needs a GitHub account.

Name the site, but leave out the address of any private page.

Keyboard shortcuts

You can change the first three at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

Action Windows and Linux Mac
Highlight the selection with your last colour Alt+Shift+H Option+Shift+H
Show or hide highlights on this page Alt+Shift+V Option+Shift+V
Open Hilite Alt+Shift+K Option+Shift+K
Undo the last highlight action Ctrl+Z Cmd+Z

Your highlights stay in your browser.

Hilite has no account, no servers, no analytics and no ads, and it makes no network requests of its own.

What it stores
The text you highlight, a few words around it, where it sits on the page, its colour and any note. The address and title of pages you have highlighted. Your settings, when it was installed or updated, when you last exported a backup, and whether you dismissed its two reminders.
Where it stores it
chrome.storage.local, in your browser profile on your device. Hilite does not use chrome.storage.sync, so nothing is copied to your other devices.
What leaves your device
Nothing, except a file you choose to export or a link you choose to share. Copy link, ‘Tell a friend’ and ‘Share Hilite’ only put a link on your clipboard. The ‘Report a site’ and ‘Write a review’ buttons open a page only when you click them.
Permissions, in plain words
Storage and unlimited storage keep your library on your device. Context menus add Highlight to the right-click menu. Scripting starts Hilite on tabs that were already open. Access to http and https pages lets it place highlights. Side panel shows your highlights beside the page when you open it. It does not ask for tabs or history.
Deleting your data
Delete one highlight, one page or everything. Removing Hilite from chrome://extensions deletes what it stored. Files you exported stay where you saved them.

Read the privacy policy

Try it on the next article you read

Add Hilite to Chrome, highlight one paragraph, then reload the page. That is the whole test.

Add to Chrome Something not working? Report it on GitHub