Support
Write to hello@bite.fyi. It reaches one person in Berlin, who reads all of it. Below are the things that come up most, in case one of them is faster than waiting for a reply.
Bites
Nothing has arrived yet
An article usually takes seconds. A podcast takes a few minutes, because the audio has to be transcribed before anyone can read it, and longer when several are queued behind each other. Nothing waits forever: if a bite can't be finished, it stops trying and says why on the bite itself, rather than spinning.
A bite says it couldn't read the page
Some publishers show the article only to readers who are signed in, so a server on its own sees a preview and nothing more. The browser extension can read the page in front of you as you save it, which is how a paid article you subscribe to comes back readable.
A few sites refuse everything. In that case the bite tells you so instead of inventing a summary from the preview.
Summaries stopped, or something says I've run out
Nothing is lost and nothing needs saving again. On the free plan you get a set number of summaries a month and everything past them is kept, waiting; on pro there is a fair-use allowance that sits far beyond ordinary reading, and reaching it pauses summaries rather than refusing saves. Either way it picks up again on the 1st.
Not everything weighs the same. An hour of audio has to be transcribed word for word before anyone can read it, so podcasts run a month down much faster than articles — the same show on YouTube costs a fraction, because its captions already exist. The terms describe how this works.
The browser extension
It lives in theChrome Web Store. Install the app first — the extension has no password of its own and signs in by showing a QR code for the app to scan.
The QR code won't connect
Signing in works one way round: the extension shows a code, and the bite app on your phone scans it. There is no password to type into the browser, which also means the app has to exist on your phone first. Codes expire after a few minutes — close the popup and open it again for a fresh one.
It says a page can't be saved
Two kinds of page are genuinely out of reach, and the extension names which one it hit. A file on your own machine (file://) can't be saved because bite fetches pages from its own server, so no setting will help. Browser pages — settings, the extensions list, view-source — aren't on the web at all.
What about PDFs?
They work, and the extension counts the pages before you save rather than after, so you know what you are getting. Past a certain length it says so plainly: that is a book, not a briefing. A PDF summary tells you the gist and whether something is worth your time — it is not a substitute for reading a paper properly.
I saved a whole window and the paid articles came back locked
By default the extension can only read the tab you are actually looking at, which is Chrome working as designed. Saving several at once means the rest are fetched by our server, which sees the previews. The picker offers to fix this — “Let bite read them all” asks Chrome for permission to read those pages, once, and you can withdraw it any time from the extension's entry in Chrome's extensions page. Saving paid articles one at a time works without granting anything.
It saved the tab but didn't summarise it
That is the allowance, not a failure, and the save is kept either way — it opens on the 1st, or as soon as you go pro, with nothing to save again.
There is also a ceiling on how much can be saved in a single day, which exists so a script cannot run up a bill. It is the one limit that turns a save away rather than keeping it, and the extension warns you before you press save rather than after, so a big selection gets trimmed instead of half-refused.
The keyboard shortcut does nothing
It is ⌘⇧S on a Mac and Ctrl+Shift+Selsewhere. Chrome hands each shortcut to whichever extension claimed it first and silently leaves the others unbound, so if another extension got there first, bite's does nothing at all. You can see and reassign it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
Three things that look like bugs
No number on the toolbar icon.The unread count is off unless you turn it on, in the extension's settings. bite should feel calm rather than like an inbox.
A tab missing from the list.Ignored domains are hidden from “Select tabs”, and it is easy to add one by accident with the ⊖ beside a tab. The same settings screen lists them and takes them back off.
“Already in bite”. You saved that page before. Nothing was lost and nothing was counted twice.
Subscription and account
I subscribed, but it still says free
In the app, open Settings → Subscription → Restore purchases. In the browser extension, close it and open it again — it asks about your subscription fresh each time it opens. Apple sometimes takes a minute to confirm a purchase. If it is still wrong after that, write to us and mention the Apple receipt.
Deleting everything
In the app, open Settings, tap your name at the top, and choose to delete your account. It asks twice, then removes your bites, lists, reading stats and settings. It cannot be undone. If you would rather we did it, write to us. What is stored in the first place is set out in the privacy policy.
Reporting something broken
Send the link that didn't work, to hello@bite.fyi. Nearly every problem with a bite comes down to one particular page, and having it turns a guess into a fix. Postal address and contact details are in the imprint.