Help

Getting started

Setting up rooms and shelves

When you first open Bookibis it asks where your books live. Add each room or bookcase, then say how many shelves it has. You can rename them later, add more, or change their order from the Shelves tab by tapping the three dots next to a room.

One shelf is marked as the default. Every new book goes there unless you pick another shelf while adding it. When you catalogue a bookcase, make the shelf in front of you the default, scan everything on it, then move the default to the next shelf. It is the fastest way to put an existing library into the app.

Cataloguing a whole shelf

On the Scan tab, switch to Add many. Every barcode you scan is added to the shelf shown at the top, one after another, without stopping. Books you already own are skipped and counted, so scanning the same shelf twice does no harm.

If a book cannot be identified, Add many does not interrupt you. It keeps the book in a pending list so you can carry on, and you complete those later with a cover photo or by typing the details.

Scanning and ISBNs

Which barcode should I scan?

Scan the main barcode on the back cover. On a book it is an EAN-13 barcode that begins with 978 or 979, and those thirteen digits are the book’s ISBN. Many books print a small second barcode to its right with five digits. That one encodes a price, not the book, so keep it out of the frame if the camera picks it up.

On hardbacks the barcode is sometimes on the back of the dust jacket only, and on some special editions it is printed inside the back cover. A bookshop sticker placed over the barcode will stop the camera reading it. In that case type the ISBN instead; it is usually also printed on the copyright page, near the front of the book.

Barcodes beginning with 977 belong to magazines and periodicals, and other numbers usually belong to music, films or games. Bookibis ignores these on purpose.

The camera will not read the barcode

The usual causes are glare from a glossy cover, a barcode bent around a curved spine, low light, or holding the phone too close. Tilt the book slightly to move the reflection, turn on the light from the camera screen, hold the phone a hand’s width away and tap the barcode to focus. Worn or very small barcodes can be impossible to read. Type ISBN always works as a fallback: enter the digits printed under or above the barcode, with or without hyphens.

Older books and books without an ISBN

Books printed between about 1970 and 2007 often show a ten-digit ISBN, sometimes ending in X. You can type it exactly as printed and Bookibis converts it to the thirteen-digit form. The camera only reads the thirteen-digit barcode, so a ten-digit ISBN has to be typed.

Books published before ISBNs existed, and many private, academic or local printings, have no ISBN at all. Add these by photographing the cover or entering the details by hand. They work like any other book for searching, shelves and ownership checks; Bookibis simply recognises them by title and author instead of by number.

When a book cannot be found

How Bookibis finds a book

When you scan or type an ISBN, Bookibis first checks that the number is valid, so a typing mistake is caught straight away.

Your own library is always checked on the phone. If you own that edition you see the answer at once, even with no connection. If you do not, Bookibis searches its catalogue of editions confirmed by other readers, then the large open book catalogues.

If none of them knows the ISBN, the book is not lost. Bookibis offers to read the cover from a photo, or lets you enter it by hand.

Why some books are missing

There is no single complete list of every book ever published. Every ISBN is registered by a national agency, but those registers are not open for apps to search. Open book catalogues are built from what publishers, libraries and volunteers send them, and they have gaps. These are the cases we see most often:

Small and independent publishers, self-published books, university presses, museum and exhibition catalogues, and limited or privately printed editions often never reach the public catalogues.

Coverage outside English is uneven. A popular novel in English is almost always found; the same novel in a Turkish, Polish or Korean translation from a smaller publisher may not be. Translations and older reprints are the most common gaps.

New books can take weeks or months to appear after publication.

Some records exist but are incomplete. Bookibis needs at least a title and an author to describe an edition, so a record without an author is skipped. This often affects anthologies, edited collections and reference books.

A few ISBNs are simply wrong. Publishers occasionally reuse an ISBN for a new edition, print the same number on a hardback and a paperback, or make a typing error on the cover. The catalogue then shows a different book from the one in your hands. Always glance at the result before saving: if the title, translator or year looks wrong, open Edit details and correct it, or photograph the copyright page so Bookibis reads the edition details from the book itself.

Finally, the lookup needs an internet connection. If you are offline or the connection is very slow, the online sources time out and the book is treated as not found. You can try again later; the books you already own are always checked on the phone, without a connection.

What to do when a book is not found

Photograph the cover. Bookibis reads the title, author and publisher from the photo and then searches for that edition. For edition details such as the translator, the printing number and the year, add a photo of the copyright page, the page with the small print near the front. This is the most reliable way to identify an edition, because it is read from your copy rather than from a catalogue.

Or enter it by hand. Only the title and one author are required; everything else is optional and can be filled in later.

When you are signed in, the editions you save help other readers. Bookibis shares only the bibliographic facts, such as title, authors, publisher, translator, year and a cover link, so the next person who scans that ISBN finds it straight away. Your shelves, notes, purchase details and photos are never part of this.

Editions, translations and duplicates

Same edition, different edition or new to you

Bookibis keeps a book’s work and its editions apart. Two different translations of the same novel, or a paperback and a hardback, are one work with two editions. When you scan a book you get one of three answers: Same edition means the ISBN matches a copy you own. Different edition means you own the work, but in another edition, and Bookibis shows both side by side so you can decide. New to you means you own no copy of the work.

When there is no ISBN to compare, Bookibis compares titles and authors and warns you if a book looks like one you already have. Check the copy at home before adding it again. Bookibis tells you which shelf it is on.

Translators, printings and the copyright page

For readers who collect a particular translation or printing, the details that matter are rarely on the cover. They are on the copyright page: translator, original title, publisher, edition and printing statement, year. Photograph that page when you add the book and Bookibis fills these fields from it. Fields it was unsure about are marked with a dotted line so you know what to check.

Translators can be searched from the Library search, just like titles and authors.

Owning two copies of the same edition

Bookibis assumes one copy per edition and stops you adding the same ISBN twice by accident. If you really do keep two copies, for example one to lend, choose Add after checking and the second copy is added with its own shelf, notes and purchase details.

Reading covers with AI

How cover reading works

When a book has no usable barcode, Bookibis can read it from photos. Hold the phone flat above the book so the cover fills the frame; you can adjust the corners afterwards. The photo is sent to Anthropic’s Claude, which reads the text on the cover. Bookibis uses your photo as the cover image and searches for the edition to fill in what the cover does not show.

AI reading can misread small type, decorative lettering or a translator’s name. Bookibis marks the fields it is unsure about. Please check them before saving.

Limits, sign-in and privacy

Cover reading needs an internet connection and a free account, so that we can keep the service fair for everyone. The free plan includes ten successful readings each calendar month; a reading that fails is not counted. Bookibis Pro removes the limit.

Photograph only the book. Your images are passed to Anthropic for the reading and are not stored on our servers; the text that was read is kept with your account, so the same photos are not read twice. The privacy policy describes this in full.

Your library

Searching in a bookshop

The quickest check in a shop is to scan the barcode. The search box on the Library tab is the other way: type part of a title, an author or a translator and Bookibis searches your whole library on the phone. It works in airplane mode and in a basement shop with no signal.

Wishlist, collections and lending

Save books you want to buy to the Wishlist. When you later scan a book in a shop, Bookibis tells you if it is on your list, and whether the wish is for any edition or a particular one.

Collections are your own labels, such as Classics, Signed or To reread. A book can be in several collections. The free plan includes five; Pro removes the limit.

With Pro you can also mark a book as lent, with the borrower’s name and the date, and see at a glance who has which book.

Account, backup and devices

Do I need an account?

No. Bookibis works fully on your phone without an account: adding books, scanning, searching, shelves and ownership checks. An account adds free cloud backup and lets you use the same library on more than one device. It is also required for cover reading.

You can sign in with Apple, Google or your email address. With email we send a six-digit code instead of using a password.

What is backed up

When you are signed in, your books, editions, shelves, collections, wishlist, notes, reading and purchase details and lending records are backed up and kept in sync. Cover images that Bookibis prepared from your photos are backed up too. The original photos you took stay on the phone.

If you edit the same book on two devices while one is offline, the most recent change wins when they reconnect. Bookibis is a catalogue, not an archive; if your records matter to you, export a copy from time to time.

Moving to a new phone

Sign in with the same account on the new phone and your library is downloaded. If you never signed in, the library exists only on the old phone. Sign in there first and let it finish backing up, then sign in on the new one.

Bookibis Pro

What Pro adds

Bookibis Pro adds unlimited cover reading, unlimited collections, lending records and CSV export. Everything else, including unlimited books, barcode scanning, the wishlist and cloud backup, is free.

Pro is available monthly, yearly or as a single lifetime purchase. The App Store shows the price in your currency before you confirm.

Restoring and cancelling

If you reinstall the app or move to a new iPhone, open You, then Bookibis Pro, and choose Restore purchases. Use the same Apple account that made the purchase.

Subscriptions are managed by Apple. Cancel them in the Settings app under your Apple account, Subscriptions. Deleting the app or your Bookibis account does not cancel a subscription. Refund requests also go to Apple.

Exporting and deleting

Exporting your library

With Pro, open You and choose Export library as CSV. The file opens in Numbers, Excel or Google Sheets and contains every book with its edition details, location, collections, reading and purchase information. Images are not included. Your data stays yours: if you need a copy and do not have Pro, write to us.

Deleting books or your account

To remove one book, open it, scroll to the bottom and choose Delete this book.

To delete your account, open You while signed in and choose Delete account. This removes your account, your cloud backup and your uploaded covers. The books on your phone stay, so you do not lose your library by accident; delete the app if you want them gone as well. Edition facts you contributed to the shared catalogue are not linked to you and remain.

Contact

Writing to us

Use Email us below, or Help & feedback in the app. The draft includes your app version and device so we can reproduce the problem; you can edit it before sending.

If a book cannot be found, include its ISBN and, if you can, a photo of the copyright page. It helps us find out why it was missing. Never send passwords or sign-in codes. We reply to every message ourselves.