Bookly - Book tracker library
reviews and complaints

The app itself is exactly what I was looking for, however, if you want to actually be able to use it efficiently you are required to pay for it. I understand the creators/company needs to make money, but the best apps let you have the basics for free, and prompt you to BETTER your experience through payment plans. The basic functions of this app do not work for free after so much. You aren’t allowed to have more than 10 books in your list without upgrading. Which is fine, I guess. I was willing to reluctantly accept that without deleting the app, until I added a book I had already read (out of curiosity and simply playing with the functions of the app) and realized I had to be a member to even delete books out of my lists? That’s outrageous in my opinion. Not at all worth it for me. I would consider paying for an app if it didn’t feel like I was required to. Take Duolingo for example: you get the basic functions of the app (language learning, in case anyone didn’t know) for free, then can choose to pay to erase ads, and have extra helpful features available to you. I didn’t feel like I was forced to pay, so I was more willing to.
Moral is, if you’re willing to pay for this app, go ahead! It looks like it could be very helpful for any serious reader trying to digitally track their reading. I’m personally going to look for better options.

I downloaded Bookly about a year ago and began using it for the first time. I didn’t sign up for the premium edition but am already pleased with the features it included and the pleasant user interface. I have tried a few reading tracker apps and quickly dropped them due to messy or hard to look at lay outs. Bookly doesn’t have this issue and while it is purely cosmetic in nature it is one of the most important aspects of an app.

Many features of the Bookly app I haven’t been able to find elsewhere despite how basic some are. Bookly will attempt to calculate how long you will have to read in order to finish your book. If you add a desired end goal date it will tell you how much you should read to finish by time. You can create daily, monthly and yearly reading goals.

You can also join “readathons” and have a personal assistant you can buy outfits for with diamonds (earned while reading.) I don’t use these features as much but I admire the Bookly team for adding them in as they differentiate the apps. The app’s icon has additional customizations in the shop available for diamonds as well.

The main draw of Bookly is how they analyze your reading habits and what information they offer you. This information is locked behind the pay wall but after using Bookly I have no doubt my money, when I buy the subscription, is going to a good place and I will get my money’s worth.

For years now, a sizable portion of my time and income has been poured into reading. I don’t shy away from spending money on books or anything that could help me read better and more. That being said, I can’t imagine spending $30 per year just to track my reading time and here’s why.

Goodreads is free and comes with an extensive social network, nearly unlimited cataloguing, reviewing, date-tracking, and note-keeping, and quote-posting abilities. Libib, a newer and much more interesting app than Bookly currently is, also follows the freemium pricing scheme but offers basically full cataloguing powers for 5000 books (compared to Bookly’s meager 10). All of Bookly’s functions and can be replaced by using one of the hundreds of free time-tracking apps out there to note down your reading time and book title (e.g. Toggl), in conjunction with Goodreads or Libib or Library Thing to keep track of the books and progress made, and sign up for Goodreads’ free annual Reading Challenge to motivate yourself. Before this app, I thought my method of noting down page numbers or calculating percentages in a spreadsheet could finally be replaced, but Bookly’s added value doesn’t justify its cost, accounting for daily usage or not, and the commercial, mobile-game-like features feel opposite to the spirit of reading for its own sake. Still, if the gamification of activities works for others, it’s an intuitive enough app to use.

I felt the need to leave this review because, after using this app and really enjoying it for the 10 book cap as a free user, I went to remove a book that I had added to my collection but never gotten around to reading. I wanted to replace it with another book that I plan on reading next, but I came to find out that not only do you have to have a pro account to have more than 10 books in your collection (totally understandable), you also have to be a pro user to REMOVE any books from your collection, even if you never started the book you want to remove.

I think this is the most frustrating, cheapskate aspect of an app that I had previously very much enjoyed and thought about upgrading to pro. Now though, I will be deleting the app from my phone, because while I understand incentivizing your users to upgrade to your pro service, I do not understand keeping your users from being able to remove an unread book from their selection, and I will not continue to support a company that would employ such tactics.

Please review and rethink this policy, Bookly, as it has had the exact opposite effect that you intended, and is the only reason I will not be upgrading to your pro service. Very disappointed.

P.S., while I’ve said many times that I was considering upgrading, $19.99/month is a pretty steep price. I’d suggest you rethink that as well for those who are not so turned off by the annoying limitations on your free users.

Update 9/14
Unfortunately lowered the rating as more problems continue to crop up. The way reading goals are calculated is extremely confusing. As an example, I read for an 18 minute session and it recorded 36 minutes of reading towards my daily goal. Attempting to search their database was useless and I couldn’t even submit a request despite paying for pro through the App Store. It required some sort of code you do not get when purchasing via the App Store.

So basically I’m out $15 for an app that has potential, but fails on execution and customer support.

—
I rated this a year ago and wasn’t very impressed, with my core complaint being the lack of database support. I decided to revisit the app again to see if it made any improvements. First, what I like: I am a data nerd, so seeing my reading stats and habits in graph form is a delight. I also run a Bookstagram account, so the infographics were especially helpful, though I wish you could edit the color schemes. I also like the parts to record new words learned, quotes, and thoughts. It helps me organize my reviews at the end of the book. The database is still sorely lacking for me as many books cannot be found or require you to upload your own photo of the cover. Nearly every book I scan cannot be found. I am unsure if this is a failure with the search protocol or the database size itself. The book details are also very minimal. If Bookly hopes to rival the likes of Goodreads, it would certainly need to improve this aspect.

This app serves it's purpose of the initial intent of why I started using it; ability to track my reading progression and streaks on any book whether that be ebook or print. Also gives me a general idea on reading speed which I've tried to improve over time.

However I think the app can be far more beneficial to its users if it was more integratabtle especially when I predominately read off of my kindle. Some ideas:
- Pull in books in my Kindle library saving me from manually adding
- Save all highlighted quotes during reading session (can integrate with readwise or poll directly?)
- Ability to use Locations instead of pages
- Auto-add ‘words of the day’ for words I looked up while reading.

I've also have stumbled on a few issues that can be rather frustrating:
- Cloud sync across devices does not work well. I’ve had reading sessions completely disappear.
- If you travel there are instances your reading streak will break. This is because it does not retain the timezone of the original session. For instance, if I travel to the west coast and read at 10:30 PM PST on March 14th and this is the only time I read that day once I travel back to the East Coast it’ll show up as a reading session for March 15th causing it to break my reading streak which I have to adjust manually.
- I had a bug that editing reading sessions from the above bug caused all prior edits to revert to their original settings so I’d have to go back and readjust those sessions as well which was beyond frustrating. I think this has been addressed though.

I’ve been using Bookly since November last year and I do have to say, it has become one of my favorite reading applications (aside from Storygraph) since moving on from GoodReads. As an individual with ADHD-C, Bookly assists me in managing my time better to ensure that I finish novels I read in the set amount of various time I want to. I also appreciate that there are sections of the application on Bookly that are dedicated to jotting down thoughts and opinions of the novel you’re reading, and your favorite quotes you may stumble upon. However, something I feel Bookly failed to take into consideration when creating their premium option was locking away accessibility features, such as text-to-image quotes and text dictation: these are accessibility options for disabled people that are essentially locked behind a paywall. I struggle with chronic pain in my hands from previous accidents, so typing can prove difficult and I often use dictation to complete tasks requiring such. I, and other disabled folks, shouldn’t have to pay premium to access common accessibility aids. I understand Bookly is gathering financial support for their application through premium, but I feel there’s a better way to gather these finances aside from locking away accessibility tools behind a paywall. I love Bookly and will continue to use their application for the statistics on my reading skills, but I and others would greatly appreciate if the developers reconsider making accessibility something that their application users must pay for.

UPDATE: Accessibility is getting better with the updates as they come. Keep it up!

I loved the app. I was looking for a way to track how much I read and I was hoping to do a full calculation at the end of the year to see my progress. When I found this app, I thought “great. I can use this.” The pro version seems fine and all but, I don’t need a “personal assistant” to tell me when to read or whatever else it does. I don’t need the image quotes feature. I don’t need to have my quotes on funny little images to send via text. That’s not something I’ll ever use. I don’t listen to “sounds” when I read. I’m not one of those people that listen to music or anything else when I read. I don’t need any other feature.
All I wanted was simple a little app where I can track my reading time and how long it took me to finish a book. I could track this all in excel using a timer but that’s not efficient. Sometimes, I can only read for five minutes or I forget to start up my timer. But having Bookly right on my phone I was able to just very quickly tap the timer and it does the all the work for me.
I’m essentially saying a lot to the pro features are not something I’m interested in. I understand the need for the developers to make money and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the 10 book limit is just a ploy to get others to purchase the pro version even if they don’t really need it. I’m not going to pay $5 a month just to track books. It’s just not practical for me.
Anyway, I digress. It’s a great app, it really is. And if you want more features highly recommend you use it. But if you’re just looking a simple way to track your time maybe use another app or get in the habit of using a timer.

TL;DR - if you are really serious about trying to read more, getting the paid Pro version is definitely worth it. Either version is exceptionally useful.

I love this app and am really happy I found it while perusing the App Store. As a former burnt-out gifted kid I used to read CONSTANTLY, but as I got older the amount of time I spent reading for fun eventually became nonexistent. With my NYE goals, I promised myself I’d get back to doing the things I loved - starting with reading. Hence, where Bookly comes in.

The app interface is easy to navigate and the little Assistant gently reminds me everyday to read just a little bit (I have the Pro version). I don’t use the infographics functions a lot, but I do check my stats to see progress on reading speed, total time reading, books finished, etc. you have access to a pretty handy dashboard that puts all the data in one place. Plus, you can create your own reading lists and add books by searching in their database - most books are included, but it offers the option to manually add books if you have a special print you’d like to track.

The reading timer is soooooo easy to use and it’s not like another idle app that you set and forget. After a certain period of time, your Assistant will send a push notification to ask if you’re still reading. All you have to do is unlock your phone and check the time- that’s it. The app offers background/white noise to play while you read too, if you like having the option.

Absolutely worth getting the app. Where I only read about ten books for leisure/self-care in [protected], I have already finished seven books by tracking my time and progress in Bookly. WORTH IT!

I have used Bookly since it was new to the market. After a few days of having it I bought the life time membership (back when this was still offered) because I just knew this app was going to grow and go places. I was not disappointed.

Bookly has gone from a small app to simply log books to an entire experience. If you want to listen to some ambience they have options like waterfall noises to listen to while reading. Being able to set your own goals is always nice as you can compete with yourself. The achievements are one of my personal favourites as it gives me something long term to go towards. The graphs and info that’s compiled when you finish a book is fun to look at and see how much you did in the book. All of these features really allow you to delve into a book and to enjoy it even more.

Something that always impresses me is how on the mark the estimated reading time is. I almost always finish the book exactly when it was estimated. This feature really helps me to figure out how to plan my days of reading.

The other feature that is a favourite of mine is the reading streak. This has helped me actually want to keep it going and has formed a good habit in me. A little over a year ago I decided to read every day, even if all I could do was one page. Well, with the help of Bookly I did it! It’s been 466 days since I’ve started my reading streak and it makes me feel proud to see that number grow everyday.

Bookly is a wonderful app and I recommend it to anyone who reads. For me, reading honestly wouldn’t be the same without it. Opening it up everyday makes me a happy and excited to continue my book “journey.” If you are in the fence on trying Bookly, I highly suggest you do. It’s free to try and is a great companion for your reading adventure.

There’s some really good potential with this app. It’s a fun and clever book tracker that makes it fun to track your reading. *However*** there’s some huge pain points for me. ——— I am a hybrid digital reader, often switching between ebook and audio versions of the same book. This makes it really confusing on what format I should choose when adding the book and then how I should be using the reading session features. I’ve just been doing “percentage” and it works ok. But one thing I hate is that you can’t go in and change from audio book to percentage or vice versa after adding the book. So it means that I pretty much need to stick with using percentage 100% of the time when adding books to my TBR if I don’t want to add them all over again to change the reading format once I actually start reading the book. ——— Another huge pain point for those of us Bookly newbies adding books we’ve already read… there’s no way to add a start date when you select “book I read in the past”. So you have to add it *withoutselecting “book I read in the past”, then add a reading session with the start date (backdated), and then change the book to complete. Whyyyyyyyy, just let me pick a start date. ——— The UI is clunky in general imo. When adding books it’s kind of confusing, and then I find that the covers are rarely accurate and I have to fix it almost every time. Theres a ton of other book tracking apps that don’t have this issue at all. And again, It’s just all around clunky and glitchy to go in and edit your books after adding them. ——— While I love the widgets - they are a super ugly blue color that I’d never want on my Home Screen. I’d love the ability to change the widget appearance you like can the app icon (using diamonds or not). Or even just make it a neutral white or grey instead of blue. —— Thanks!

Bookly is an aesthetically pleasing app and I’ve used it every day since downloading about a week ago. However, I’ve noted some major flaws in the app that may prevent me from paying the monthly or yearly fee to continue using the app. I’ll list them below:

1. Need to be able to retroactively insert data. Sometimes during long reading sessions, the app backs out of a timed session and loses data. This forces me to restart the timer and the data associated with that session is incorrect. Sometimes I read and forget to start the clock. There are lots of reasons to be able to record a reading session from an earlier time. It’s a no-brainer feature and I’m convinced I must have overlooked it somehow.

2. Need to be able to create bookshelves. At the very least, shelves allow me to organize books. By genre, by those I want to read soon, by those I’m not in a hurry to read. The organization as-is (finished, unfinished and not started, and unfinished but in-progress) is severely lacking. Bookshelves open up a whole new opportunity to create unique and interesting infographics. How do my reading stats for the fantasy genre compare to vanilla fiction? It’d be interesting to look at.

3. Need custom goals. As of right now, the app only offers two tiers of goals: how many hours do you want to read a month? How many books do you want to read this year? I’d like to be able to say: I want to read one non-fiction book, one graphic novel, and 1/3 of Brandon Sanderson’s “Oathbringer” this month. -or- something like “read a book instead of using social media.”

4. Need more achievements — already I’ve made a dent in these and I can’t see the achievements lasting longer than a year.

5. Need to be able to visualize books in another layout besides “the wheel.” Though “The wheel” is an excellent way to get a quick look, I may want to see all of my potential “to-read” books on one scrolling page. Or compacted to one entire screen. Sometimes a “full picture” is needed for scope and mindset. This is another no-brainer feature that I hope I’m overlooking.

There’s more ways this app can grow besides those listed above. But the ones listed above are the most basic and essential features that the app is sorely missing.

This app has potential! However, right now, it’s very restricting even with a Pro membership. I signed up for an annual membership, but there’s seemingly no way to add reading times to these books manually even when you track them separately. If there is a way to add times manually, it’s not accessible. I sometimes read when I don’t have access to my device—and thus the app—so my Bookly reading times are inaccurate when I can’t manually enter my own times. App users should have an option to independently add their own times and then have the option to use the Bookly timer as well for the nice features of music, adding thoughts, etc. The app should track and add up all manual and in-app times.

Another disappointing factor: I had to delete a book I entered after I accidentally entered the wrong page number because it said I couldn’t update the page number after I finished the book. The app should trust that I can manually correct my own stats, and then it should update them as I do. If I can delete the book and change the page number, it should be able to just edit the page number too, erasing the mistake.

The only thing that was kind of cool was easily viewing all the books I read with my ratings, but Goodreads still does that better, because Goodreads always has cover art and an option to read them in a list. The books that I entered as having completed earlier this year didn’t count toward my yearly reading goal for some reason. I started Bookly now in July, so there’s no way I can make my reading goal mid-year without including books from before I had the app.

These are all kinks I’ve noticed within my first thirty minutes with the app. I’m concerned the amount of flaws I’ve found in the short time I’ve had this app will only grow as time goes on. I really wanted an app where I could track my reading time (whether I was with my device at the time or away from it to enter it later) and plan out how many pages, minutes, or what percentage I needed to read to finish my goal TBRs each month. It’s seeming less and less like this is the app for that already. I highly recommend everyone does the free trial and not the “best deal” option. I’d be happy to update my rating and review if Bookly addresses my above concerns.

Where to begin? First the app is buggy. The constant “sign up for pro” screen gets in the way of pressing buttons. The watchOS integration is a complete failure. Im on my 4th book in the app. And my watch still thinks I’m on page 128 of the first book I ever added (which by the way, I started at page 1 and my watch set 128 for no reason, with no way to change). $30 a year? Is insane. From what I can see it just means you can read more than 10 books? And also it will tell you stats like, reading speed. Stats that are super unimpressive and built into digital readers like Apple Books and Kindle. So really all Goodreads needs to do is update to a model that has a timer, and boom. Same thing, but with far better support, reviews, and a recommendation algo. Every rating here is 5 stars, which is highly suspicious for such a mid app. It apparently hasn’t had updates for years as everything mentioned in the reviews is the same. Even the price complaints are…5 stars? Oh also if you read the newer reviews, most of them are rating a book they read. Not the app. So there must be a misleading prompt in the app itself. The money for very little features annoys me, the shadiness of the reviews annoys me, the drive of the app annoys me. The company is based in a sketchy European country according to their newsletter. This whole thing is a simple calculator asking for big bucks. And people are falling for it? Im not sure why there isn’t more competition out there. If I were an app developer I’d make this, but cleaner, with real rewards. Not just diamonds to change the clothes of the pop up wizard asking you to buy a subscription. I wouldn’t mind the app if it were free and full of ads. I get people need to be paid. So….throw in more third party ads. Ask people to pay to remove them. Don’t ask people to pay to add a book to a reading shelf. Disappointed over all. I’ll still use it just for the pop up reminder to read, until I hit my 10 book limit. Then I’m just going to delete and set a daily reminder in my phone. That’s really the same thing. Or focus more on digital reading if I wanna track my reading speeds. That is until someone swoops in and cost effectively swoops this apps audience base (cough) developers it can be easily done (cough). K thanks! Vent session over!

Update:
Still not totally in love with this app.

The main interface details remain clunky. It’s trying to offer so much information, but doesn’t know how to organize or simplify.

For example: As someone who reads through many books in parallel, rather than one at a time, it’s frustrating to use the carousel to find the book I need to update.

That said, I can tell a lot of work has gone into this app. Cheers to the developers for their efforts.

One thing that still needs more work is adding books. Few ever have images available. Sometimes page count is *wayoff (a recent book I added: 250 in the data, but only 170 on the physical book). Not sure if this is just due to the databases they’re querying (as a long time cataloguer of books I know this data is often frustratingly inaccurate, often due to how publishers count pages).

Interestingly though, I’ve left GoodReads since my last review, and use this exclusively for physical books. However, I don’t use it for digital books. I wish there was integration with Apple Books (probably an issue out of the developer’s hands due to API availability.)

So, lots of obvious work from the Dev team. Yay! But also a long road ahead to make this app “great”.

Original:
I’ve been trying to use this app since the beginning, even unlocked the IAP no problem, so I know this app has potential to be great. However, the developer(s) just have not executed on that potential yet.

They have made a few useful updates along the way (adding books currently in progress, some fixes around modifying page numbers) but there is still so much about this app that feels overwhelmingly amateur.

The book search remains a poorly executed feature. Adding sessions that didn’t use the app is not thought through. (If I didn’t use the app, then I probably don’t know what day I read or for how long.) Also, odd inconsistencies such as asking me how many pages I read (without the app) while sessions logged in the app ask me what page I’m on.

These are some examples of why I find myself frustrated nearly every time I use the app. That said, I keep returning to the app. I use it alongside GoodReads because I do appreciate the additional analysis (e.g., pages/minute).

My overall impression is that this felt like a team started building the app, and then a key player left the team shortly after launch. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would love it if the developer(s) reaches out to some more senior dev/design teams for advice on how to improve the app.

EDIT 2: Erm…would REALLY love something to spend all my diamonds on. I own every outfit and every icon. As stated below, I don’t use my diamonds for extra time. So now the reward system for reading x amount of time, not to mention the “gifts” (which are just more diamonds once you buy everything) every so many days, are completely pointless for me… It’s fake currency, so you could even price the new stuff astronomically high, just to give me something to work towards. Dropping my rating from 5 to 4 stars. Sorry.

EDIT: I’d really love to see an expansion for more achievements. I also have too many diamonds. I’ve purchased all of Bloo’s costumes and would like more. Maybe an astronaut suit for when I’m reading sci-fi? A dinosaur suit would be the ultimate for me! I don’t particularly like many of the app icon choices and wouldn’t mind seeing more of those as well. I don’t use my diamonds to buy extra time for goals. It feels like cheating, so now my diamonds are sort of pointless if nothing new comes along. Still in love with the app and use it every single day! I am absolutely in love with this app! I did a trial run of the free version and almost immediately knew I needed the Pro version. I keep track of my reading every day and I absolutely love the stats Bookly offers me. I never knew how fast I could really read, and knowing how long it will take to finish a book depending on my rate is not only fascinating, but very encouraging. The app has helped me set and keep goals for reading more and more. I love being able to add words that I don’t recognize from the books and have them pop up as “word of the day” so that I actually learn them, rather than sitting in my reading journal, forgotten. The Pro version allows you to add an unlimited amount of books and keep notes, quotes, even pictures to journal your experience reading each book. The notes section is larger than Goodreads with its character limit. If Bookly’s notes have character limits, I have yet to find them. My one and only complaint, which I’m sure is due more to my ancient phone and less with the app itself, but sometimes opening the app takes longer than I’d like. I can’t just pick up a book and start reading, I have to wait for Bookly to open, then go to the book I’m reading, and finally hit “Continue Reading” to start the stopwatch. I have just recently switched to using Siri’s voice commands to open it, and it is a wee bit faster. Still, if that’s my only complaint, I’d say Bookly is doing an absolutely fabulous job. Oh! And you can manually enter your own books with your own photos! No searching and searching through hundreds of pre-selected editions like on Goodreads. I definitely recommend Bookly for any serious bookworm! This all still holds true after using the app for a little over a year. LOVE THIS APP!

Unfortunately, I can't recommend this app. Earlier this year, I encountered the bug that deleted all of my data, with no way to get it back. This was bad enough, but now, there seems to be another bug: all of my goals have been deleted, including the yearly goal I've been working on since January. For these reasons, and the fact that at least the first one could have been avoided with better testing prior to the update's release, I cannot positively review this app.

1) can’t sign in or out. Always being watched
2) doesn’t cross devices. Can’t get it on iPad but fully deployed on iPhone. And that’s a yes on having bought the full package—Bookly Pro.
3) can’t access any assistance. Even though there is an assistance icon. The typical garbage of having to search multiple layers of simplified questions that only lead you deeper down the rabbit hole.

I’m wasting much more time working the app than I am reading. How is that good?

I used to love this app. It was great. I loved the free version that I bought the paid version.

Recently, there’s been syncing issues between my devices and I’ve tried to do my own troubleshooting but nothing worked. I tried to contact BOOKLY on June 7, more than 2 weeks later and I haven’t hear back. I’ve emailed several times and even DM on IG. On IG they told me they would contact me soon, still nothing.

What a shame this app is now absolute TRASH.

Don’t waste your money.

Not happy with this app. I spent money to upgrade to pro, as I WAS happy with the stats and thought it would be helpful. As I’ve been updating the book I am currently reading all of the numbers are changing after I submit the changes, ex. Im on page 118, then after I submit that new log the app will show 152. I’ve tried editing the log to correct it to the correct number but it goes back every time. All I can say is I am glad I’m not relying on this app to keep track of the page I’m on.

$5/month ($30/year) for an app that keeps stats on your reading habits— love the concept, UI design, and features. It genuinely encourages me to read more because I love tracking stats.

But I’m more of a casual reader than a voracious one, and I think one would need to be pretty committed to their library to justify the price.

I’ll keep an eye on the app and watch it to re-download if the pricing model changes/drops. Otherwise it’ll just sit on a list of apps that I’d love to have/use, but are needlessly pricey.

For years, the “number of consecutive days” streak on the infographics for books have been wrong. I first reported this to Bookly in 2019, but no one ever responded and it’s never been fixed. Just yesterday, I finished a book after having 16 reading sessions across 16 days, with exactly one reading session per day. Of course, the big banner at the top of the infographic says “15 CONSECUTIVE DAYS”.

I’ve had other bugs with this app, too, but this one is just silly. Is it too much to ask a computer to know how to count?

“Add every book you’ve read”
Ok I’ll add every book I’ve read with my rating
“Ten book limit”
That’s frustrating. I’ll just delete the books that I’ve put it there and just have the ones I’m currently reading.
“Can’t delete must be a pro member”

Girl- ain’t no way. Also ads every two seconds. Tbh the ads aren’t that bad, it’s just really everything else that makes it bad. Probs not worth it, but on the other hand, it’s 25 bucks for a year of how it should be. If you can find one that costs nothing, do that one tho.

The app is pretty good for getting reading habits built up. Unfortunately, if you visit the store page for any reason, the app immediately plays an ad, and the recent string of ads doesn’t allow you to exit out of them because of where the X is placed in them. The only way out is to close the app. Let’s also talk pricing bugs. A lifetime subscription is normally $69.99. But for the low price of $79.99 (or a -23% discount) you can get the lifetime subscription. What? Bookly would be awesome if the devs could get it together and fix glaring problems.

Ok, so I have a fairly big library (1,600+ books) which I exported from Goodreads. However, when I tried to import them, the app crashed. So I split up the CSV file into two separate files (each containing around 800 books). This time, a button with text saying “Books ready to import” popped up. When I pressed it, the app crashed. So I split it up again, 4 files each with 400+ books. No cigar. 8 files with 200+ books each? Nope. 100? Still nope. 50?!?. Nope. I would love to give this app another chance. For now, only use if you have a library of less than 50 books.

I love this app a lot but there is some kind of bug where the timer isn't going while the phone is asleep. I'll start the timer, put down my phone, and pick up my book to read. I'll read a bunch and then pick up my phone to see how long I've been going. Unfortunately, even though the timer is still going, it says I've only been reading one minute. So totally lame. It ruins the rest of the app experience because all the stats are useless. Profoundly disappointed because this app would be so great for me. Not only would I use the app but I would most certainly upgrade to the paid version.

cool app (although wayyyy overpriced for what it is currently). however, there isn’t any feature to import books from other apps. i’ve been tracking my reading through storygraph for 2022, and considering i’ve read 250+ books this year, i’m not manually entering them all to start a new program. when i switched to storygraph from goodreads, they had a very easy import/export system - even though it was a new (and free!) app. the interface for this app is nice and it has some cool features, but for the price i think they have a really long way to go - and a lot of features to add - to beat the (free) competition.

I have a friend that had great success with this app. I’ve tried it a couple of times and I just can’t get into it. It’s sort of clunky and annoying. When I scan an ISBN it never brings up the right book with the correct number of pages. I also don’t like the idea of opening the app, setting the timer, ending the timer, entering the page number, etc. I read to get away from my phone and this just isn’t streamlined enough for me to use regularly. I’d rather build the habit of reading by using cues than being more attached to my phone. I’m also the type of person that would rather have a physical journal and pen than use an app or virtual calendar.

I love this app’s design and it really looks like it’s a good app. My complaint is that when I go to read a book I can’t turn the page or even read the book because of a feature that this app has. It is very frustrating because I genuinely like the app I just can’t figure out how to turn the page or start reading the book. I don’t know if I’m pressing the wrong button or it’s my phone. I have tried deleting and reinstalling the app but still it wouldn’t work. I would love to give the app another try if could figure out how to work it. If someone could give me advice on how to use this app properly if I’m doing something wrong it would be greatly appreciated:)

I absolutely love this app! Or at least the concept of it. The aesthetic and design is beautiful, the infographic displayed when a book is finished reading is a great addition, and I love the estimated time of completion for books.
However, I’ve found that my books disappear after coming back to the home screen of the app (Currently Reading). The books are there, but they aren’t being displayed. When I check my shelves the books are still logged in the app, but they just aren’t being displayed.
I’m not sure if this is only a problem because I’m reading two books at a time, or if this is a problem for other users as well.
This app is definitely a 5 star concept— I just wish it were more functional and not as buggy.

What I don’t like about the app:
1) books are a pain to enter in. Search option rarely if ever finds the book
2) manually have to enter author name and number of pages (which is so annoying) and then search for cover. Strangely, cover search seems to work great even though other search option does not
3) terribly annoying to have to enter % read. If I enter a book in as finished, it should just assume I’ve finished it
4) also super annoying reading timer. I don’t want to have to start and stop a timer whenever I am reading.
5) my ratings don’t show on the covers on the my books page
I just want to track my books that I’ve read. I don’t care how many pages I’ve read. I care about the books I’ve read and my ratings, and my did not finish list.
What I do like:
I like being able to see a visual of the book covers I have read.

I thought this app might be nice for me to track all the books in a series and/or by different authors that I’ve read and still want to read, as well as keep track of all the books I have in progress (I like to juggle between physical and e-book, and one in each genre I like, depending on my mood), but the free version of this app limits you at 10 total books unless you pay for the subscription. The subscription is pricey! $60 a year if per month basis, $40 for year if you pay every 6 mo’s, or $30 per year of pay for entire year. I can buy a new notebook and track things for a few bucks, so not really worth it for me.

On the plus side, I like how easy it is to look up the book and add the book cover. But I would have preferred it to suggest other books in the series and the order in which to read them. And potentially offer a way to track where the book is (physical, or which app).

I found this app through a Booktuber I follow and it looked great. I’m a stats nerd so I was really interested in tracking all of this data. Unfortunately the tracking aspect is so buggy that it’s essentially pointless. Almost every time, the infographic it created did NOT show my actual highest pages and minutes read in a day - instead, it just showed the data for the day I finished the book, even though the other numbers (total pages, total time reading, etc) were correct. What’s the point of the numbers if they’re wrong? I emailed them about this and heard nothing back. Really annoyed to have paid money for the full functionality of the app and have it turn out to be glitchy and unusable, and get no answers about why or if they’re going to fix it. Canceled my subscription but apparently I can’t get my money back. Major disappointment - you’re better off just timing yourself and making graphics on your own.

I opted for the free trial, and upon seeing the summary statistics after finishing one book found the total pages read was off; despite the app recognizing I finished a 400 page book on the “my books” tab, statistics showed I’d only read 245 pages. Looking at my reading logs I realized it was calculating based on those, and didn’t factor in the book being labeled “finished”, which would be fine. I went to edit my logs to reflect the total page numbers (I’d neglected to log my first session when I started using the app, which was what was causing the discrepancy), but when I saved the session the app messed up the page numbers. I tried deleting my two other sessions and to just log chronologically fresh, still bugged out. Was impossible to edit to reflect the actual pages read, despite me trying to fix it about 4 different ways. Not great for a paid app, where the features you’re paying for include accuracy of statistics.