One Player. Every Device. Any Backend.

Audiobook Librarian is a fully skinnable, cross-platform audiobook player for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux. Bring your own books by connecting to a self-hosted server, Audiobookshelf, Plex, Google Drive, or Dropbox — download them to your phone for offline listening, and pick up exactly where you left off on every device you own.

Cross-platform Android, iOS & Desktop
Fully skinnable Make it truly yours
Sync everywhere Pick up where you left off
Bring your own backend Self-hosted or cloud, your call

How it works

The app is the product. The backend is just where your books live.

1

Get the app

Install Audiobook Librarian on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, or Linux. Open it up and start listening right away with the free, built-in LibriVox catalog — no account or setup required.

2

Point it at your books

Connect to whatever already holds your audiobooks — a self-hosted Ablibrarian Server, Audiobookshelf, Plex, or a Google Drive or Dropbox folder. Scan a QR code or enter a URL. Connect more than one at a time if you want.

3

Make it yours

Change the player's entire look with the built-in skin editor and live preview, or browse and fork designs from the community gallery. Your position, bookmarks, and stats sync across every device automatically.

A player built around how you actually listen

The client app is the core product — backends are just the plumbing behind it.

One app, every platform

Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single shared codebase, so the experience — and your library — feels the same no matter which device you pick up.

Playback controls built for audiobooks

Variable speed from 0.5x to 3x (up to 5x in precise mode) with independent pitch control, a sleep timer with fade-out or end-of-chapter stop, chapter navigation, configurable skip intervals, bookmarks, and smart rewind when you resume. Built for long-form audio, not music.

Deep skin customization

A full visual editor with live preview lets you reposition, recolor, and restyle every element of the player — buttons, progress bars, backgrounds, fonts, and animations. Set up skins that switch automatically by book, time of day, or battery level.

Sync across every device

Start on your phone during your commute, pick up on your desktop at home. Position, bookmarks, and listening history sync automatically, with an offline queue and conflict resolution so a dead connection never costs you your place.

Bring your own backend

Connect to a self-hosted Ablibrarian Server, Ablibrarian Lite, Audiobookshelf, Plex, Google Drive, or Dropbox — even several at once — all from the same app. The client doesn't lock you into one way of hosting your books.

Download for offline listening

Pull books from any connected backend straight onto your device before you lose signal — on a flight, a hike, or a subway commute. Progress keeps recording locally and syncs the moment you're back online.

Drive Mode

A large-button overlay with play/pause and skip controls that works on top of any skin, plus a hold-to-unlock lock screen. Bright and dark variants for day or night driving — fiddling with tiny buttons at 60 mph is a terrible idea.

Listening statistics

Track your listening habits with daily, weekly, and yearly trends. See your top books, streaks, badges, and time spent listening — all synced across every device you use.

Self-hosted server option

Want full control over your library? Run the open-source Ablibrarian Server on your own hardware. It serves M4B, M4A, MP3, AAC, WAV, and FLAC directly from your storage, with AI-powered metadata imports and multi-library support — no monthly fees, no one else deciding what you can listen to.

Free books via LibriVox

Browse and stream thousands of public-domain audiobooks from LibriVox right out of the box, hosted for you — no server setup, no account, nothing to configure.

Private by default

No advertising networks, no analytics dashboards, no selling your listening habits. Self-host your backend and your data never leaves your infrastructure. The code is open source so you can verify it yourself.

Open source

The client apps, the self-hosted server, and this website are all open source. Audit it, modify it, or contribute to it. No vendor lock-in, no disappearing features behind a paywall.

Bring Your Own Books

Audiobook Librarian doesn't ship its own book store, and it doesn't force you into one hosting arrangement. The client connects to whatever already holds your audiobooks, so you decide how — and where — your library lives.

  • Self-hosted Ablibrarian Server — open source, Docker-ready with a zero-config SQLite option or your own MySQL/Postgres, on a home server, NAS, or VPS
  • Ablibrarian Lite — a lightweight backend if all you want is cross-device sync and stats
  • Audiobookshelf or Plex — already running one? Connect directly, no migration needed
  • Google Drive or Dropbox — point at a folder of audio files, no server required at all
  • Built-in LibriVox catalog — thousands of free public-domain audiobooks, hosted for you
  • Connect multiple backends at once and browse or download from all of them in one app
View the Server on GitHub

Free Books with LibriVox

LibriVox is a volunteer project that produces free public-domain audiobook recordings. Audiobook Librarian gives every client app access to their entire catalog without setting up your own server or account.

All LibriVox recordings are released into the public domain worldwide — free to use, forever. Stream it, download it for offline listening, and it syncs just like the rest of your library.

Get the App

Connect to your backend of choice or browse LibriVox — on any device.

Android

Google Play Store

Coming Soon

iOS

Apple App Store

Coming Soon

Desktop

Windows, macOS & Linux

Coming Soon

Frequently Asked Questions

The stuff people actually want to know.

No. Audiobook Librarian is a client app first — the backend is just wherever your books happen to live. Use the free built-in LibriVox catalog with zero setup, connect to an existing Audiobookshelf or Plex server, point it at a Google Drive or Dropbox folder, or self-host the open-source Ablibrarian Server for full library management, AI-powered imports, and shared libraries. You can even connect more than one backend at the same time.

Yes — this is the point of the app. Connect to the self-hosted Ablibrarian Server, Ablibrarian Lite, Audiobookshelf, Plex, Google Drive, and Dropbox, all from the same client, even several at once. Browse and download from any connected backend without switching apps.

The client apps play M4B, M4A, MP3, AAC, WAV, and FLAC across Android, iOS, and desktop platforms. M4B is the primary format with full chapter extraction. A self-hosted Ablibrarian Server serves these directly from your storage — no conversion required.

The app syncs your position, bookmarks, and listening history immediately when you finish a session or a book, in the background every 30 seconds while you're actively listening, and whenever you open or close the app. If you go offline, changes queue up locally and flush the moment you reconnect. If two devices report different positions, you get a conflict resolution dialog to choose which one to keep.

Skins are shareable packages that completely change the player's visual appearance — backgrounds, colors, fonts, button shapes, progress-bar styles, and animations, down to the position of every individual element. Themes are color schemes that work across skins. You can set up rules so a skin auto-switches based on the book you're listening to, the time of day, or battery level. Build your own with the in-app visual editor and live preview, browse the community gallery, or fork any existing design to make it yours. Drive Mode is a large-button overlay that works on top of any skin.

If you self-host the Ablibrarian Server, yes. As the administrator, you can invite other users to access your collection. Each user gets their own account with independent playback progress, bookmarks, playlists, and listening stats — all against the same shared library. Role-based permissions control who can do what.

This is a feature of the self-hosted Ablibrarian Server: point it at a directory of audiobooks and it can extract titles, authors, narrators, series names, series numbers, and genres from filenames and audio file tags. It supports multiple AI providers (Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI) and flags low-confidence results for manual review. You can also pull metadata from Google Books, Audible, and other external sources.

It depends on the backend you choose. When you self-host the Ablibrarian Server, your audiobook files, listening history, and personal data never leave your own infrastructure — no advertising networks, no analytics, no third-party tracking. If you connect a third-party backend like Audiobookshelf, Plex, Google Drive, or Dropbox, that service's own privacy practices apply. The client and server code are both open source so you can verify exactly what they do.

The client apps are free with no subscription or in-app purchases. If you self-host the Ablibrarian Server, you only need hardware to run it — any Linux machine will do, from a home server to a cloud VPS. If you use AI-powered imports on that server, you'll need an API key from a supported provider (Gemini has a free tier).

Yes. The client apps can download books from any connected backend — your self-hosted server, Audiobookshelf, Plex, Google Drive, Dropbox, or the built-in LibriVox catalog — straight to your device for offline listening. Playback progress is recorded locally and syncs automatically the moment you reconnect.