PageShifter Help

PageShifter is a reading tracker for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. You add the books and audiobooks you are reading, keep them organized on shelves, track your progress, and watch your stats add up over the year. Everything lives on your device, and if you want it, it syncs privately through your own iCloud.

Getting started

The first time you open PageShifter you will see a short welcome screen. It asks one thing: whether you want to turn on iCloud Sync. Leave it on to keep your library in step across your Apple devices, or turn it off to keep everything on this device only. You can change your mind later in Settings, so there is no wrong answer here. Tap Get Started and you are in.

Your library starts empty, so the first thing to do is add a book.

Adding books

Search: Look up almost any title or author. Results come from Open Library, complete with cover art and details. Tap a result to add it.
Add manually: If a book is not in the catalog, such as a Kindle edition or a self-published title, add it by hand with a title and author. PageShifter will try to fill in the rest.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are first class citizens. When you add one, PageShifter can look up the narrator, the length, and series information for you. You can turn that lookup on or off under Settings › Audiobooks.

Your library

As your library grows, a few tools help you keep it in shape.

Shelves: Create your own shelves with an emoji icon and drag books onto them. Think of them as custom collections.
Series: Books that belong to a series are grouped together automatically, so you can see what you have read and what you are missing.
Quotes & highlights: Save the lines worth keeping, with the page number and your own note. All of your favorites live in one place.

Tracking your reading

Open any book to see its detail screen. From there you can track everything about your read.

Start reading & mark finished: These set the dates for you automatically, and you can edit them by hand any time.
Update your progress: Track the page you are on and see a progress bar right on the cover.
Rate and note: Give a book a star rating, and jot down private thoughts that save as you type.
Log a re-read: Read something again? Add another read, and each one counts toward your yearly goal.
Did Not Finish: If a book just is not working out, mark it Did Not Finish. Those titles get gathered together so your main shelves stay tidy, and you can pick the book back up later.

Goals & stats

Head to Stats to set a reading goal for the year and watch a progress ring fill up as you finish books. You will also find your reading streak, an activity heatmap of the days you have been reading, and a breakdown of your pages, genres, ratings, and reading status.

Tip: Every finish counts, including re-reads, so reading a favorite again moves your yearly goal forward.

iCloud sync

If you turned on iCloud Sync, your library keeps itself in step across every device signed in to the same iCloud account. You can manage it any time under Settings › Sync.

Turn it on or off: When sync is off, PageShifter stays completely local and quiet. Turn it back on and it picks up right where it left off.
What syncs: Your books, shelves, goals, and quotes. Your private notes and quote text are end-to-end encrypted, which means only your devices can read them.
Remove all iCloud data: If you ever want a clean slate in the cloud, this wipes your synced library from iCloud and turns sync off. The books on your device are not touched.

Sync needs you to be signed in to iCloud on the device. If you are not, PageShifter will tell you, and it will start syncing on its own once you sign in.

Importing & sharing

Import from Goodreads

Moving over from Goodreads? Export your library there as a CSV file, then import it into PageShifter. On the Mac the option is in the File menu, and on iPhone and iPad it lives in Settings. The file is read right on your device, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Share a book

From a book's detail screen, or by pressing and holding its cover in your library, you can share a designed card with the cover, title, author, and your rating. It goes out as an image, ready to drop into Messages or anywhere else.

Privacy

Everything stays on your device. PageShifter does not collect analytics, does not track you, and never sends your library to its developer. Optional sync uses your own private iCloud, and your notes and quotes are end-to-end encrypted.

Full details are in the Privacy Policy.