Metadata saved as JSON next to your PDFs. Annotations written incrementally, so OCR text in scanned books stays intact. Buy once — no subscription, no ads.
shelff is a bookshelf for the books you own as PDFs — technical books, scanned books, DRM-free ebooks. One-time purchase, no subscription, no account. And no ads.
Everything lives in your iCloud Documents. You are never locked into a proprietary database. Metadata is saved as JSON files alongside your PDFs, so even if you stop using the app, your data remains yours.
■ Library
- Organize with folders or browse in a flat list
- Filter by categories and tags
- Group multi-volume works and magazine back issues into collections, with custom ordering
- Sort by title, author, date added, or last read
- Filter by reading status (unread, reading, finished)
- Full-text search across your PDFs
- Switch between grid and list views
■ PDF Reader
- Immersive full-screen reader
- Single page, two-up, and two-up with cover layouts
- Left-to-right (LTR) and right-to-left (RTL) support
- Highlights with optional comments
- Jump from table of contents or annotation list
- In-document text search
- Crop margins per book, with mirrored or separate settings for facing pages and optional cover exclusion
- Brightness adjustment
- Encrypted PDFs supported
■ Metadata Management
- Edit title, author, publisher, publication date, and more
- Auto-extract initial values from PDF metadata
- Automatic reading status transitions (starts reading, finishes at last page)
■ Siri, Shortcuts, and Spotlight
- Open a book, continue reading, or change reading status from Siri and Shortcuts
- Find and open books in your library from Spotlight
■ Data Transparency
- All data stored as files in iCloud Documents
- Metadata and display settings (layout, crop, etc.) in JSON; annotations in the PDF itself
- Annotations are saved as incremental updates, so existing content such as OCR text layers in scanned books stays intact
- Accessible anytime from the Files app
- On your Mac, an AI agent with shelff-mcp can search and organize the metadata JSON in your iCloud
Ratings & Reviews
This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
- On iPhone Duo in book pose, the cover now sits on one side of the fold instead of across it.
Version 1.8.1
The developer, Satoshi Kojima, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
Satoshi Kojima
Size
8.8 MB
Category
Books
Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.