When I moved house in 2023, moving my home library was a special slice of hell. It took me six months to arrange my bookshelves the way I liked them and to finally feel comfortable and settled in my reading space. I used the upheaval as a reason to install a home library app and keep track of all the books I own. I tried several before I settled on one. These are the five I’d point you to now, with current prices and platforms.

1. BookBuddy – My Personal Choice

BookBuddy is clean and easy to use, and it’s still the app I open. It’s a dedicated book app for people on Apple devices.

You can add a book by scanning its barcode, typing the ISBN, searching online or entering it by hand. Your books sit in My Books, Wish List, Borrowed or Previously Owned, and you can add your own categories, tags and notes. It also keeps track of loans, finds duplicates and exports your library as a CSV, PDF or HTML file. The library itself is saved on your device.

Main Features:

• Barcode Scanner: Quickly add books by scanning their barcodes.
• Tags and Notes: Organise your collection with tags, notes, and individual ratings.
• Loan Tracking: Easily manage books you’ve loaned out.

Pricing: Free for up to 50 books, then a one-time $9.99 for unlimited books. Sharing your library online is a separate subscription, from $1.99 a month.

Platform: iPhone, iPad and Apple Silicon Mac.

Find it here: BookBuddy.

2. Libib

Libib is the one to look at if you have a big collection and don’t want to pay for anything. The free plan holds up to 5,000 items, and those can be movies, music, video games and board games as well as books.

You can scan barcodes, enter rare or older books by hand, add tags and notes, rate what you’ve read and export everything to a CSV file whenever you like. Your collection syncs across devices. The one catch for a home library is lending, which is only on the paid plan.

Main Features:

• Barcode Scanning: Easily add books to your library by scanning barcodes.
• Manual Entry: Input details for rare or antique books manually.
• Tags and Notes: Add tags, notes, and ratings to keep your collection organized.
• Export Data: Sync with Goodreads and export your data to CSV files for easy transfer.

Pricing: Free for up to 5,000 items. Libib Pro costs $9 a month or $99 a year, and is aimed mainly at schools and organisations.

Platform: Available on iOS, Android, and web.

Find it here: Libib

3. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a veteran of book cataloguing, and it’s particularly good for collectors of older editions. It draws on the Library of Congress, Amazon and more than 2,200 libraries worldwide, so it has a better chance of finding the odd edition on your shelf.

You can scan books with the app, tag them with your own subjects and organize them by a classification system such as Dewey Decimal, if that’s the sort of person you are. It’s also a quiet social network, where you can see whose library looks most like yours.

Main Features:

• Barcode Scanning: Quickly add books using the built-in scanner.
• Comprehensive Database: Access information from over 2,200 libraries and sources like Amazon and the Library of Congress.
• Member Recommendations: Get book suggestions from other LibraryThing members.
• Tagging and Notes: Use tags and notes to categorize and annotate your collection.

Pricing: Free, for any number of books.

Platform: Available on iOS, Android, and desktop.

Find it here: LibraryThing

4. Goodreads

Goodreads is better at tracking your reading than at cataloguing what you own, but plenty of people already have an account, and that counts for something. It’s owned by Amazon and has the largest community of the five.

You can make custom shelves, scan a barcode in a bookshop to save a title, set a yearly reading challenge and join online book clubs. You can export your library as a CSV file, but only from the website, not the app.

Main Features:

• Custom Shelves: Create personalized shelves to organize your books.
• Barcode Scanner: Easily add books by scanning their barcodes.
• Social Features: Share your reading journey, join book clubs, and get recommendations from friends.
• Export Data: Export your data to other apps if you decide to switch.

Pricing: Free with optional in-app purchases for additional features.

Platform: Available on iOS, Android, and web.

Find it here: Goodreads

5. CLZ Books

CLZ Books takes the place of Delicious Library, which I recommended here originally. Delicious Library was pulled in November 2024 after Amazon shut off the feed it used to look up books, so please don’t go looking for it.

CLZ is for people who want a lot of detail. You can scan barcodes, search by ISBN, author or title, and let the app fill in the book’s details and cover. You can then add where and when you bought it, what you paid, where it lives in the house and your own notes. It’s the only one here that’s subscription only, and I haven’t lived with it the way I have with BookBuddy.

Pricing: $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, with a free seven-day trial.

Platform: iOS and Android.

Link: CLZ Books

Three Years Later: Living with BookBuddy (written in 2026)

BookBuddy has turned out to be very handy, especially since I buy books when I travel. I can stand in a bookshop in another country and check whether the book in my hand is already on a shelf at home.

During the move, it took me some time to scan all the barcodes and enter the books. It is absolutely worth it in the long run. It has made my book shopping more intentional, because it’s harder to buy on impulse when you can see what you already own.

Then there’s the data. BookBuddy shows me how many books and pages I’ve read in a year, and which genres I read most. You can use it to track your reading as well, so the same app holds both the books I own and what I’ve done with them.

I chose BookBuddy because I liked the interface, and I paid once for the full version. It cost $5 when I bought it. If you’re on Android or want a free plan for a big library, I’d start with Libib instead.

If you use something else to keep track of your shelves, I’d like to hear what it is.

For what I’m reading, the bookshops I find when I travel, and the occasional cat, follow me on Instagram at @ernainperson.