Audiobookshelf

Audiobookshelf is the Android app for the Audiobookshelf server, which its README calls “a self-hosted audiobook and podcast server”. Both are developed by advplyr. You install the server on a machine of your own, add your audiobooks and podcasts to it, and the app plays them from there, so your library, your listening progress and your account stay on your server.

What it does

• Streaming and progress sync. It plays from your server and reports where you are. If that fails, the app says, “Progress sync requests will continue to be attempted every 15 seconds to 1 minute while media is playing.”
• Offline downloads of books and episodes, to the app’s own storage or to a shared folder that other apps can see.
• Podcasts, searched and subscribed through your server, with automatic episode downloads.
• An ebook reader for EPUB, MOBI and AZW3, PDF, and CBZ and CBR comics.
• Android Auto, Chromecast, bookmarks, playlists, collections, playback speed and a home-screen widget.
• A sleep timer that resets when you shake the phone, and an optional automatic sleep timer for a time window you choose.
• Sign-in with your server account, or through the single sign-on provider your server is set up for.

Defaults worth knowing

From the code of this version:

• The skip buttons jump 10 seconds, and the sleep timer runs for 15 minutes. The automatic sleep timer, between 22:00 and 06:00 unless you change it, is off.
• Downloads and streaming over mobile data are allowed.
• Plain HTTP connections are allowed, for servers on your home network, and certificates you install yourself are trusted.

What goes online

• Your Audiobookshelf server, for everything in your library.
• Google Cast, only if Google Play services is installed; without it, the Cast code isn’t set up and no Cast button appears.
• IzzyOnDroid flags the app because “The app potentially connects to Google Servers (Firebase).” The app’s own code doesn’t use Firebase; the Firebase libraries come with Google’s.

The app’s own code has no analytics, crash reporting or update check, and our tracker scan found no tracking libraries.

About this file

• This is the developer’s own build of version 0.14.2-beta, delivered through IzzyOnDroid and byte for byte the APK on the project’s GitHub release, signed by Mark Cooper. IzzyOnDroid can’t reproduce it from source; according to the project, the web framework the app is built with doesn’t produce identical builds. Google Play has the app too.
• The 14.9 MB file contains no native code, runs on Android 7.0 and later, and declares 12 permissions: internet and network state, notifications, storage for older Android versions, the foreground services that keep playback and downloads running, keeping the phone awake, vibration, starting at boot, and one AndroidX adds for internal use.
• Audiobookshelf is licensed under the GPL-3.0. IzzyOnDroid also flags it for non-free components: “The app contains libraries of Google Cast, Google Mobile Services and Firebase.”
• The screenshots are the project’s own, from IzzyOnDroid.

Flagged by IzzyOnDroid:

• NonFreeComp: Contains non-free components or libraries.
• NonFreeNet: Relies on or promotes a proprietary network service.

Versions currently kept in the IzzyOnDroid repository. We host and check only the newest one. Full changelog.