1. Home
  2. 📚 Education
  3. Bookshelf
Bookshelf

Bookshelf

by VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

80K ratings
554 reviews
#88 in free Education
📚 Education
📚 Books
Free

Details

Released
September 15, 2010
Updated
July 30, 2026

Features

Developer

VitalSource Technologies, Inc.
✨Promote your app ✨
Bookshelf screenshot #1 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #2 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #3 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #4 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #5 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #6 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #7 for iPhone
Bookshelf screenshot #8 for iPhone
iphone
ipad
📈no. 88
Charts↘︎
📌Ready
Reviews summary↘︎
⭐554
Reviews↘︎
📝40+ tags
Tags↘︎
🔄6+ apps
Alternatives↘︎
❓5 answered
FAQ↘︎
📦~ in 1 month
Updates frequency↘︎
🖼️Get Icon
Icons↘︎

About

Access and study your digital textbooks on your iPad or iPhone. This app allows for offline reading, note-taking, flashcard creation, and customizable reading settings. Sync your progress across devices for a seamless study experience.

✓Offline reading
✓Customizable highlighters and notes
✓Flashcard creation
✓Personalized reading settings
✓Read Aloud feature
✓Cross-device syncing
Show original description

What users say about Bookshelf

Reviews of Bookshelf are mixed: the Education app is rated 4.7/5 from 80K App Store ratings. What users like most: convenient access to textbooks, useful search functionality. Top complaints: buggy highlighting and annotation tools, lack of Apple Pencil support. Summarized from real user reviews.

Positive things

  • 📚Convenient access to textbooks
  • 🔍Useful search functionality
  • 📚Offline reading capability
  • 🔖Bookmark and note-taking features
  • 🔊Text-to-speech option

Negative things

  • 🐛Buggy highlighting and annotation tools
  • 🖋️Lack of Apple Pencil support
  • 📚Restricted functionality compared to other e-book apps
  • 🔍Inconsistent search and navigation experience
  • 🔋High battery consumption
  • 🤖Poor text-to-speech quality
See all reviews

What's New in Bookshelf

11.4.1

July 30, 2026

* Additional crash fixes * Highlighting performance has been improved, especially for users with large highlight collections * Smoother scrolling and zooming in PDF books, with significant stability improvements (iOS only) * Improved app stability with fixes for crashes across all platforms * Stylus annotation support has been removed to improve overall reliability * Improved navigation when deep linking to specific figures and headings in EPUB books

More

Charts

Top Free

📈 88+1

Education

This app rose +1 position in Education chart.

Last updated on October 30, 2026.

User reviews

Most RecentHighest RatedLowest Rated

Read Aloud Feature

The voices in English are so robotic. It’s annoying to listen to. I’ve adjusted the speed and it’s even worse.
TTinkb3rb3ll

Audio

The audio option is terrible. You can barely understand what is being said. I even tried changing the settings and the different voices and none of them helped. Just read the book yourself.
NNeshaJT

Too many app crashes

I can’t keep up with lecture or reading when apps always closing on its own when jumping to another chapter.
CCristiann707

Highlights

Everything is perfect except the highlighting feature doesn’t work well on the app. I have the app on my phone and tablet. It will offer to highlight but when you try to do it doesn’t actually show in color what you “highlighted”. I have to go on the web outside of the app to do my reading to highlight
Show more
AAbi.urite

Keep up with the trend and add the highlight/note feature!

PLEASE ADD THE HIGHLIGHT AND NOTES FEATURE!! almost every device has a pencil feature so please keep up with technology!
Jjakaididjnd
See 549 more reviews

Developer apps

Discover Lens
Discover Lens

Intrepid by VitalSource

📚 Education

(3)

Free
Bookshelf Jr.
Bookshelf Jr.

VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

📚 Education

(3)

Free
See developer apps

User experience

🐞

Reported Bugs

4 issues

Frequent crashes and freezes

Bug

Issues with page loading and scrolling

Bug

Inconsistent behavior when switching between devices

Bug

Unreliable text-to-speech functionality

Bug
✨

Requested Features

5 requests

Improved highlighting and annotation tools

Feature

Apple Pencil support for note-taking

Feature

More customization options (e.g., font, layout, night mode)

Feature

Seamless cross-device synchronization

Feature

Enhanced search and navigation features

Feature

FAQ

What does the Bookshelf app do?

The Bookshelf app provides a digital-first study experience for your VitalSource textbooks on your iPad or iPhone. It allows you to access, read, and study your textbooks anytime, anywhere, with features designed to enhance learning.

What are the key features of Bookshelf?

Key features include downloading books for offline reading, customizing highlighters and adding notes, creating flashcards with text and images, personalizing reading settings like font and background colors, and using the Read Aloud feature to listen to your books.

Is Bookshelf free to use?

The Bookshelf app itself is free to download and use. However, you will need a VitalSource Bookshelf account and access to one or more VitalSource textbooks to utilize its full functionality.

What are the system requirements for Bookshelf?

To use Bookshelf, you need a VitalSource Bookshelf account, access to VitalSource textbooks, and an iOS device running iOS 17 or later.

How does Bookshelf help with studying?

Bookshelf aids studying by offering features like offline access to textbooks, the ability to highlight and take notes directly on pages, creating flashcards for active recall, and personalizing the reading experience for better comprehension. The cross-device syncing also ensures your study progress is always up-to-date.