# Papyrus: Research Library — Native research workspace > Native Apple research workspace for PDF annotation, organization, and citation. (iPhone/iPad app by Zhenda Fu.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/papyrus-research-library/id6766133716 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Zhenda Fu](https://appshunter.io/developer/1896207907) - Category: Productivity, Reference - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 19 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-05-22 - Data updated: 2026-08-17 - Monetization: free with in-app purchases - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/papyrus-research-library/id6766133716/reviews.md ## What is Papyrus? Papyrus is a native research workspace for reading, annotating, organizing, and citing PDFs — built for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. READ AND ANNOTATE Open a paper in a fast built-in reader. Highlight, underline, and mark up pages, and every highlight stays searchable and linked back to its source. Bookmark a page as you go, and pick the paper up later from a Reading card that remembers where you stopped. On iPad, a References tab looks up the open paper's reference list and related work, so you can follow a citation trail and add what matters to your library without leaving the page. WRITE ON THE PAGE WITH APPLE PENCIL Mark up a PDF directly on iPad — annotate a proof, sketch beside a figure, work a derivation out in the margin. Your ink belongs to the paper and travels with it, encrypted, to your other devices. NOTES BESIDE THE SOURCE Keep Markdown notes next to each paper: headings, tables, code blocks, LaTeX math, and [[note]] cross-references. Notes stay with the paper and export as PDF when you need to share them. NOTEBOOKS Gather notes from across your library onto themed shelves — a topic, a chapter you're drafting, a reading group. Filing a note copies nothing and moves nothing: it still belongs to its paper, still says which paper that is, and one tap takes you there and back. A note can sit on several shelves at once. Fill a new shelf from what you've already written, search it by a note's text or by the paper behind it, order it four ways — including oldest paper first, which reads your own notes forward through the literature — and export a whole shelf as one Markdown document. All Notes lists everything you've written in one place, filed or not. ORGANIZE THE WAY YOU THINK Folders — a paper can live in several — plus tags, star ratings, and seven colored flags you can name yourself, each with its own shape so they stay tellable apart at a glance. Smart Collections keep themselves current from rules you set, including flag rules. Review Duplicates finds look-alike papers and merges each set after you confirm, combining tags, folders, projects, notes, and highlights. FIND ANYTHING Search titles, authors, notes, and highlights — or the full text inside your PDFs. TURN READING INTO WRITING Projects are where a reading pile becomes a manuscript. Group the papers behind a chapter or article, give each one a role, and capture evidence — claims, quotes, and your own interpretation — tied back to the source paper and page. Write the project note from a template (related work, method comparison, experiment plan, thesis chapter, reviewer response), keep its revision history, and run a preflight that catches missing citation keys and metadata gaps before you export. Export a bundle with Markdown, a BibTeX bibliography, and the PDFs. IMPORT AND CITE Bring in PDFs, whole folders, or BibTeX and RIS files — including libraries exported from Mendeley and Zotero. Papyrus looks up metadata by DOI or arXiv ID and fills in the details. Save papers straight from Safari with the included extension. Copy citations in the style you write in, and export BibTeX or RIS whenever you need them. READ ANYWHERE Paste an arXiv link, a DOI, or a PDF URL and Papyrus imports it, looks up the details, and fetches the PDF. Add a paper to Read Later and its PDF downloads ahead of time, so a flight or a commute doesn't need a signal. Ask Siri, or search from the Home Screen, to pick up the paper you were last reading on the page you left it. YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR DEVICES Your library syncs over iCloud across iPad, iPhone, and Mac. No account to create, no tracking, no ads. Free to download and use — every feature included, no in-app purchases, no subscription. ## Key features - Read and annotate PDFs - Organize citation records - Take Markdown notes - Search entire library - Create structured projects - Local-first storage - Optional iCloud/WebDAV sync ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Papyrus Lifetime Unlock | $3.99 | one-time | | Papyrus Lifetime Unlock | $5.99 | one-time | ## Frequently asked questions about Papyrus ### What is Papyrus? Papyrus is a native research workspace designed for the Apple ecosystem. It allows users to read, annotate, organize, and cite PDF research papers and citation records. The app focuses on providing a structured environment for managing academic work. ### What file formats does Papyrus support? Papyrus supports BibTeX, RIS, and CSL JSON for citation records. It also allows for Markdown export of notes and project bundles. This ensures compatibility with various academic workflows and tools. ### How does Papyrus handle data storage and syncing? Papyrus is designed to be local-first, meaning your data is primarily stored on your device. It offers optional sync capabilities via iCloud or WebDAV, providing flexibility for users who prefer cloud backups or cross-device access. ### Can I use Papyrus offline? Yes, Papyrus is local-first by design, allowing you to work with your research library offline. Syncing features are optional and can be enabled when you have an internet connection. ### What devices is Papyrus available on? Papyrus is available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, offering a consistent experience across the Apple ecosystem. This allows you to manage your research from your preferred Apple device. ### How often is Papyrus updated? The latest version, 1.5.0, was released on July 4, 2026. While specific update frequency isn't detailed, the recent update indicates ongoing development and support for the application. ### What is the user sentiment for Papyrus? Based on the available rating, Papyrus has received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with a perfect 5.0 stars from 1 rating. This suggests a high level of user satisfaction with its functionality and performance. ### Does Papyrus have ads? No, Papyrus does not contain advertisements. The app is free to download and use, with optional in-app purchases available for enhanced features or functionality. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.6.1 — 2026-08-11 Notebooks Gather notes from across your library onto themed shelves — a topic, a chapter you're drafting, a reading group. Filing a note copies nothing and moves nothing: it still belongs to its paper, still says which paper that is, and one tap takes you there and back again. A note can sit on several shelves at once, so "Optics" and "Chapter 3" never have to fight over it. Working a shelf • Add Notes… fills a new notebook from what you've already written, with search and an Unfiled-only filter — a few moments instead of a note-by-note pass. • Search a shelf by a note's text or by the paper it was written on. • Order it four ways: recently edited, grouped by paper, by title, or oldest paper first — which reads your own notes forward through the literature, the way a related-work section wants to be written. • Select several notes to move, unfile, or trash them together. Grouped by paper, each paper's heading handles its notes as a unit. • Every note wears its source paper as a chip with the author and year, so a shelf drawing on a dozen papers stays legible at a glance. A rebuilt note editor • A format bar that follows the cursor: bold, italic, headings, lists, quotes, code, and links each show whether they are already on. • Lists and quotes carry on to the next line as you type, and stop when you leave a line empty — on iPad and iPhone as well as the Mac. • Type [[ to link another note, with completion as you type. • Find and replace inside a note. • Set the text size notes are written and previewed at. Pick up where you left off A paper's detail pane on iPad now has a Reading card: the page you stopped on, how far into the PDF you are, and every page you bookmarked while reading. A big round of iPhone catch-up • Flags now work on the phone: set one from the quick-state strip, filter by Flagged, and read each flag by its shape as well as its color. • Notebooks can be created, renamed, and deleted on iPhone. • Papers can be moved to Trash, refreshed, and edited there. • Folders and projects can be created without reaching for an iPad or Mac. • The note editor fits the screen: sheets, Settings rows, and the reader's title bar are sized for a phone rather than shrunk down from a desktop. Smoother Apple Pencil ink on iPad Scrolling an inked PDF does far less work per page — Papyrus no longer re-reads and re-saves ink for pages you only scrolled past. Room to breathe on iPad • The notebook header no longer crams four spelled-out controls into a split-view column; labels give way to glyphs only where they genuinely don't fit. • The PDF row offers the one action the paper's state actually calls for, instead of wrapping "Replace PDF" onto two lines. • Papers and notebooks each have their own Link control, so a Hookmark link is visible rather than hidden behind a long press. • The Library title no longer drags down when you overscroll the paper list. Fixed in 1.6.1 • Opening Trash no longer pulls the library's contents up underneath the toolbar. A Trash holding more deleted notes than fit the column now scrolls instead of spilling out of it. • Empty Trash now appears when Trash holds only deleted notes or notebooks, rather than only when it holds papers. • Empty Trash now clears deleted notebooks too. Notes filed on a deleted notebook are still never deleted with it. • The Trash badge no longer keeps counting notes that have already been deleted. A count left behind by an earlier version is corrected the next time Papyrus opens. Also fixed • Notes and highlights no longer come adrift from their paper during sync. • Moving a note to Trash now updates the Trash count. • Panels like Add Notes are no longer clipped in a narrow window. • A notebook's badge now shows that it counts notes, not papers. ### 1.5.5 — 2026-08-04 • Link to any paper from anywhere — Every paper now has a permanent link. Copy Link sits with the citation actions — in a paper's menu in the library, on the paper's own screen, and in the reader while you're reading. Paste it into Obsidian, Apple Notes, Drafts, a task in Things or OmniFocus, or a Shortcut. Opening it brings up that paper in Papyrus — even if it's filed somewhere your current view doesn't show. Links point at the paper itself, so renaming it, editing its metadata, moving it between folders, or replacing its PDF won't break them, and the same link opens on your Mac when iCloud Sync is on. • Point at the passage, not just the paper — While reading, Copy Link to This Page copies a link that reopens the paper at the page you're on, so a citation in your notes lands where the argument actually is. • Works with your automations — Papyrus answers x-callback-url requests, so Shortcuts and link managers can capture whatever you're reading — title, link, and the PDF's location — without going through the clipboard. • See where a paper lives — The paper inspector now shows the folders and projects a paper belongs to, right beside its tags, and lets you take it out of a project without leaving the pane. Before this, "Add to…" was the only control there, and it never told you where the paper already was. • Notes say what they're about — A note now names the paper it belongs to and takes you straight back to it. • Easier-to-scan library rows — Consecutive papers are easier to tell apart, with your choice of alternating row shading or separator lines in Settings → General. • Plus the usual round of refinements and fixes. ### 1.5.4 — 2026-07-27 • Smart Collections that match more — Text Match, Tag Filter, and Document Type each take several values now instead of just one. For Text Match and Tag Filter you also choose whether a paper must match Any of your values or All of them, so "Alice Smith or A. Smith" and "tagged both methods and optics" are each a single rule. • Save what you're signed in to read — The Safari extension captures the PDF from inside your browser session, so a paper behind a publisher sign-in you have access to saves with the Papyrus button, not just open-access files. • See exactly what a refresh changed — After refreshing metadata across your library, the summary now lists which papers were updated and which fields (title, authors, year, or abstract) changed, instead of just a count. • Flags you can read without color — Each of the seven flag colors now carries its own shape as well as its hue, so flags stay tellable apart without relying on color alone. • Plus the usual round of refinements and fixes. ### 1.5.3 — 2026-07-20 Flags are now a real way to organize. • Filter by flag from the library filter menu, and build Smart Collections that match any set of colors. • Sort by flag to group the library by color, with unflagged papers last. • Name your flags — "To Read", "Needs Reply", whatever fits. The name follows the color through menus, filter tokens, and collection summaries. Sharper metadata when you import. Papyrus reads author lists, years, and titles more accurately — especially on Springer, IEEE, and magazine-style PDFs. Bylines that wrap across several lines now come in complete instead of stopping halfway, journal boilerplate no longer lands in the author field, and a year mentioned in passing ("published in December 1919") is no longer mistaken for the publication year. A calmer Projects workspace on iPad. Papers, Evidence, and Draft each carry their own accent, so it is always clear where you are. Captured evidence now reads like a note — claim, quote, and interpretation laid out for reading — with the editing controls one tap away instead of permanently on screen. Explanatory text steps aside once a section has real content, the add-evidence form stays folded until you want it, and note previews show your writing instead of raw Markdown. Fixes • iPad: sidebar section arrows line up with the badge column.. • The checkmark on the lighter flag swatches is legible in both light and dark mode. • VoiceOver reads your custom flag names, and the shortcut-validation dismiss button is now labeled. ### 1.5.2 — 2026-07-14 NEW • Now on iPhone: read, browse, capture, and file your papers with a companion designed for one hand. • References & Related — open a paper's reference list and related work right in the reader, and add any of them to your library with one tap. • Colored flags — triage papers with seven colored flags alongside star ratings. • Highlights notebook — every highlight across a project, gathered in one place. Tap one to jump straight to that spot in the PDF. • Review duplicates — find papers that look identical (same PDF, DOI, or title) and merge them; tags, notes, and highlights are combined. IMPROVED • Smarter importing: PDFs now land in the folder or project you're viewing, and you can drop several files onto a folder at once. • Sidebar: Tags, Folders, Projects, and Smart Collections now collapse — with counts for what's tucked away. • Fixed: BibTeX and RIS files import cleanly (including Mendeley exports) and export as proper .bib/.ris files. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-17.*