# RedShelf — user reviews > 228 indexed App Store user reviews of RedShelf by RedShelf, rated 4.50/5 from 7,078 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/redshelf/id1511013608/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/redshelf/id1511013608.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 5,812 · 4★ 450 · 3★ 149 · 2★ 106 · 1★ 561 ## What do users think of RedShelf? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 👍 Convenient to access textbooks in one place - 🚀 Decent overall performance **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and glitches - 💤 Slow loading and page turning - 👎 Unreliable highlighting and note-taking features - 🤖 Poor text-to-speech functionality - 📵 Inability to access books offline **Commonly reported bugs** - Books not loading or showing blank screens - Highlighting issues (selecting wrong text, unable to edit) - Sync issues between devices and web version **Most requested features** - Improve highlighting and annotation tools - Add support for split-screen mode - Enhance text-to-speech capabilities - Allow offline access to downloaded books ## Newest reviews (19 of 228) ### 2/5 — Can’t depend on it *2026-03-10, version 2.2.11* There has been half a dozen times that I’ve needed material and it wouldn’t open. I wish I had spent the money on books instead of this. At least I could reference them! The password reset is garbage, and downloading for offline, same! ### 2/5 — Just buy Paperback *2026-02-18, version 2.2.11* If you don't have any other choice for digital book just get paperback instead. This app is super buggy at least with PDF type of content. It fails to load forcing me to close the app several times before it works. If you have to buy a digital book and use it with this app- don't spend a little extra for a used paperback. This app is the reason why piracy is still common. You pay for something that doesn't work. ### 1/5 — Accessibility features are horrible *2025-10-24, version 2.2.10* The read aloud feature has the absolute worst voice selections possible. There is not a single normal American voice. All of the voices are in accents of other countries but they are still speaking in English. Most of the selections of voices are jokes? There are options such as “bubbles” and “bells” where the voices are literally bells or bubbles that you can not even understand. All of the voices are so weird they distract from the text being read. This is a horrible oversight for those that oversee the accessibility features. ### 1/5 — Worse than using the browser *2025-10-23, version 2.2.10* I wanted the app so I could read on my iPad while out and about and offline. I downloaded one book just fine, but the second one failed. It won’t let me download it because it says it’s already downloaded to the device and that I need to delete it, but I can’t do that because… it’s not downloaded. Off to a great start. I turn on airplane mode to test, and I get all sorts of fun errors, including: -Can’t open the book because they’ve changed the terms and conditions that I accepted 30 seconds ago. -“You’re offline!” …Yes. That’s why I downloaded the book to my device. -Some other error I didn’t write down that looks like a “page not found” sort of thing. At least with the browser, it seems to stay loaded as long as I refresh the page shortly before I leave. ### 2/5 — Dumb *2025-10-23, version 2.2.10* Don’t have any choice to use this but I should be able to search my books multiple times in a row without the app breaking. I also shouldn’t have to regularly reinstall the app because it stops loading anything. Happens on multiple devices and has only gotten worse with updates, ridiculous. ### 1/5 — Bad functionality *2025-10-19, version 2.2.10* Whatever they did for the last update broke the app. It makes me sign in literally every time I try to open a book and sometimes just to go to a new chapter. Highlighting is broken, glitchy and useless. I hate that students are forced to pay soooo much for these books but then we can’t even open them anywhere besides through this broken app. We should be allowed to use any ereader. ### 1/5 — Have To Constantly Delete And Reinstall *2025-10-13, version 2.2.9* The app is fine when it actually works, but I have to keep deleting and reinstalling it to use it. Frequently, I’ll click on my book just to be met with a white screen without text that doesn’t resolve until I reinstall the app. ### 1/5 — Useless *2025-10-12, version 2.2.9* This app is plagued by a critical bug: a blank white page that forces a full reinstall every time it happens. This issue has been known since 2021 and has not been fixed. The lack of updates shows an incompetent team and makes this a useless app. Avoid at all costs. ### 2/5 — Horrible program *2025-10-10, version 2.2.9* Truly the worst way to read a textbook. The app (and website) are extremely poorly designed and just get in your way constantly. That is, if it’s even working. Some days, RedShelf just decides that you don’t get to access the textbooks you paid for. If you can, get your textbooks elsewhere ### 1/5 — Basically unusable *2025-10-09, version 2.2.9* For being a major provider of digital textbooks this is horribly unreliable. It will constantly get a white screen of death which keeps you from accessing the textbook you need for class. To “fix” it you have to delete the app then reinstall….but if you have downloaded your book, you have now lost that book but the app thinks you have it still and will not allow you to download it again. Horrible app for required textbook. You are almost better off just buying a real book. ### 2/5 — Poor access *2025-10-09, version 2.2.9* First of all, you have to enter your email and get a code every time you want to open the app. Then you have to do that again to access a book. Half the time the books don’t load. I’ve had to delete and rebuy the app several times. You can’t go back to the bookshelf once your in a book. You have to close the app and reopen it. The read to me feature is very robotic and doesn’t let you select where to read from. So if you’re in the middle of a chapter and book mark it, you can’t pick up where you left off. It goes back to the beginning of the chapter. ### 2/5 — When it works, it's fine *2025-10-09, version 2.2.9* RedShelf is overall just an OK app. What I've found most difficult is the lack of a home button as well as the near-constant issues I have with opening books up in the app. Most times I just see a blank white screen no matter how many times I reload the app, so I end up having to go back to the browser version. The home button is more preference, because it feels weird opening up a drop-down window and click on a button indistinguishable from the others to get back to my shelf. ### 1/5 — issues with books *2025-10-08, version 2.2.9* Every week I am forced to delete and redownload the app on both my phone and ipad. The app will open just fine but refuses to open the books when selected. It will only show a blank white screen I cannot navigate away from without closing the app out and then deleting. This happens every 3-4 days currently. By far the worst app for ebooks ever created. I have even gone so far as to buying a new ipad and the issue persists still. ### 1/5 — App is junk, find another way *2025-10-07, version 2.2.8* This app is junk. Download for offline? Ha! Good joke. All you’ll get is a blank screen and the app needs force-closed. This app is trash and the developers are trash. ### 1/5 — White Screen Bug Persists *2025-10-06, version 2.2.8* Unusable ### 2/5 — Crashing way too much *2025-10-03, version 2.2.8* First it was the downloading issue and my book got marked as already downloaded and can’t do it again even though it wasnt! I kept having to delete and install again due to it being so laggy and crashing! It takes a student a fortune to purchase ebooks required from school. You need to consider fixing this ongoing issue ### 1/5 — Terrible app *2025-10-01, version 2.2.8* Hardly ever works. 90% of the time when you try to open up the book it just gives you a blank white screen. Very upset with Jeppesen for exclusively using RedShelf for their ebooks because it makes their products useless ### 2/5 — Not working *2025-10-01, version 2.2.8* No books will load, just a blank white screen. ### 2/5 — White Screen Issue *2025-10-01, version 2.2.8* Still having white screen issue after update ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Constantly crashes *2026-07-08, version 2.2.11* Crashes every 30 seconds, not an exaggeration, and cuts half the page off. ### 1/5 — Trash *2026-04-26, version 2.2.11* Like all half-baked e-readers that work with universities, this company provides half of the features for usability than any free option would have. It also has the wonderful habit of deciding that you are logged in multiple times, and will tell you that you can’t access the textbook you spent several hundred dollars to read. Unless your school forces you towards this money grubbing pit, avoid RedShelf. It’s as difficult to use and restrictive as you can imagine. ### 1/5 — Buggy with no offline. *2026-02-27, version 2.2.11* Lots of busy work just to read the book. It’s a pdf, I get you want to protect copyright, but come on let people have an offline mode. I fly often and would be nice to read. My only option is print everything physically before flying or print to pdf which defeats whatever reason they have for not supporting offline mode. Other times even with internet it won’t open and print works 50% of the time and only with less than 20 pages at a time. ### 1/5 — Always crashes *2026-02-05, version 2.2.11* The highlighting can be sensitive and erratic if you go back to make edits on them. But the most frustrating part is that the app continues to shut itself down after about 45 seconds. It’s hard to get any reading done when you’re always opening it back up. ### 1/5 — Worst reader app - so many bugs *2026-01-30, version 2.2.11* I have to use this app for my textbooks and this app constantly crashes!! I will read maybe a few pages and then it will crash. Or, it will just not load at all. WORST APP EVER ### 1/5 — Can’t Download Books and Formatting is Broken *2026-01-13, version 2.2.11* Forced by my textbook publisher to use this low quality app. I’m not sure why we are forced to use these half-baked apps when the Kindle app is available. Trying to download my books and it says unavailable to download until I delete them from the iPad I’m literally trying to download them on. The formatting is broken. Text is the wrong size and certain letters and words are laid on top of each other and are unreadable Red Shelf wants you to use their PC application as it I’ll be says on tablets PDF notetaking will be difficult. They are not wrong, PDF notetaking is next to impossible on an iPad even with my Apple Pencil. I will be writing the publisher of my textbooks and letting them know that I will not be purchasing another book from them unless they change to either Kindle or a more polished app. ### 1/5 — The App id Buggy and Support is a Joke *2026-01-08, version 2.2.11* I purchased a digital textbook for a class that I am taking. It was taking a while to load into my library on the app. I tried to to download a copy of the book to read offline on my iPad and it keeps erroring and telling me that I already downloaded it to my app. This happened on the first and every repeated try to download my book. Customer service was argumentative and ineffective. ### 1/5 — No way these 5 star reviews are real *2026-01-03, version 2.2.11* In a sea of bad apps, RedShelf takes the cake. The fact that you build an app for the purpose of interacting with academic text and the highlight functionality is busted—so busted that you tell people not to use it. It’s like a car without a steering wheel, useless. ### 1/5 — Horrible app *2025-11-26, version 2.2.11* I wish all my professors would just switch to Pearson. This compared to Pearson is like comparing roller skates to a Rolls Royce! ### 1/5 — Stopped working *2025-11-01, version 2.2.10* The app worked great for two days and now all I get is a blank page even after downloading the book makes it really hard to do schoolwork ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Great for annotations / built in flash card generator *2022-12-24, version 1.13.0* I’m a full time nursing student and I was assigned a ton of text books for this semester… I opted to get digital copies of my text books because I didn’t want to lug them around. Knowing my text books are all in one app and can be used off Wi-Fi is a GODSEND. I’m also an avid flash card learner and the built in flash card generator is amazing. It feels like I’m using quizlet! Love this platform so much. ### 5/5 — It has your book *2022-09-01* That’s the positive side. Compared to other apps that I use for buying my books, such as Pearson/Revel, it performs poorly. It would be nice if it did a better job of syncing where I left off in the app to when I access itthrough the website. Also, the robotic voice is off-putting. One thing I love about the Revel app is that it has real humans reading the chapters back to you. Since I use the app on my hours commute to school/work I’ll press play & listen to the robot. They could do a simple improvement of letting you adjust the rate of speed at which the robot reads back to you. Instead, I have to listen at their slow robotic pace. Also, if you add that adjustment, maybe you could consider letting me pick where I want the robot to stop/start reading. Revel forces you to have to listen to them from the beginning of the chapter, and although a humans voice sounds much better than a robot, it’s not the most productive. ### 5/5 — Good setup with opportunity for growth *2021-05-09* I was introduced to RedShelf when I started my adult journey to attaining a bachelors degree. I enjoy the site for the most part, there are a few items that could be improved in my opinion. One, the search engine can be a bit frustrating at times with how it displays search results. I’d like to see a page number and chapter number that is easier to quickly identify. The selection tool for copying and highlighting is a bit touchy when trying to select sections of text and a bit aggressive. Lastly, I’d like to see the bookmarks improved, now I don’t have any good ideas off-hand, I just know I use them and find them to be less useful when coming back to an area. **Developer response:** Hello and thank you for your feedback. We are in the process of fixing a few usability issues and will be sharing those updates soon. Have a great rest if the day! ### 4/5 — I would have given 5 stars except for 1 issue *2025-07-10, version 2.2.3* I like this app and I would’ve given it five stars if it had not been for something that I find a real annoyance. The issue is with the screen orientation. It’ll come up in normal portrait mode. You can turn it left or right and it will use those orientations but if you turn it upside down, it will not. I find that an annoyance because I like to read with my iPad upside down so that the power cord comes out the top and not the bottom which often damages the cord. ### 4/5 — Works overall *2025-02-08, version 2.1.1* Works well, but every once in a while I have to uninstall and reinstall it because it does not let me read the books in my shelf. ### 4/5 — Book won’t load *2024-12-04, version 2.1.0* Book won’t load half the time, it’s so frustrating!! ### 4/5 — great app with some big features missing *2021-10-17, version 1.7.0* I enjoy the app, but oftentimes highlighting with the Apple pencil can be awkward and you cannot scroll with it. Also, you aren’t able to scroll with the magic keyboard’s trackpad either Additionally, not being able to have two pages side by side is a huge feature that I love to have. Very disappointing to not have these things! ### 3/5 — Annoying Recent Feature *2025-11-23, version 2.2.10* It’s ok, but I find it really irritating now that every time I want to access a textbook, I have to wait for a confirmation code to be sent to my email. It would be better if that was removed. I understand it as a security feature but it’s so annoying to have to sign in a second time. If I am already signed in, why should I have to do it again to access a textbook? ### 3/5 — Still needs work *2025-08-02, version 2.2.3* Not bad as far as ereaders go, but could still use a bit of improvement. Most of my observations are minor things that just add up. However, my biggest gripe is with the reading aloud feature, if you call it a feature. Don’t even bother using it. The sound is so mechanical, even switching to different voices. It literally reads every single thing on the page. There are far far better reading engines out there. Which is a real shame because I travel frequently and this would be an incredibly valuable tool. ### 3/5 — Terrible voices *2025-04-02, version 2.1.1* This app is overall good for reading my course material but when I want it to read to me all of these voices are terrifying. --- *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 2026-09-07.*