# ShelfPlayer - Audio Book Shelf — user reviews > 174 indexed App Store user reviews of ShelfPlayer by AI Tools Apps SRL, rated 3.80/5 from 134 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shelfplayer-audio-book-shelf/id6475221163/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shelfplayer-audio-book-shelf/id6475221163.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 75 · 4★ 18 · 3★ 9 · 2★ 9 · 1★ 23 ## What do users think of ShelfPlayer? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 🚀 Runs on all Apple platforms - 👍 Provides better UI experience - 💡 Potential for great features - 🚀 Smooth playback - 👍 Beautiful and intuitive UI - 👍 Integrates well with iOS and CarPlay - 👍 Open-source and developer responsive **Cons** - 🐛 Critical bugs preventing usage - 🐛 Constantly losing book progress - 🐛 Crashes and instability issues - 🐛 Offline mode not working - 🐛 Slow startup and loading times - 🐛 Unreliable syncing and login issues - 🐛 Widgets not working as expected **Commonly reported bugs** - Unable to present all books from an author - Keeps resetting book progress - Offline mode broken, can't play downloaded books - Crashes after recent update - Widgets not updating with last played book - Login issues and app getting stuck in offline mode **Most requested features** - Option to load fully downloaded books without server handshake - Ability to filter library view to only downloaded books - Add support for ebooks and PDF files - Customizable playback speed options beyond 2x - Implement a static reading queue/playlist - Add Apple Watch support for offline listening ## Newest reviews (13 of 174) ### 3/5 — Pretty good but lots of bugs *2026-07-16* There is a bug where the audio stops playing at midnight and cannot be restarted without going to the app. Also the chapter selection from the book page is broken but it works in the playback menu with visual bugs. Sometimes the downloads randomly disappear. ### 3/5 — Decent but needs work *2026-07-14, version 3.3.0* Constantly going offline, losing my current position in my book, skipping too far, etc. it’s just pretty clunky ### 2/5 — Constantly losing podcast/audiobook progress *2026-07-06* Using the sleep timer function for several 20 minute podcast series and audio books. When the timer runs through several episodes or chapters over the course of an hour long timer I constantly find the shelf player app not saving progress to ABS on timer end and starting right back where the last session began. I’m losing multiple episodes or chapters of progress and taking up a lot of time constantly re-marking episodes complete or trying to figure out where to resume an audiobook before continuing listening sessions. The UI is very nice but this functionality flaw is heavily detracting from the experience ### 4/5 — Almost perfect! *2026-06-10* This app is getting really really close to perfect. It's the only one that handles seasons well! My only advice regards the mini-player animation. It is SO cool that you have emulated Apple's shrinking album cover effect (I'm geeking out about it!), but I'm not sure it's really ready for release. Until it's smooth and snappy, I'd rather have the whole player slide down off the bottom of the screen quickly and smoothly than have a fancy animation that feels slow and finicky. If it weren't for that, I could easily be convinced this app was built by the Apple devs themselves! 👏👏👏 ### 2/5 — Finally fixed the background crashing, but many other issues added in the process *2026-04-10* Previous update finally solved the background crashing issue, but caused numerous other issues. 1. Trying to play a completed episode without first explicitly resetting progress causes an instant crash 2. If you have used the sleep timer, you must set to random value, then cancels, then set again. Otherwise it will show a negative number in the thousands and prevent podcasts from playing 3. The latest field has disappeared from CarPlay with no discernible way to get it back. 4. Double click AirPods no longer skips forward, but instead SKIPS TO THE NEXT EPISODE unlike every other audio app in existence. There seems to be no way to change this 5. The currently playing display at the bottom of the screen with occasionally stop working and require a force close 6. Occasionally will crash when queueing multiple episodes To users - maybe just use plappa. It’s clunky and less pretty, but it actually works consistently To the dev - maybe layoff the vibes. Random things are breaking and changing in every update. Kinda bums me out **Developer response:** Should be fixed in version 3.2.1 ### 2/5 — Very promising, very buggy *2026-03-17, version 3.2.0* Unlike Plappa, this runs on everything Apple - iOS, iPadOS, MacOS and provides better UI experience. Unfortunately, critical bugs won’t let me switch away from Plappa. The biggest one is inability to present all books from an author. Say I have 16 books of Dan Simmons. ShelfPlayer shows 16 as a counter of all books from Dan Simmons, but only subset is shown in the actual book list… that’s a hard stop, critical issue for me ### 2/5 — Abstürze!!! *2026-03-16* Seit dem letzten Update startet die App gar nicht mehr sondern stürzt direkt wieder ab. Zuvor war ich eigentlich recht zufrieden aber seit heute geht nichts mehr! Bitte bald möglichst nachbessern!!! **Developer response:** Ist in Update 3.2.1 behoben ### 2/5 — Great except critical pain point *2026-03-09* This app does a lot of things great except for loosing my position in my book every few days leaving me to manually find it again, which is very frustrating. I will come back and see if things have improved in a few months but for now will use a different player with ABS. **Developer response:** Should be fixed in version 3.2.1 ### 2/5 — Constant crashing on latest update *2026-02-26, version 3.1.4* Crashes in the background constantly after the last update. Can’t make it through whole podcast before it crashes. Happens in offline mode as well ### 3/5 — Beste App, aber Bugs... *2026-02-20* Neben Plappa die beste App, leider gibt es momentan viele Bugs. - Car Play geht nicht. Zeigt meistens nur einen leeren Bildschirm - Offline mode (benutze ich sehr intensiv) geht nach einiger Zeit nicht mehr, der Player hängt dann beim Abspielen ohne Ton. Dann muss man kurz online gehen und erst dann geht es weiter mit dem Buch - hin und wieder vergisst der Player die Abspiel position und fängt immer von vorne an **Developer response:** Sollte in Version 3.2.1 behoben sein. ### 2/5 — Unstable *2026-02-18* Unfortunately horribly unstable even in offline mode, particularly with car play. Can go weeks without issues and then suddenly refuse to display anything or even play an audio book even if it’s on the phone and it’s been downloaded. ### 3/5 — Loading locally downloaded books. *2026-02-15* I love the app. This is not a criticism but a bug. I think we need an option to load fully downloaded books without the need for the book trying to “handshake” the server I assume for keeping your place across different devices. Some times they fail to load until you turn off Wi-Fi. I’ve already got cellular data turned off to try and prevent this but the Wi-Fi will still cause it. We just need an option to say “I’m already downloaded I only use this device - I don’t need to talk to the server” so it loads immediately. **Developer response:** Should be fixed in 3.2.0! ### 3/5 — Works great when it works *2026-02-07* I’m really happy overall with ShelfPlayer as it manages my audiobooks via audiobookshelf running on my Linux server. The problem is, it occasionally starts the book from the beginning. This isn’t a huge deal for shorter books, but I’m listening to 1000+ page books over the course of weeks/months and it takes a long long time of skipping around in the audio book to find my place. Infuriating. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — 用处不大，还不让退款 *2026-08-18* 可我的使用场景不匹配，退款时拒接退款。第一次见这种一味圈钱的软件。买前建议先确定自己有没有服务器端。不然不给退，钱跟扔了一样。 ### 1/5 — So far from what I have expected *2026-07-19, version 3.3.0* I am connecting to an instance of Audiobookshelf and I have to log in every other time that I open the app. Then it takes a minute to load the main screen and even though it downloads episodes it stll takes time before you can play anything. I do not recommend at all. There are better alternatives. ### 1/5 — A terrible update. *2026-03-16* A terrible update. I can no longer see the chapter information in individual music files, and there are also some playback crashes. ### 1/5 — Unusable *2026-03-03, version 3.1.4* This is so bad and unusable. Learn how to sync. You have literally one job and that’s to remember where i left off. ### 1/5 — Overall great, but keeps losing my progress *2026-03-03* I like everything about this app, except there’s a few UC oddities, such as preferences/settings being behind the bookmark icon. The dealbreaker is that it keeps losing my progress. I’ll have 2-3 good listening sessions and boom, book restarts when I resume. ABS knows my progress, I checked, so why does this client keep restarting? Fix this and my review goes straight to 4 or 5. **Developer response:** I am working on a fix and it should be ready soon! ### 1/5 — Off-line mode broken *2026-02-11, version 3.1.4* Off-line mode broken and the developer has an addressed it after being notified of the issue on a support forum. Can’t recommend this app until that is fixed. When you try to open and play a book off-line, it just hangs. ### 1/5 — Doesnt work offline *2026-01-20, version 3.1.4* This just sits at loading when i try to play audiobooks I’ve downloaded offline, if im connected to my local network it works but offline play is what i bought this for. Unacceptable ### 1/5 — Latest version crashes constantly. I wish I could get my money back. *2026-01-13, version 3.1.4* Since the release of the version in November, the app has become functionally useless. What once was the gold standard now has become a complete waste of time. Look elsewhere. ### 1/5 — Lacks the Polish of Plappa *2026-01-10* The fact that this app requires a upfront purchase when it lacks core features its crazy, definitely a predatory pricing model. Maybe the UI is ever so slightly tidier than plappa, but the entire app is just slow as can be. When you first open the app it has to take a few seconds to cache the server, then a few seconds to cache the file you want to listen to. Plappa doesn’t do this. You open Plappa it instantly presents you your books, and can essentially instantly start playing whichever book you want. Plappa also works seamlessly with airplay, where Shelfplayer continually struggles. Shelfplayer was a complete waste of money, only reason anyone uses it is sunk cost fallacy at the 5% prettier UI. ### 1/5 — Bugs after update *2025-12-29* keep setting my book progress, very frustrating **Developer response:** Should be fixed in version 3.2.1 ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Hervorragende App *2026-08-23* Die bisher beste App für Audiobookshelf die ich gefunden habe. Sieht gut aus, funktioniert gut und die paar Kleinigkeiten die noch nicht passen werden sicher noch behoben (z.B. dass sich die App immer um Mitternacht beendet und damit die Wiedergabe unterbrochen wird.) ### 5/5 — A must if you’re using a AudioBookShelf server *2026-08-07* Technically AudioBookShelf do have their own app, but it’s been in Beta for as long as I can remember and you can’t use it. Step up ShelfPlayer to fill the gap 😀. I use it all the time (bit of an audiobook addict) and it works great. It lets you download books for offline listening. ### 5/5 — Great App *2026-06-17, version 3.3.0* Does everything I need to, recognizes Audiobookshelf tags, collections, series etc. which is super helpful ### 5/5 — Gut *2026-05-29* Also funktioniert bei mir sehr gut. Bestimmt ne Menge Arbeit, danke dafür ### 5/5 — Works great when it works *2026-03-23* I’m really happy overall with ShelfPlayer as it manages my audiobooks via audiobookshelf running on my Linux server. The problem is, it occasionally starts the book from the beginning. This isn’t a huge deal for shorter books, but I’m listening to 1000+ page books over the course of weeks/months and it takes a long long time of skipping around in the audio book to find my place. Infuriating. Edit: seems fixed **Developer response:** Should be fixed in version 3.2.1 ### 5/5 — Been my primary audiobook player *2026-03-19* I’m at a period of life where reading books is difficult. I listen to books almost constantly. I have a half dozen audiobook apps and this one is my go to. I have multiple long series that I enjoy re-listening to, and this is a simple way to do that. ### 5/5 — Good ABS App *2026-03-17, version 3.2.0* This is my preferred Audiobookshelf app. I particularly like the integration with Shortcuts. ### 5/5 — Wonderful *2026-03-16, version 3.2.0* This the most elegant and beautiful app I have ever used. The attention to details is amazing when is coming to both functionality and design. ### 5/5 — Große Empfehlung für Audiobookshelf-Nutzer! *2026-01-28* Eine wunderschön gestaltete App um Audiobookshelf-Inhalte (vorhandene Podcasts/Audiobooks) auf iOS Geräten wiederzugeben. Neue technische iOS Funktionen sind sehr liebevoll umgesetzt. Eine der sehr, sehr wenigen Apps der letzten Jahre, die nahezu instant gekauft wurden. Top! Weiter so! Ich höre jeden Tag auf dem Weg zur Arbeit Podcasts über CarPlay und finde es seht cool, dass ich ShelfPlayer gefunden habe. Einige Feinheiten gibt es bestimmt noch zu verbessern, aber welche Software ist schon fertig ;-) Wenn du Bedarf, an einem TestFlight-User hast, melde dich gerne. In GitHub solltest ich zu finden sein. ### 5/5 — Self hosted Bliss *2026-01-18* For me this was the missing link for podcasts that I was downloading to my self hosted server and accessing via Audioshelf. This has made the pick up and play process a lot better. Very happy with the purchase. --- *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 2026-08-28.*