Reading
Save books and articles, track your reading, and keep notes on what you’ve read.
Saving something to read
- Share a link to Gatherby from your browser, a newsletter, or a message.
- Type a book title, for example “Trust by Hernan Diaz”, and Gatherby finds the book.
- 📷 Add a photo of a book cover and Gatherby adds the book and looks it up.
- Scan a barcode on iPhone (in the next update). See below.
Book details come from Open Library and Google Books.
What’s on an article’s card
- Source and author
- Where it’s from and who wrote it.
- Reading time
- About how long it takes to read.
- Image
- The article’s picture, so it’s easy to spot.
When you’ve finished an article, select Mark as read on its card.
Books
A book’s card shows the cover, author, page count, a short description, and links to get it, such as a bookshop, Libby, or Kindle, when available. If Gatherby picked the wrong book, select Not this one? to choose the right edition.
The filter at the top of the list switches between To read, Reading, Read, and All.
Tracking your progress
Progress is kept for each person. On the web:
- Open a book on your Reading list.
- Under Reading, select 📖 Start reading. The book moves to Reading.
- To record how far you are, choose Percent and move the slider, or choose Pages, enter your page and the total, and select Save.
- When you finish, select ✓ I finished it. The book is marked Read. If you marked it by mistake, select Not finished yet.
To stop tracking a book, select Stop reading. Progress tracking comes to the iPhone app in the next update.
Under each book, a line shows who in your household has read it or is reading it, for example “Kris read it (Oct 2026) · Jess is reading, 40%”. At the top of the list, the Reading now strip shows what each person is reading and how far along they are. Select a book there to open it.
Scanning a barcode (iPhone)
Available in the next iPhone app update, on phones that support live scanning.
- On a Reading list, tap Scan a barcode.
- Point the camera at the barcode on the book.
- Check the book on the card that appears, then tap Add to To read.
If the book is already on your list, Gatherby says Already on your list instead of adding it again.
Importing from Goodreads or StoryGraph
- Export your library as a CSV file. In Goodreads, go to My Books, then Import and export, then Export Library. In StoryGraph, go to Manage account, then Export StoryGraph Library.
- In Gatherby on the web, open Settings → Lists → Import books. In the iPhone app (in the next update), the path is the same.
- Choose the CSV file. Gatherby shows what it will add.
- Select Import.
Books you want to read come in as To read, books you’re reading as Reading, and books you’ve read as Read, with the dates you read them and your ratings. Custom shelves and tags aren’t imported. A book already on your list isn’t added twice, so uploading the same file again adds nothing new. Covers and page counts fill in over the next few minutes. Gatherby doesn’t keep the file.
Quotes
Save passages from a book. Quotes are visible only to your household. On the web:
- Open a book on your Reading list.
- Under Quotes, type or paste the passage in Save a quote. Add the page number if you like.
- Select Save quote.
In the next iPhone app update, you can type quotes on iPhone too, or photograph a page and pick the lines to save. The text is read on your phone. The page photo is uploaded only if Keep the page photo is on.
Reviews
Open a book or article to leave your own star rating and a written review. Everyone in your household can see them, and you can edit yours at any time.