Meet Bookbench — The private reading log you keep

Books

Bookbench

The private reading log you keep.

Every feature, from the first launch.

No account, no login, no cloud. Everything runs on your device and works fully offline — nothing in this post is hidden behind a wall.

What Bookbench does

Bookbench is the reading log for people who want to keep track of what they read, what they thought, and what to read next — without making it public on Goodreads, without uploading every quote to Readwise, and without an account.

What ships in v1:

— Library shelves: Currently reading, Finished, Want to read, DNF. Move books between shelves with a tap. — Add a book by typing it in or scanning the barcode (VisionKit). No cloud database call — your library is your library. — Capture quotes. Snap a page photo, optionally OCR the highlighted text via Vision, attach page number + your own note. Build your private commonplace book over years. — Reading stats. Pages per week, books per month, average rating, longest streak. Swift Charts, on-device. — Tag and search. Mood tags (cozy, thrilling, slow), topic tags (memoir, biography, sci-fi), search across all your notes and quotes. — Decimal ratings + DNF, the things Goodreads users left for StoryGraph. — Export. CSV or PDF of your whole library + quotes for safekeeping. — No account, no social feed, no algorithm, no cloud. Your reading is yours.

For the 4M+ StoryGraph users and the Goodreads diaspora who want the tracking without the public profile.

A look inside

Tap any screenshot to open the full-resolution version.

What's inside

Shelves — Currently reading / Finished / Want / DNF; tap to move
Add book — Barcode scan (VisionKit) or manual entry
Capture quote — Photo of page + optional OCR + page # + note
Stats — Pages/week, books/month, ratings, streak (Swift Charts)
Export — CSV or PDF of library + quotes via share sheet

Why we built it

Readers want a reading log + quote capture + stats but Goodreads (Amazon-owned) and StoryGraph (cloud account, social by default) require accounts and surface activity publicly; Readwise charges $9.99/mo for the quote-capture side alone.

What makes it different

Bookbench is the only iOS reading log that combines library shelves + barcode-scan add + VisionKit photo-to-quote capture + decimal ratings + DNF tracking + stats — fully offline with no account, no social feed, no cloud — Goodreads is Amazon-owned + public-by-default, StoryGraph requires a cloud account + shares acti…

Who it's for

Built for anyone who values fast, private, on-device software with a calm, focused UX.

In one line: The private reading log you keep.

Try it

See the Bookbench app page for the full feature list, the info table, and support links.

Use Bookbench, found a bug, or have a feature request? Comments are open below — anonymous is fine.