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An atlas is a book of maps. It helps you see where you’ve been, where you are, and where you might go next. That felt like a fitting name for an app that does the same thing for your reading journey. Atlas helps you navigate your reading. Your Home screen is the map, your lists are the routes, and every book a destination. And like any good atlas, it’s yours to explore at your own pace.

Atlas uses the Apple Books catalog to find books, covers, and metadata. When you search for a book, Atlas pulls results directly from Apple’s database. That means the catalog is large, but it’s not everything. Very niche titles, some self-published books, and certain regional editions may not appear. If a book is available on Apple Books, it should show up in Atlas.

You betcha. Your library, notes, reading history, and preferences are stored on your device and synced through your personal iCloud account. Atlas doesn’t have its own servers and never sees your data. There are no analytics frameworks, no advertising SDKs, and no third-party tracking tools in the app. The only external connection Atlas makes is to Apple’s search API when you look for books, and those queries aren’t stored. You can read the full privacy policy in About Atlas in Preferences for more detail.

Yes! Atlas syncs your library through iCloud automatically, so your books, notes, reading history, and preferences are backed up and available on any device signed into the same Apple account. If you ever delete and reinstall Atlas, your library will come back on its own. No setup required on your end.

Yes! Atlas can import your library from Goodreads, StoryGraph, or any CSV file. Head to Preferences and tap Import & Export to get started. You’ll find step-by-step instructions for exporting your data from each service, and Atlas will handle the rest, including your reading history, notes, and ownership info where available.

Atlas organizes your books across five lists: Reading is for books you’re actively reading right now. Reading Next is your short list of books you definitely plan on reading soon. Someday is for books you might read one day, and is a broader list of books you’re interested in but haven’t committed to yet. Read is for books you’ve finished. Set Aside is for books you’ve stopped reading, whether temporarily or for good.

Yes! You can drag and drop books to set your own reading order within any list (as long as the sort is set to Manual Order). This is especially useful for Reading Next and Someday, where the order you plan to read your books matters. Your custom order syncs across devices too.

The core Atlas experience is completely free, and it always will be. There are no pop-ups asking you to upgrade, no banners at the top of your home screen or library, and no features designed to feel broken until you pay. Everything you need to search for books, organize your library, take notes, and track your finished dates is included from day one.

An optional lifetime upgrade called Atlas Voyager is on the way, adding extra features for readers who want to go further. It will never replace or get in the way of the free app you already have. You can read more about Voyager in the next question.

Atlas Voyager is an optional lifetime upgrade that adds extra features on top of the core Atlas experience. It isn’t available yet, but it’s on the way. When it launches, it’ll live quietly in the preferences sheet, there for readers who want it and out of the way for those who don’t.

The core Atlas experience is free, complete, and always will be. Nothing you have today will be taken away or moved behind Voyager. Features like your library, lists, notes, reading history, import and export, iCloud sync, and everything else that ships in the free app stays free forever. Voyager only adds to what’s here.

Voyager is designed as a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, so you pay once and own it for good. The price will start low when Voyager first launches, and it will go up as more features ship over time. That means early supporters get the lowest lifetime price, and anyone who buys in later is paying for a more feature-complete version of Voyager. Whatever price you pay, you keep every feature that ever lands in Voyager, including the ones added years later.

Atlas is built and maintained by one person, and Voyager is what makes it sustainable to keep putting real time and energy into the app. The core Atlas experience is already the app I set out to build and use myself. Voyager exists for readers who want something more, and a one-time lifetime upgrade felt like the most respectful way to offer that, without ever making the free app feel incomplete or pressuring anyone to upgrade. If you’re happy with the free Atlas, that’s the intended experience. Voyager is there for readers who want to go further.

You can see the planned Voyager features on the Roadmap page in Preferences.

This is intentional. Once a rating system exists, every unrated book in your library starts to feel like unfinished homework. Ratings can also be inconsistent. For example, the book you’d rate three stars today might feel like a five star book next year. People and opinions change, but a rating remains static. Atlas takes a different approach: if you loved a book, favorite it and leave a note on the book’s detail page about why. A few words about what a book meant to you will always say more than a number ever could.

Because Atlas will never make you feel bad about how much (or how little) you read. There are no streaks, no challenges, no progress bars, no reading timers, and no notifications reminding you to log your reading. Those features turn reading into a task with a scoreboard, and that’s not what Atlas is for. You read because you love to, not because you have to. Atlas respects that.

Because you already know how far you are into a book. You have a bookmark in it, or your e-reader shows a percentage. Atlas doesn’t need to duplicate that, and it definitely doesn’t need to turn every book into a half-filled bar reminding you what you haven’t finished yet. Progress bars only work if you update them constantly, and that turns reading into data entry. Atlas tracks what matters to you: what you’re reading, what you’ve read, and what’s next. The rest is between you and your book.

A dedicated wishlist would feel redundant inside Atlas. Your Reading Next and Someday lists already hold books you want to read, and the Ownership filter lets you narrow any list down to just the books you don’t have yet. So if you want to see everything you’re interested in but haven’t picked up, just open Reading Next or Someday and filter by Not Owned. That’s your wishlist. Adding another layer on top of that would create more to manage without solving a problem that isn’t already handled. That said, Custom Lists are coming in a future update, so if you still want a list called “Wishlist,” you’ll be able to create one yourself.

Atlas searches the Apple Books database for results. Most traditionally published books are available, but some titles (especially self-published, very niche, or regionally published books) may not appear. If a book isn’t showing up, it’s likely not in Apple’s catalog rather than an issue with Atlas. If a book you’re looking for isn’t showing up, you can add it manually by tapping the plus button on the search page and filling in the details yourself.

Tap the plus button on the search results page to add a book manually. You’ll be able to fill in the title, author, publication date, genres, description, and even add your own cover image. Only the title and author are required, so add as much or as little as you’d like. Once created, it’ll act like any other book in your library. Manually added books also include an “Edit Book Details” button in the ellipses menu on their book detail page to make changes later.

Genres in Atlas are mapped from the categories that Apple Books assigns to each title. Sometimes those categories are broad, unexpected, or just a little off. Atlas does its best to translate them into useful labels, but it’s working with what the source data provides. Genre editing is something being considered for a future update. If you come across any genre labels that seem off, or a book is filtering to the wrong genre, please report an issue on the Get In Touch screen.

Your library syncs to iCloud, so if you reinstall Atlas on a device signed into the same Apple account, your books, notes, and reading history should come back automatically. That said, if you’ve disabled iCloud for Atlas or deleted your iCloud data, your library would only exist on-device and could be lost. It’s always a good idea to make sure iCloud sync is active.

Atlas was designed for iPhone, since that’s the device most readers have on them throughout the day. I’d love to bring a tailored iPad experience to Atlas someday, and whether it happens (and how soon) will depend on user feedback. In the meantime, the iPhone version runs on iPad in windowed mode, which works nicely if you want to manage your library there. A Mac version isn’t planned at the moment.

Hit the Get in Touch button at the top of this page. With that button you can report an issue, send feedback, request a feature, or just say hello. Every message goes directly to me, a real, live, breathing person. I read everything that comes in, and love hearing from users, so please reach out!