PDF Library Management

Finally, a real libraryfor your PDF collection.

PDFBook is a desktop PDF library manager and reader for Windows, macOS, and Linux that treats your PDFs as a personal bookshelf, not a folder of files. Organize with folders, tags, star ratings, and reading state. Search across your entire collection. Thumbnail grid view shows covers at a glance. Everything is local, private, and fast.

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Folders, tags, and ratings

Create a folder hierarchy that matches how you think. Add tags for cross-cutting categories, star ratings for quality, and reading state (Unread / Reading / Completed) to track progress.

Search & in-document find

Find any PDF in your collection by title, author, tag, or path, then full-text search inside any open text-based document, with matches highlighted across every page. Full-text search works on PDFs that already contain a text layer. Image-only scans are not searchable (PDFBook has no OCR).

Thumbnail grid view

See your collection as a visual bookshelf with cover thumbnails. Quickly browse and pick your next read without scanning filenames.

Watch paths that re-scan your folders

Point PDFBook at a folder, and a launch or a manual Sync re-scans it and adds any new PDFs to your library. Keep downloading to your usual location, and PDFBook picks them up on the next scan.

Your files never leave your computer

How PDFBook organizes your PDFs

  • Folder hierarchy for structured organization (by topic, project, or year)
  • Tags for flexible cross-cutting categories across folders
  • Star ratings (1-5) to mark your favourites
  • Reading state: Unread, Reading, Completed, always know where you left off
  • A free-text note on each book for personal notes and reminders
  • Library search by title, author, tag, or path, plus full-text search inside any open text-based PDF (image-only scans are not searchable. No OCR)
  • Thumbnail grid view for visual browsing of your collection
  • Bookmarks and a Table of Contents (outline) sidebar in the reader, so you can jump to any page (Ctrl+B to bookmark)
  • Built-in AI assistant (Bookie): organize your library, edit metadata, and open or navigate books just by chatting (tool actions and AI Vision are Pro. The Free tier is chat-only. Bring your own key, run Ollama locally, or use OpenAI, Claude, or OpenRouter)
  • Watch paths re-scan designated folders on launch and on Sync to add new PDFs
  • Supports password-protected PDFs with per-book password memory
  • Local-first: your library metadata stays on your machine, never in the cloud

Stop scrolling through folders.

Turn your PDF collection into a searchable, organized library. Free for 50 books, $89 once for Lifetime.

Download PDFBook freeSee Lifetime ($89)

Frequently asked questions

How many PDFs can PDFBook manage?+
PDFBook's library has no hard limit on the number of PDFs. Users routinely manage collections of several thousand books. The Free tier caps at 50 books; Pro ($6.99/month or $29.99/year) and Lifetime ($89 once) remove that limit entirely.
Can I organize PDFs into folders and also tag them?+
Yes. PDFBook supports both a folder hierarchy (each book lives in one folder) and a tag system (each book can have multiple tags). This means you can file a book under Design > Typography and also tag it #reference, #fonts. The two systems complement each other.
Does PDFBook move my PDF files when I add them to the library?+
No. PDFBook reads your PDFs in place: it keeps a lightweight local file (library.json) of metadata (title, tags, ratings, notes) but never moves, copies, or modifies your original files. Your folder structure on disk stays exactly as it is.
What is a watch path?+
A watch path is a folder PDFBook re-scans for new PDF files on launch and whenever you click Sync. There's no always-on background watcher. New PDFs in that folder are added to your library on the next scan. You can set multiple watch paths, for example, your Downloads folder and a Dropbox sync folder.
Is my library data backed up or synced?+
PDFBook stores library metadata locally in a file (library.json) on your machine. There is no cloud sync. If you want to back up your library metadata, you can copy the PDFBook data folder. Your actual PDF files remain wherever you put them on disk.
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