How WoodWork works

WoodWork opens on a shelf of public domain classics so it is never empty. Here is how to put your own books there instead.

Bringing in your own library

Your Apple Books and Kindle libraries live in databases that only your Mac can read, so a small companion app does the reading. It finds your books, looks up how many pages each one has, and sends the result to your own iCloud account.

Your iPhone picks the shelf up from iCloud on its own. The public domain books step aside and your library takes over. Each spine is as thick as the book is long, so a novella sits as a sliver next to something enormous.

Adding widgets and changing the look

Run as many shelves as you like. Every widget draws its own selection and keeps its own style, so Dark Oak can sit above White Built-In on the same screen.

To add one: touch and hold an empty spot on your Home Screen, tap the plus in the corner, search for WoodWork, then pick a size. Tapping a widget opens the app on that shelf, where you can change its style and see which books it is showing right now.

Using Calibre instead

If you keep your library in Calibre, skip the Mac app. WoodWork talks to your Calibre Content Server directly over your own network. Start the server from Calibre:

Then enter that address on your iPhone, choose a library, and the shelf fills in.

There is also a Calibre plugin if you would rather push your library across from the desktop. More on the Calibre page.

Where your books go

Nowhere except your own devices. WoodWork has no accounts and no server of ours anywhere in the path. The Mac app asks Open Library for page counts and writes your shelf to your own iCloud; the Calibre connection never leaves your network. Full privacy policy.