Calibre is superb for a lot of things, but I was not able to make it maintain my library of EPUBs on my Kindle, the way I want. And I do not like the User Interface.
So I built reliure (means binding in French, because real books have bindings), this way I can have exactly what I want.
It is a desktop ebook library manager built for readers who use KOReader on their Kindle and want a fast, clean way to organize, enrich and send books to their device.
It focuses on the everyday workflow around a personal library: importing books, fixing metadata, browsing covers, and moving files to the reader with the right folder structure.
It also tracks what is already on the reader, what you are reading, and turns KOReader’s reading data (progress, highlights, ratings and statistics) into something you can actually browse and see in the dashboard.
Library And Organisation
- Builds a local ebook library from files or folders.
- Imports books by copying them into a managed library, or by referencing files where they already are.
- Automatically imports new books dropped into a watched folder.
- Extracts metadata, authors, series, tags, language, identifiers and covers, with deduplication (same file, or same title/author across formats).
- Shows the library as a cover grid, list, author view, series view or tag view.
- Dynamic shelves: rule-based collections that populate themselves (by tag, language, series, reading status, presence on the reader…).
- Reading-status filters in the sidebar: In progress, Finished, Abandoned.
- Annotations view that groups every highlight and note by book.
- Lets you edit metadata book by book or quickly in a spreadsheet-like table, including batch edits.
- Generates and regenerates cover thumbnails.
Reading Tracking And Ratings
- Mark books as reading, finished, abandoned or unread, entirely inside the app.
- Set progress by percentage or page, and rate books from 1 to 5 stars.
- Progress bars, “read” and “on reader” chips appear right on the grid and list.
- When you sync from KOReader, progress only ever moves forward, and a rating or status you set by hand is never overwritten by the device.
Reading Statistics (from KOReader)
When enabled, it reads KOReader’s statistics database and turns it into a dashboard:
- Total reading time, days read, pages read and your best day.
- Reading time by weekday and by hour of the day.
- A calendar heatmap of daily activity, click any day to see the books read that day and for how long.
- Your most-read books, and a month-by-month timeline (pick the year, expand a month to see the time spent on each book).
- Fetched over WiFi through the Calibre connection (no cable), automatically when the reader connects, and cached so it stays visible offline.
Analytics Dashboard
A dashboard summarises the whole library: counts of books, authors, series and tags, total size on disk, a reading-status breakdown, and distributions by format, language, top authors and additions per month.
KOReader Integration
It is designed from the start to be a good companion app for KOReader.
- Send selected books wirelessly through the Calibre wireless protocol, with the exact destination folder you configure (a path template with variables, or a per-book override).
- Expose the library as an OPDS catalog for pull-based downloads.
- Keep a
.reliureinventory on the reader so the app knows which books are already there — shown as an on-reader chip and a library filter (show only books on / not on the reader) to make transfers easy. This presence stays visible even after the reader disconnects (cached, refreshed on reconnect). - Sync reading progress, annotations and star ratings from KOReader, either over WiFi (we read the
.sdrsidecars directly through the Calibre connection) or from a folder (a mounted device or a synced copy). - Optionally write edited metadata back into the EPUB so KOReader shows it too.
Search
- Fast, instant search across titles, authors, series and tags.
- Optional full-text search inside book contents: indexes the text of your ebooks so you can find a book by a phrase it contains, with an occurrences view showing where the phrase appears.
Metadata And Discovery
It includes tools to improve and complete messy libraries:
- Online metadata lookup from Google Books, OpenLibrary and the BnF catalog.
- Editions shown side by side, ranked by your preferred language, with a per-field merge so you choose exactly what to keep or replace (including an author-name flip and cover replacement from online results).
- Discover and import public domain books from Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks directly inside the app.
Interface
- Light and dark themes that follow the OS or a manual choice.
- Available in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
Supported Formats
It currently focuses on EPUB (.epub.images, .epub.noimages, .epub3.images, .kepub and .kepub.epub) and PDF.
Built With
- Go for the backend and library logic.
- SQLite for local storage.
- Svelte for the interface.
- Wails v3 for the native desktop shell.
Screenshots
| Feature | Screenshot |
|---|---|
| Library |  |
| Library (as list) |  |
| Currently reading |  |
| Dashboard |  |
| Reading statistics (from KOReader) |  |
| KOReader currently reading sync |  |
| KOReader reading details |  |
| Discover |  |
| Dynamic shelves |  |
| Full-text search |  |
| Full-text search results |  |
| Full-text search in dark mode |  |
| Internationalized interface |  |
Until next time!