Audiobooks

An audiobook library is a library like Movies or TV, with its own type. Point it at the folder where your books live and the server groups the files into books, reads their chapters, and fetches covers, authors, narrators and series.

Adding the library

Settings → Libraries → New library, choose Audiobooks, and add one or more folders. Keep books in a library of their own, away from films and TV.

Once the server has an audiobook or podcast library, phones get a Listen tab beside Watch, and the TV apps show your books as shelves on the home screen.

How to lay out the folders

One folder is one book, however many files it came in. The files are played in order as one long book, with one position and one chapter list.

Audiobooks/
  Andy Weir/
    Project Hail Mary/
      Project Hail Mary.m4b
  Stephen King/
    The Dark Tower/
      1 - The Gunslinger/
        01.mp3
        02.mp3
        ...
      2 - The Drawing of the Three/
        Disc 1/
        Disc 2/

• Author / Series / Title, with every level optional. A book straight under an author folder has no series; a single file at the top of the library is a book of its own.
• A number at the start of a book folder inside a series folder is its place in the series: 1 - The Gunslinger, Book 2 - ... and Vol 2 - ... all work.
• Disc 1, CD 2 and Part 3 subfolders fold into their book.
• The book folder name can also carry a year, a narrator in braces and an ASIN in brackets: 1994 - Title {Narrator Name} [B00ABCDE12].

This is the same layout Audiobookshelf uses, so a library you already keep for it works as it is. Its metadata.json, an .opf, a desc.txt (the description) and a reader.txt (the narrators) beside the book are read and win over anything guessed from the folder. Nothing is ever written back into your folders.

A cover.jpg or folder.jpg in the book folder is the cover. Without one, the cover embedded in the first file is used.

Files

MP3, M4B, M4A, AAC, FLAC, Opus and Ogg all play. Ebooks and PDFs beside a book are ignored.

Audible’s own .aax and .aaxc files are protected with DRM. The scanner skips them with a line in the server log saying why, and Multipass never removes DRM.

Book details

Each book is matched against the Audible catalog through Audnexus, with Open Library and Hardcover behind it, for the description, cover, narrators and series. A detail from the book’s own files or sidecars is kept over a match.

Wrong match, or a field you want to own? Edit it by hand, the same as a film. See Metadata and matching.

The player

Open a book and press Play (or Resume, with the time left). The player has:

• Chapters. The list is the main way around a long book. Chapters come from the file, from a sidecar, or from the book’s listing when it fits the length of your copy.
• Skip back and forward, by the intervals you choose (10, 15, 30 or 45 seconds).
• Speed, with the pitch kept natural. A speed you pick for a book is remembered for that book.
• Sleep timer: a set number of minutes of listening, or the end of the current chapter. The last few seconds fade out. On a phone, shake it to keep listening.
• Bookmarks with an optional note, kept on the server so they are on every device.
• Volume boost for quiet recordings.
• Mark finished, and Start over.

Your place in every book is saved per profile and follows you between your phone, the TV and the browser.

Smart rewind: after a pause, the player goes back a little before carrying on, more the longer the pause was (nothing under ten seconds, up to twenty seconds after an hour or more). When the system paused it for you, for a call, Siri, the Assistant or a navigation prompt, it always goes back at least two seconds. Turn it off under Settings → Audiobooks and podcasts if you would rather it did not.

The same settings set your skip intervals and the speed new books start at. They follow your profile to every screen.

On iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets and in the browser, the down arrow folds the player into a bar at the bottom with play, pause and a 30-second skip. Tap the bar to open the player again; once paused, the X clears it. The TV apps play audio full screen.

The TV apps are for listening: shelves, book pages, the player, speed, the sleep timer and chapters. Bookmarks are listed there to jump to, and you add or edit them on a phone or in the browser.

Android phones can also trim silence, which shortens the quiet gaps without changing the book’s timeline. The Apple apps and the browser do not have it yet.

Home and Keep listening

Keep listening on home holds the books you are partway through, with the time left. Tap one to resume it. Like any home row, you can move or hide it.

Downloads

On iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets, Download book saves the whole book to the device so it plays with no connection. A book in many files downloads as one .m4b with its chapters and cover; the server makes that file first if it has not already. Downloads are part of the paid tier. See Downloads.

For the owner

On a book’s page in the browser:

• Edit chapters to rename, move, add or delete chapters. Your edit stays put through rescans and matches, and the files are not touched. Reset to automatic puts back the chapters from the files.
• Merge into one file makes a single .m4b of a many-file book, with its chapters and cover. The original files stay where they are. Players then use the merged file.

What everyone is listening to shows on the server’s Activity page, next to what they are watching.