BookOrbit

BookOrbit organises your books and reads them back to you anywhere. Ebooks, PDFs, comics, and audiobooks all get a reader in the browser, and your progress, highlights, and reading status follow you between the browser, a Kobo, and KOReader. Start a chapter on one, finish it on another.

Around that sit fourteen metadata providers, OPDS and Send-to-Kindle delivery, multi-user accounts, reading statistics and achievements, and automatic sync out to Hardcover, Readwise, and StoryGraph.

When does managed BookOrbit make sense?

• You read on a Kobo or in KOReader, and want progress and highlights to survive moving between devices rather than starting again each time.
• Your library is mixed. Ebooks, comics, and audiobooks live in one place instead of one app each.
• You already run a book library and want to move. BookOrbit imports directly from Grimmory, BookLore, Audiobookshelf, and Calibre-Web-Automated, so you are not rebuilding your collection by hand.
• Pair it with Shelfmark to search for and fetch books, then have them land in BookOrbit's Book Dock for review.

Get a 7-day trial of ElfHosted BookOrbit!

How do I access BookOrbit?

BookOrbit is available:

• From your dashboard: https://your-username.elfhosted.com
• Directly: https://your-username-bookorbit.elfhosted.com

Initial setup

The first time you open BookOrbit it asks you to create an admin account, and for a setup token. Enter:

changemeelfie

That token only works while your instance has no accounts on it, and the account-creation page is behind your ElfHosted login, so nobody else can reach it. Once your account exists the token stops working entirely.

After that:

1. Set a password you are happy with. This is BookOrbit's own login, separate from your ElfHosted one, because e-readers and OPDS apps sign in with it.
2. Create a library and point it at where your books live. The folder picker starts at /storage, so an rclone-mounted remote appears under /storage/rclone/<mount>/.
3. Scan the library, and let the metadata providers fill in covers and details.

Getting books in

There are three routes, and most people end up using more than one.

Book Dock is a watched folder. Anything dropped into storage/config/bookorbit/book-dock/ (via FileBrowser) is picked up, has its metadata extracted, and waits in the Book Dock screen for you to confirm the match and file it into a library. Files are only ingested once they have finished copying, so a slow upload will not be half-imported.

Shelfmark can deliver straight into that folder. In Shelfmark's settings, set the save path to /bookorbit-bookdock, and books you fetch there appear in BookOrbit for review.

Drag and drop in the web interface, for one-off additions.

Reading on a Kobo or in KOReader

This is what BookOrbit is built around, and both directions work: progress and annotations made on the device come back, and progress made in the browser goes out.

• Kobo: BookOrbit stands in front of the Kobo sync service, so your own library shows up on the device alongside anything bought from the store. Setup is per-device, from Settings.
• KOReader: install the BookOrbit plugin on the device for an on-device catalogue with search and download, plus progress and annotation sync.
• OPDS: for any other reading app, generate a personal OPDS feed and point the app at it.

Highlights from all three merge into one searchable hub, and can be exported as Markdown, CSV, or JSON, or pushed to Readwise as you make them.

Sharing with family

BookOrbit has its own user accounts with per-library permissions, so you can give someone access to part of your collection without giving them your ElfHosted login. Registration is closed by default; you invite people from the admin settings.

BookOrbit also works with

• Shelfmark

• Grimmory

• BookLore

• Audiobookshelf

• [Calibre Web][calibre web]

How do I get support for BookOrbit?

1. For general use of BookOrbit, refer to the official site or to one of the links in the resources section below.

2. For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration / account, see the ElfHosted support options!

Sponsor BookOrbit ❤️

You can contribute directly to the development of BookOrbit using the following:

• Ko-fi

BookOrbit resources

• BookOrbit (official site)

• BookOrbit Documentation

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