Available now — in Alpha
Mac & iPad Library
Everything below works today in the Alpha builds on TestFlight. Alcove runs on macOS 15.7 or later and iPadOS 18.4 or later; a few features need macOS/iPadOS 27 and Apple Intelligence, and say so.
Library
- Import EPUB, PDF, MOBI, and AZW3 files by drag & drop, File → Import, or iCloud Drive — no Calibre installation needed for MOBI/AZW3, and the original file is kept
- Grid and list views with cover art, format badges (EPUB / MOBI / PDF), ratings, and reading status
- Sidebar filters: reading status, tags, star ratings, series
- Search across title, author, series, tags, and synopsis, ranked by relevance, with scope filters
- Sort by title, author, date added, rating, reading status, or series
- Multi-select: bulk rate, tag, set status, delete, or share
- Multiple libraries, each kept on this device or in iCloud — and a library can be converted from one to the other
- Duplicate detection at import, plus Find Duplicates across the library
- Library archive export and import, and JSON metadata export
Metadata & Organization
- Edit title, authors, publisher, series name and position, ISBN, and synopsis
- Extended details shown from the book's own metadata: page count, subjects, contributors, rights
- Metadata lookup by ISBN or title/author from OpenLibrary, and from ISBNdb (free for testers)
- Read metadata from a PDF — pulls title, author, and ISBN from the PDF's text, using OCR for scanned PDFs
- Cover art lookup from Apple Books, OpenLibrary, and ISBNdb (free for testers) — single book or batch wizard
- Series tools: series read from EPUB metadata and titles, Strip Series from Titles, Fix Series Capitalization
- Library Cleanup, including author-name normalization
- Fixed-layout EPUB detection with an automatic Comics tag on import
- Calibre library import (Mac) — reads your Calibre metadata.db directly and brings in books, covers, tags, series, ratings, and reading status in one wizard
- Tags, star ratings (0–5), reading status (Unread / Reading / Read / Did Not Finish)
- Full undo/redo for every change
AI & Cleanup Tools
- Merge duplicate tags and author names (AI) — the model proposes merges, obvious mistakes are filtered out, and you confirm each one
- Suggest Tags (AI) for selected books, reviewed before anything is applied
- Simplify Tags — collapse long library-catalog subject headings ("Pirates -- Fiction") into simpler tags, with a review step
- Repair corrupted text — Library Cleanup fixes punctuation lost to bad encoding in downloaded metadata
- Free AI: Apple's on-device model, plus Apple's Private Cloud Compute on macOS/iPadOS 27 (Apple Intelligence required)
- Bring your own key — use Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or a local model with your own API key; a separate one-time purchase
Sync, Sharing & System
- iCloud sync across Mac and iPad — metadata, covers, and files
- Open any book in your preferred reader (Apple Books, Kindle, Marvin, Legible, etc.)
- System share sheet: AirDrop, Mail, Messages, Save to Files
- Spotlight: every book shows up in system search; open a result directly in Alcove
- Siri: say "Open title in Alcove"
- Built-in help on Mac and iPad, and in-app bug reports with optional sync diagnostics
Mac-Only
- AppleScript support for automation and scripting workflows
- Multiple windows (document-based, full state restoration)
Beta 1 — Next
Public Beta
TestFlight opens to a wider group. Everything stays unlocked for testers, except bring-your-own-key AI, which goes through a test purchase.
- Basic in-app reader — read EPUBs without leaving Alcove. A simple read-only view to start; the full reader comes with 1.0.
- Smart classification — AI looks across your whole library and proposes tags and series groupings. You accept or reject each suggestion before anything is applied. Runs on Apple's model or your own key.
- Series detection from a book's synopsis
- Metadata from a cover or title-page image on macOS/iPadOS 27; earlier versions keep using OCR
- Accessibility pass: VoiceOver, Full Keyboard Access, Increase Contrast, Reduce Motion on Mac and iPad
- More AppleScript coverage on Mac
Beta 2 — Upcoming
macOS & iPadOS 27
These features rely on APIs new in macOS/iPadOS 27. Alcove keeps working on earlier versions without them.
- Book summaries — summarize a whole book using Apple's Private Cloud Compute
- Ask about your library — questions like "which of my books are about ocean voyages?"
- Siri library search — ask Siri to find books in your library
- Richer Shortcuts — find books by tag, rate, set reading status, add tags, and act on many books at once
- Search inside books — search the text of your books, not just their metadata
- Alcove Plus goes on sale — the optional subscription becomes purchasable here, so testers using ISBNdb metadata and cover lookups can keep them at release. Not an OS 27 feature; it lands in this stage because that is when it is needed
1.0 — App Store launch
Reading & iPhone
- Full in-app reader for EPUB and PDF on Mac and iPad — themes, fonts, and pagination
- Reading position sync across devices via iCloud
- Bookmarks, highlights, and notes
- In-book search
- iPhone app — shares the iPad app's code and syncs with your Mac and iPad. It may follow shortly after 1.0.
- Record where each book came from — which store, or sideloaded
- Purchases go live: a free tier for libraries up to 50 books, and a one-time Pro purchase
Later — after 1.0
Collections & More
- Collections — curated book groups, like playlists. A book can belong to multiple collections. Drag books from the grid onto a collection in the sidebar ↑ vote
- Smart Collections — saved filter queries that auto-populate. Build rules from any combination of genre, tags, rating, reading status, author, series, and more ↑ vote
- Genre taxonomy — a structured genre hierarchy (Fiction → Science Fiction → Space Opera) alongside freeform tags. Built-in genres plus custom ones you create ↑ vote
- Catalog-only entries — catalog DRM-locked books (Kindle, Apple Books) without a file. Full ratings, tags, and metadata; cover art via ISBN lookup ↑ vote
- Reading statistics — books read per month, total reading time, reading streaks ↑ vote
- Alcove Plus, fully built out — cloud AI without your own key, on top of the ISBNdb metadata and cover lookups the subscription already covers
Not currently planned
Built If There's Demand
No stage commitment. Some of these were on earlier versions of this roadmap. Votes decide whether they come back.
- Calibre Content Server import (Mac & iPad) — browse and import from a running Calibre server on your network; would give iPad a way to import from Calibre ↑ vote
- OPDS support — expose your Alcove library as a local OPDS feed for other reader apps, and browse/import from public OPDS sources like Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks ↑ vote
- Wishlist — track books you want to read or buy, with a badge for publishers that sell without DRM ↑ vote
- DRM-free ebook finder — watch your wishlist and alert you when a book becomes available DRM-free ↑ vote
- Annotation export — export highlights and notes from the reader to Markdown, Obsidian, or plain text ↑ vote
- More Siri actions — rate what you just finished, mark a book as read
- Visual Intelligence — point your iPad's camera at a book cover to add it to your library
- Multiple windows on iPad
A note on AI and your books
What Gets Sent Where
AI features are optional, and they propose changes — you decide what's applied. Apple's on-device model never sends anything off your Mac or iPad. Otherwise, data goes only to the AI you've set up: Apple's Private Cloud Compute, or a provider you've chosen with your own key. Usually that's title, author, and description. Reading metadata from a PDF sends text from its first pages, and the planned book summaries send book text to Private Cloud Compute. None of it passes through Alcove's servers. See the privacy policy for details.