Codex Books Support
How to add books by barcode, cover photo or search, how to bring a library across from Goodreads or StoryGraph, and what to do when a book won't resolve.
Codex Books catalogues the books you own. Add them by scanning the barcode, photographing the cover, or searching by title — then track reading status, ratings and favourites, organise by author, year or category, and check in a bookshop whether you already own something. Libraries import from and export to Goodreads, StoryGraph and LibraryThing.
There is nothing to configure. Open the app and start adding books — lookups work immediately. The first ten books are free; beyond that a single one-time purchase unlocks an unlimited library, with no subscription and nothing that renews.
The camera is requested the first time you scan. Grant it for barcode scanning and cover photos; everything else works without it.
Off by default. Turn on Auto-translate non-English in Settings and titles, descriptions and categories in other languages are translated as books are added.
On iPhone and iPad your library lives in your iCloud account and syncs between devices. On Android it is included in Google Drive Auto Backup and returns when you reinstall.
Anonymous diagnostics, switchable off in Settings. They never contain any part of your library.
Four ways in, because no single one works for every book. Tap the plus icon on the Library screen to reach them all.
Point the camera at the barcode on the back cover. The app needs to see the same number twice before it commits, so a single misread frame can't add the wrong book.
If glare, a price sticker or a crease makes the barcode unreadable, the same camera reads the ISBN printed beside it as text and confirms the match that way instead.
Photograph the cover, or choose an existing photo, then tap Process. The app reads the text on the cover, pulls out any ISBN it can see, builds searches from the rest, and scores each result against what it actually read.
Results appear under Potential Matches, best first. Anything it wasn't sure about is listed separately under Uncertain / ignored, with the reason.
Choose Manual Search and type what you know. Tap the plus button beside the right result to add it.
New and self-published books are sometimes in no catalogue at all. When a scanned ISBN can't be resolved, the app offers to save it with a title you type, keeping the ISBN attached.
The Library screen is the whole app: everything else opens from the row of icons across the top.
The barcode icon opens the bookshop screen. Scan a book on the shelf and it answers immediately — showing the reading status and rating you gave it if you own it, and offering to add it if you don't.
It's reachable without opening the app: a Control Center control and Siri on iPhone, a Quick Settings tile and a long-press shortcut on the home screen on Android.
The segmented control groups your library by Author, Year or Category. Tap any book to read its description.
The Status chip narrows the list to Unread, Reading or Read. The star chip beside it shows favourites only.
Tap the pencil icon, then the pencil on any row, to set the author, reading status, star rating, favourite and category. Marking a book Read records the date you finished it — and editing the rating of a book you'd already finished won't overwrite that date.
Swipe a book right to toggle it as a favourite, or left to delete it.
The magnifying glass searches only what you own — by title, author, genre, ISBN-10 or ISBN-13.
Everything lives in Settings, under the gear icon. Your library is never locked in.
Export a CSV from that site, then choose Import Library CSV. Titles, authors, ISBNs, ratings, reading status and finish dates come across. Author names stored back-to-front are corrected on the way in.
Use Export Codex JSON on the old device and Import Codex JSON on the new one. This is the complete record, including descriptions, covers and notes.
Export Library CSV writes the same format those sites read, so your catalogue moves anywhere.
An import larger than the free ten-book limit adds what fits and tells you how many were left out, so nothing is silently dropped.
Give it more light and hold steady — the app deliberately waits for two matching reads. Failing that, it will pick up the ISBN printed near the barcode as text. If the cover is damaged, type the number under Manual Search.
Check your connection first. Lookups try Google Books, then Open Library, then isbnsearch.org, so a book missing from all three is usually very new or self-published — use Add with this ISBN to record it anyway.
Crop tighter around the front cover and avoid glare. A barcode scan is more reliable when there is one.
Two records with the same ISBN are the same book. Rather than duplicate it, the app updates the one you already have, keeping the further-along reading status.
Open Settings and tap Restore Purchase. It restores free on any device signed in to the same Apple Account or Google account. If it reports it couldn't reach the store, that's a connection problem rather than a missing purchase.
On Apple devices check that iCloud is on and signed in to the same account. On Android, Auto Backup restores during setup — if you skipped it, import a Codex JSON export instead.