r/audiobookshelf

Version 1.0.1 of ABSTV is now available.

This is the first release of ABSTV. If you run into any issues, please report them in the GitHub repo. I’d also love to hear about your experience using the app. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I’m excited to share it with the community.

https://github.com/thedavidhoffman/abs-tv-roku

Hello everyone.
I have case with ABS and Podcasts from YT.
My setup include Metube/yt-dlp with subscription for some podcasts hosted at YT. Files are downloaded in OPUS format and auto-import in ABS.
So far so good everything work as expected beside publish date.

Is there a way to add auto import publish date from file meta for podcast type in ABS?
I have date id3 meta with format YYYYMMDD but it is not used for publish date.
I don't have proper RSS for this podcasts.

Does anyone know if any of the current crop of iOS clients for ABS also work on the Apple TV? I want an easy way to play audio dramas through my sound system.

I am not sure if this is right place to ask this. I have a working directory of audiobooks, using Audiobookshelf well.

I also have some epubs, PDFs, and few mobi/azw books; most of them the same as the respective audiobooks, but some without the audiobooks.

• Here is the question. Where should I place the books in the storage? Should I keep them in the respective audiobook folder? Should I keep the books all together at a separate location and provide some path/link to the audiobooks?

• Also some of the books are in my regional language, should I name them in English or the respective language?

• And most importantly what software do you all use to manage your ebook library? I used to use calibre, but its too bulky/cumbersome imho, just looking for other better simpler alternatives if any.

Thanks

I created an app that decets different characters and narrators using ai. Includes sound effects, like very relastic breathing and stuff etc when prompted to due so. How much do y’all think I good price for this is.

I have tried pretty much every client for ABS and always come back to Absorb. its by far the best client. I love the ability to do server management, customize metadata, and create and manage users from the app. amazing. Only thing that is kinda weird to me, the name is kinda dumb. also the "absorbing" branding when you are listening to something is silly to me.

Absorb devs, you are amazing and I love everything you are doing, please keep it up. also your name is silly.

Where does everyone find audiobooks? I'm having trouble getting them.

Hi everyone,

Up until now, I used to read ebooks on my Kindle, highlight the interesting parts, and automatically sync everything to Readwise.

Recently, I’ve switched over to audiobooks. I generate them from my Calibre library and listen to them via Audiobookshelf. However, I really miss the ability to easily highlight and save quotes while listening.

I'm looking for a tool or app that allows me to highlight and save the actual text of the book while listening to the audio.
I tried Story Teller a few months ago, but it didn't seem to do what I need.
I found here that Snipd does exactly this for podcasts (using AI transcription to let you highlight text), but I need something similar for audiobooks.

Does anyone know of an app, plugin, or workaround that can achieve this?

Thanks in advance!

Just want to drop that Version 1.3.0 is ready with usefully new features!

🛡️** Failure tracking — no more infinite retry loop**s

Books that repeatedly fail to convert (e.g. due to bad chapter metadata) are now automatically skipped
after a configurable number of attempts. A clear warning is logged so you can spot the culprit and fix it.
Set MAX_CONVERSION_FAILURES to control the threshold (default: 3)
Optionally persist failure counts across container restarts with FAILURE_PERSIST_PATH — mount a volume
and point it to a JSON file
To retry a skipped book: fix the metadata in Audiobookshelf, remove its entry from the JSON file (or
delete it entirely), and restart the container

🎵 Codec selection

You can now specify which audio codec to use for encoding via the CODEC environment variable.
Default: aac (Audiobookshelf's built-in default)
Example: set CODEC: "opus" for Opus encoding

🔁 Duplicate conversion prevention

Books that already have an active conversion running are now detected and skipped, preventing the same book
from being queued multiple times when running on a short cron interval.

Hi:

Looking for The Last Hunter, Book 16, Operation Endgame in MP3.

Cannot seem to find it and would really like to have the full series.

Can anyone help??

The community was very helpful the other day and helping me understand how to create an organize series within Audiobookshelf.

Question for the community: Do you series more than collections and how do you differentiate them? Seems like they could be redundant unless you use collections for authors and series for literally series?

Just looking to get some feedback on how other people have their setup configured.

Thank you.

Is anybody else having an issue with the ABS app not pausing when you tap the pause button on Android Auto? I have to pause it from my phone directly.

Hi,

I’ve got an old iPad for a relative I want to set up with Audiobookshelf, but can’t load the web page- does anyone know if there’s a client on iOS that supports iOS 12?

Edit: Audiobookshelf, Plappa and Audiobooth all require newer versions of iOS. and Safari, Chrome and Firefox all don't render the page properly. Meaning I can't navigate to books or podcasts to listen. I'm guessing it's a no go (Short of vibe coding an alternate web frontend but I'm not down for that)

I have an iPhone and I know the app I use does not have a Samsung version. One of my users is having trouble with the official audiobookshelf app for Samsung so looking for some suggestions for her.

I have a larger library (around 2k) of audiobooks.

CarPlay support (this is where she is having issues) and offline downloads are two features we are after.

I have the file structure as Author Name\Series Name\07 - Book Title\Book Title.m4b

which has worked for all books except for new ones I add after 07. So 08 - Book Title\Book title.m4b won't automatically add to the series and each book after that. It's also not just this series, I use the same naming for all series and some I can add 12 books just fine and others it only adds some to the series. Is there a better naming?

I'm new to Audiobookshelf and one thing I noticed is that there are Series that get created but they are incomplete even though the missing books are in my library.

What metadata field is used to determine a series?

Thanks.

Moving a personal audiobook collection into Audiobookshelf, and the same annoying step keeps tripping me up before files ever reach the server.

Audiobookshelf is fine. The pain is everything I do to make a folder of audio actually look like a book in the library:

• MP3 folders that should be one book
• M4B files with no usable chapters
• covers that show in one player but vanish in another
• series and book number missing or inconsistent
• empty narrator fields
• chapter names like "Track 01" instead of real titles

Right now I bounce between ffmpeg, a tag editor, the occasional m4b-tool command, and a lot of squinting at the player to see if anything stuck. It works. It also feels like way too many steps for something that boils down to "make this behave like a proper audiobook before I import it."

Is the pre-import cleanup common around here, or is my library just messier than most?

How do you handle it today?

1. m4b-tool?
2. mp3tag, kid3, MusicBrainz Picard?
3. ffmpeg scripts?
4. Audiobookshelf's own metadata tools after import?
5. something else?

Full disclosure, I am building a free tool around this cleanup workflow. DRM-free audio in, chaptered M4B out, cover and metadata fixed before import. No launch link, no signup. Mostly I want to know what actually hurts for people maintaining their own libraries.

If you could fix one part of the pre-import workflow, what would it be?