7 Answers2025-08-11
Hi, Just like you, I have a requirement that must be met: no matter which device I use to read, my reading progress can be recorded automatically, and I won't have to trouble myself to flip back to the page I stopped at when I switch devices. I know Kobo has a mobile app, but can it implement functions like cross-device reading progress sync, just like the Kindle app? Did you ever get an answer to the question you asked earlier?
8 Answers2025-10-09
From a technical point of view, yes, we support cross-device syncing of reading progress, bookmarks and annotations. ReadEra uses cloud backup integration (like Google Drive) for syncing, not a proprietary sync server. The first step is to configure a cloud backup location within the app’s settings (Google Drive or another service). Subsequent backups can then be set up to happen automatically or manually. To sync to another device, you’ll need to download and install ReadEra on that device, sign in with the same cloud account, and then restore from a backup. Note that what’s restored is what’s currently in the local database of the device you’re syncing from. This means that what’s restored will overwrite the local data on the device you’re syncing to. Hence, you want to make sure the device you’re moving from has been backed up recently to avoid losing work in progress. As for how often this overwrite happens, it’s not a continuous, bidirectional merge. Instead, it’s set up for planned, occasional exchanges of devices, not for frequent, ad-hoc switching between devices.
5 Answers2025-07-21
I’m using the content server from Calibre with the free ebook reader Cool Reader. While not exactly syncing ebooks for free like the official apps of Barnes & Noble, Kobo and others do, it’s working great for me so far. Other indie ebook reader apps for Android, like ReadEra, seem to require manual backups of added ebooks, though. But for the tech-savvy type, running your own personal Calibre server to sync your whole library of books, including sideloaded ones, is certainly possible.
9 Answers2025-08-04
I think this feature is meant for passive tracking of books, i.e. Goodreads doesn’t broadcast a public update every time you read a page. Instead, it updates the progress percentage for the book you’re currently reading on your Goodreads ‘currently reading’ shelf. It’s a quiet, background sync feature for your personal tracking needs on Goodreads, not a feature to add to a newsfeed of updates from your friends.
10 Answers2025-09-02
My little trick for reading on both devices is to always stop at the end of a chapter. For some reason the two devices seem to sync better up to a chapter end than to any arbitrary page number. Thus if I finish reading a chapter on my phone, I know that when I pick up my tablet to continue reading, I will start on the correct page for the start of the next chapter. However, if I stop reading in the middle of a chapter on my phone, then there is a 50/50 chance that I will pick up reading on the correct page on my tablet. This is just one of the little idiosyncrasies that I have grown to live with.
10 Answers2025-05-15
One thing to note is that the 10 device limit is for devices authorized to download books on your account. Most people will never come near this limit, but power users with a lot of phones, tablets and laptops may run into this occasionally. If you do, you can deauthorize devices from the Play Books settings page on the web. Note that this does not affect reading on the web, which is unlimited. The 10 device limit is only for downloading books to read offline in apps.
6 Answers2025-08-05
I have my ebook collection managed in much the same way I managed my music collection during the iPod era: as a central hub with manual transfers between the hub and other locations. So my ebook collection is managed by Calibre on my desktop. I sync my Kobo by plugging it in and transferring books. I sync a handful of books to my phone by saving a disk copy of them in Calibre and then copying the saved books to a Dropbox folder on my phone. Any edits made to books on one device do not get propagated to other devices. This approach has the big advantage of not causing any headaches, and no chance of ebook collection corruption. It also means that Calibre runs very fast on my desktop, because the hub for my ebook collection is on a local SSD. The only ‘cost’ is some manual work, which I find easy to manage for a collection of less than 10,000 books.
8 Answers2025-08-17
The cloud is your friend. All of your purchased titles are stored in the ‘Cloud’ tab, not just what you have downloaded. In order to view the same list of titles on your devices, you need to make sure you are viewing the correct filter. On your app’s library page, click ‘All’ or ‘Cloud’ at the top of the page instead of ‘Downloaded’. This will show you a list of all of the titles that you own, regardless of whether they are on the device that you are currently using. By syncing your library, you are also syncing the cloud view of your library and your current reading position. Make sure to enable Whispersync on all of your devices and visit the cloud view of your library regularly to click ‘Sync’. New purchases that you make on any device will be reflected in the cloud view of your library on all of your devices. This is not a file transfer situation. This is just a matter of acknowledging that you have a master list of titles in the sky, and each of your devices needs to acknowledge that same list.
8 Answers2026-03-30
Nope. You're talking about competing services, each with their own form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect the same content that you buy. As an example, you can't watch a Netflix Original on Disney+ for the very same reasons. The book you bought from Google Books is locked to Google's services. Your Kindle is not Google services. Any work-around would involve breaking the DRM for the book which would violate the terms of service which you signed up to (potentially illegal in some jurisdictions too).
9 Answers2025-07-08
What is the emotional core of wanting sync? For me it has always been a fear of not being able to find my place again, a fear of discontinuity. But I came to realize that this anxiety could be alleviated not by improved technology, but by a change in habit. I now always try to finish reading a section at a chapter break. If that isn’t possible, I just make a quick note of some unique phrase or other near where I shall pick up again, and then off I go. Our brains are amazing pattern-matching machines. I have trained mine to remember where I left off, and if that doesn’t work, then I simply skim-read until I pick up where I had got to. Ditching the need to have all digital reading perfectly synched has, for me, turned reading into something that is purely reading once again.