Lectr is a private, offline-first reading notebook for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Track your library, save notes and quotes, and explore your reading habits — all on-device, with no accounts, no tracking, and no subscription. Built by solo developer John Cieslik-Bridgen.
Facts
Screenshots (iPad)
High-resolution screenshots available. Right-click to save.
Library
Reading Portrait
Book detail & annotations
Notes & Quotes
What Makes Lectr Different
Genuinely private. No registration, no server, no telemetry, no tracking. Your library lives on your device and syncs via iCloud if you choose. That's Apple's infrastructure, not ours.
AI-informed, not AI-dependent. Reading Portrait uses on-device NLP to surface themes and sentiment across your annotations. Thematic Search finds passages by concept, not just keyword. Recommendations are generated from an anonymised portrait of your reading interests — your actual words never leave the device. No data sent to any server except broad reading themes.
Fast. A 5,000-book library loads in 15ms. Built with SwiftUI and SwiftData, no shortcuts.
Import from anywhere. Goodreads, Kindle, StoryGraph, Calibre via CSV, plus a client-side web converter for arbitrary formats. Nothing leaves the browser.
New in v4.0
Thematic Search. Search notes and quotes by concept, not just keyword. Type “solitude” and find passages that never use that word. Matched entries are marked with a “related” badge. Use the search bar to narrow within thematic results. Multilingual. All on-device, powered by Apple's language tools.
Privacy-First Recommendations. AI-generated book recommendations where your notes, quotes, and tag names never leave your device. Before anything is sent, each user-created term is replaced with a generic literary descriptor using Apple's on-device language model — a 287-term codebook so the server sees broad reading themes, never your personal vocabulary.
Book & Quote Sharing. Share books and quotes via universal links — no account needed. Recipients see book details with cover art and an “Add to Library” button. Duplicate detection prevents re-adding books you already own.
ISBNdb Integration. Three-tier ISBN fallback for better metadata coverage when scanning barcodes. Flashlight toggle for low light.
Contact & Promo Codes
For review copies, promo codes, or press enquiries: