Bookmory - reading tracker

Review by eFreeware

If you finish books but struggle to remember when you read them, how long each one took, or what you thought at the time, Bookmory is built for exactly that gap. It is a reading tracker from Tony soft that turns the act of reading into records you can look back on: pages logged, minutes timed, notes kept, goals set and streaks maintained.

The appeal is not one feature but the combination. A book tracker alone is a list; a journal alone is a notebook. Bookmory wants to be both, plus a timer and a statistics dashboard, so that a single entry about a book can carry your progress, your quotes and your rating. For a reader who likes seeing a habit accumulate, that is a more interesting proposition than another shelf app.

It has been installed over a million times and holds a 4.7 average from 78,995 ratings, which suggests the formula lands with a good number of people. It is free to install and supported by ads, with optional purchases on top.

Starting a library and keeping it orderly

Adding a book is meant to be quick. You can bring titles in through search or by scanning a barcode, which matters because the friction of typing in every book is what usually kills a tracking habit in its first week. Once a book is in, it can be sorted into collections and series, and tagged however you like, so a library can reflect your own categories rather than a fixed set of shelves.

Finished books can be rated and reviewed, which closes the loop between reading and recording. The library gradually becomes less of a catalog and more of a personal history of what you read and what you made of it.

The recent updates add some practical housekeeping. You can now record books you have lent out and books you received as gifts, which addresses the small but real problem of losing track of where a book physically went. There is also a CSV export, useful if you want your records somewhere other than inside the app.

The timer, goals and streak

The core of the habit-building side is the reading timer. You start it when you read, and the app logs the time; you can also log pages read. Those two numbers feed the rest of the system, which is why the timer sits at the center rather than being a side tool. The developer describes the whole setup as a way to stay motivated, and the design choices point the same way.

Goals come in two shapes: daily and yearly. A daily target gives you something to hit each session, while a yearly goal frames the whole year. Progress units have been expanded recently to include chapters, so you are not limited to counting pages if chapter-level progress suits a particular book better.

The streak feature is the motivational glue. It rewards consistency rather than volume, which is a sensible emphasis for anyone trying to read more regularly. There is also a way to mark finished or abandoned books as something to read again, which keeps a stalled book from simply disappearing from your records.

Notes, quotes and the journal side

Bookmory treats note-taking as a first-class feature rather than an afterthought. There is an editor for writing reading notes, and you can highlight favorite quotes so they are easy to find later. For readers who mark up books or keep a commonplace book, this is the part that makes the app more than a progress counter.

Two details stand out. One is OCR: you can extract text from a photo, which is a practical way to capture a passage without typing it out. The other is the ability to share notes with aesthetic backgrounds, which turns a private note into something presentable. A random note feature resurfaces past entries, a nice counterweight to the forward-looking goals and streaks.

The journal is where the app's claim about remembering books rather than merely tracking them makes most sense. A rating tells you that you liked something; a dated note with a quote tells you why.

Statistics, the calendar and the December Rewind

The statistics side is deliberately visual. There are yearly reading statistics, trends for pages and reading time, and a calendar that shows your progress across days. A calendar is a good fit for this kind of app because gaps and runs are immediately visible, which is precisely the feedback a streak depends on.

There is also an Annual Rewind feature, available each December, which packages the year's reading into a retrospective. It is a once-a-year event rather than an everyday tool, but it gives the accumulated data a payoff at the point when people tend to think about what they read over the past twelve months.

Customization and privacy get some attention too. You can pick from several themes to change how the app looks, and a password can be set to lock it. The developer says your library can be backed up through Google Cloud.

What it asks of you, and what the free version includes

The trade-offs here are mostly about commitment and cost rather than capability. Bookmory only becomes useful if you actually record what you read: start the timer, log the pages, write the note. The app is a place to put that information, and a tracker with nothing in it has nothing to show. Anyone hoping for something that works passively should weigh that up honestly.

On cost, the app is free and ad-supported. In-app purchases exist, and the developer lists what the premium tier covers: removing all ads, automatic syncing across multiple devices, no need for manual backup, and additional exclusive themes. So the free version carries ads, and the paid tier is where ad removal, automatic sync and the extra themes sit. Everything else on this list is described as part of the app itself.

There is also a mild seasonal limitation worth naming: the Annual Rewind appears only in December. The rest of the statistics and the calendar are there year-round, but that particular retrospective is a once-a-year feature by design.

Finally, the app has been updated recently with fixes and small additions, which is a reasonable sign for anyone planning to keep years of reading records inside it.

The reader this fits best

Bookmory suits readers who want their habit measured. If you like the idea of knowing how many pages you read last month, how many hours you spent with a book, and how many days in a row you kept going, the timer, goals, streaks and calendar are aimed directly at you. The combination of a daily target and a visible streak is a well-matched pair for building consistency.

It also suits readers who annotate. The notes editor, quote highlights and OCR capture are for people who want to keep something from a book beyond a star rating. If your reading produces thoughts you would rather not lose, the journal side is the reason to choose this over a simple list.

And it suits anyone who reads across formats and sources, because the library is organized by your own collections, series and tags rather than by where a book came from. The barcode scan and search cover adding books quickly, and the lent and gift records cover the physical side.

A tracker worth building a habit around

Bookmory is a well-rounded reading tracker rather than a single-purpose tool, and its strongest idea is the way the timer, goals, notes and statistics reinforce each other. Log a session and it feeds your streak, your daily goal, your yearly totals and your calendar; write a note and it becomes part of the book's record. That loop is what makes the app more than a shelf.

The costs are straightforward. It is free with ads, and in-app purchases cover ad removal, automatic syncing between devices, backup without manual steps and extra themes. The Annual Rewind only appears in December, and the app rewards regular input.

For readers who want their habit visible and their notes kept, that is a fair exchange. I would suggest it to anyone who sets a yearly reading target, enjoys seeing a streak grow, and would rather capture a quote in the moment than trust memory to hold it.

What's new in version 1.4.24

- You can now record books you've lent out and books you received as gifts. - Added "Chapter" as a progress unit. - Mark finished or abandoned books as "Plan to read again". - Export your records as a CSV file. - Contact us now shows frequently asked questions first and lets you continue an unfinished message. - Fixed various other issues.