The Book of Mormon

Review by eFreeware

The people most likely to want this app are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and anyone studying the Book of Mormon as scripture. It is the church's own app, published under its name, and it carries the full text along with audio narration, daily reminders and a couple of sections built around the book's content. For a reader who already treats the Book of Mormon as scripture, this is the obvious place to start on a phone.

What it gives them is the text itself, presented as another testament of Jesus Christ alongside the Bible. The app describes the book as covering God's dealings with peoples in the Americas across a span of roughly 600 BC to 400 AD, a different setting from the Bible's account of Israel and the surrounding lands. That framing runs through everything the app offers, from the reading text to the narrated audio and the video material.

It has been on Google Play since August 2012 and still gets updates, with the most recent one in August 2026. The install base is over a million, and it holds a 4.6 average from more than 12,000 ratings. It is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, so nothing stands between a reader and the text.

Reading in your own language

The feature the developer leads with is language coverage: the reading text is available in more than 100 languages. That is the part I would weigh most heavily, because it decides whether the app is usable at all for a given reader. Someone who reads scripture most comfortably in a language other than English is the person this is built for, and the breadth of the catalog is unusual for a single-title app.

The idea behind it is straightforward. A reader can study the same text in what the developer calls their heart language, which matters for a book people tend to read slowly and repeatedly rather than skim. The app does not present itself as a study tool with commentary layers; it presents the text, and the language list is how it reaches the widest group of readers.

I would expect the reading experience to be the core of the app and everything else to sit around it. Whether you are reading a few verses in the morning or working through a longer passage, the text is the reason to install it, and the language options are what make that possible for a global audience.

Listening, reminders and the Discover section

Audio narration is the second pillar. The app offers downloadable narration. English, Spanish and Portuguese are named among the available languages, with others as well. Downloading ahead of time is the sensible approach if you plan to listen somewhere without reliable service.

Daily scripture notifications are a small feature with a clear purpose: they keep the book in front of you between reading sessions. The app also includes a Discover section, described as a way to become more familiar with the Book of Mormon, which sounds like an entry point for readers who want orientation before settling into the text itself.

There is a Videos section too, holding dramatized accounts that the developer says bring the book to life. For someone who absorbs a narrative better by watching than by reading, that gives a second route into the same material. Between the text, the audio and the videos, the app covers three quite different ways of engaging with one book.

What the app asks of you

The requirements here are light. The app is free to install, contains no advertising and offers no in-app purchases, so there is no paywall to negotiate and nothing to unlock. The content rating is Everyone, which fits a text-centered reference app.

The one practical demand comes from the audio. Narration has to be downloaded before it can be played. That is a one-time task per language or section rather than an ongoing cost, but it is the step people skip and then wonder about later.

Notifications are the other thing to think about. They are there to prompt daily reading, and they only work if you leave them enabled. If you would rather not be reminded, that is a setting to adjust early rather than after the first few days of alerts. Beyond those two points, the app does not ask much, and the reading text is the main thing on offer.

Getting the most from it

My suggestion is to decide what you want from the app before you open it. If the goal is daily reading, turning on the notifications and picking a fixed time gives the habit something to attach to. If the goal is listening, download the narration for the sections you plan to cover first, while you are somewhere with a good connection, and then you are set for the rest of the week.

The Discover section is worth a look before you commit to a reading plan, particularly if the book is new to you. It is positioned as a way to get more familiar with the material, which suggests it works as an orientation rather than a replacement for the text. The video accounts serve a similar purpose for anyone who prefers to meet the narrative first and read it afterward.

Language choice deserves a moment's thought as well. With more than 100 options, it is easy to default to the language you use most often rather than the one you read scripture in most comfortably. Since the whole point of the feature is reading in your own language, it is worth setting that up at the start rather than switching later.

The recent update brought improvements to sharing along with a new way to share scripture images. If passing passages to family or friends is part of how you use the app, that side of it has seen attention recently, and it fits naturally with the reading and listening features rather than sitting apart from them.

A scripture app for readers, not scholars

This is a focused app, and it is worth being clear about what that focus is. It exists to put the Book of Mormon in front of readers in the language they know best, with audio and video to support that. It is not a general-purpose study library, and it is not trying to be one. What it does, it does around a single text.

For members of the church and for anyone studying the Book of Mormon, that narrowness is the appeal. The text, the narration, the daily prompts and the supporting sections all point at the same book, and there is no clutter from unrelated features or advertising to work around. The free price and the absence of purchases mean the decision to install carries no real risk.

If you are looking for the Book of Mormon on a phone, in a language you actually read, with the option to listen and a nudge to keep going, this is the app built for exactly that. Readers who want it as a reference text alongside other material will find it does that job too, without asking anything of them beyond the download.

What's new in version 4.13.0 (48819.3205195)

• Enhancements to the sharing experience • New scripture image sharing feature • General maintenance and bug fixes