Good books find you.
Photograph a shelf with your iPhone. Spine Seek reads every spine and tells you which books are worth taking home.
A whole shelf. One photo.
Photograph the shelf.
One photo of the whole bookcase. Every spine is read in a few seconds.
It checks each book against your reading.
What you’ve read, what you loved, and what you gave up on.
And tells you what to take home.
You gave Dune five stars. Here’s the next one, and exactly where it’s sitting.
It will tell you not to buy something.
No bestseller lists and no prize stickers. Every book on the shelf is judged against your own library and ratings.
Real screens from the app, shown with a demo library.
- Series Gaps
- The next book in a series you’re partway through, or how many you’d be skipping.
- Worth a Look
- A book you don’t have, by an author you rate above your own average.
- Put It Back
- A book you abandoned, or one by an author you’ve rated badly.
It also marks what’s already yours and what you’ve read, shows each book’s place on the shelf, and will write you a bookseller’s verdict on the whole lot.
Yours, private, and easy to read.
Your library, not a list
The verdicts come from what you’ve read and rated. Bring your Goodreads library or add books by hand.
Private by default
No account needed, and no ads, ad cookies or tracking, in the app or on this site.
Read the privacy noticeMade for a bright shop
Large text, high contrast and a low-vision typeface. Every verdict is a word and a symbol, never colour alone.
Questions
How do I get it?
Spine Seek is in beta on TestFlight, Apple’s app for trying apps before they reach the App Store. Tap Join the Beta on your iPhone or iPad, install TestFlight if you don’t have it, and Spine Seek installs from there. There is no Android version yet.
What does it cost?
The beta is free, and you can scan up to 40 shelves a day. If you choose Bookshop.org as your bookshop and buy there, we earn a small commission. It doesn’t affect the verdicts.
Do I need Goodreads?
No. You can add books by hand. But the verdicts are built from your reading history, so importing a Goodreads library is the quickest way to get good ones. A guide in the app walks you through it.
What leaves my phone?
The shelf photo is sent to be read, with its location data removed first. If you ask for the written verdict, a summary of your taste and a handful of titles you loved, disliked or abandoned goes with it. Your library stays on your phone unless you sign in to sync it. Scan photos and history never sync.
How accurate is it?
Good, not perfect. The spines are read by an AI model, and it can misread a worn or stylised spine, miss a book, or now and then list one that isn’t there. That’s why every result shows you where on the shelf it was found, so you can check before you buy.
Find your next great read.
Take Spine Seek to the next shelf you can’t walk past.
Join the Beta For iPhone and iPad. Free while in beta.