Books that keep your place
A book is not an album and not an episode. It runs for days, it belongs to a series, and where you got to matters more than anything else on screen. Lindale treats it that way, and hands your position back to your own server as you listen.
Your shelf
Series, in order
Books stay grouped by the series they belong to, in listening order, and a book that sits in more than one series shows up under each. Next up is what the shelf tells you, not something you have to work out from filenames.
Authors and narrators both
Browse by author, or by the narrator you follow around. That second one earns its place when the narrator is the reason you picked the book.
Started, and finished
What you are in the middle of comes first, with how far you got. Finished books step aside without disappearing, so the shelf does not become a wall of things you have already heard.
The details that belong to a book
Length in hours, publisher and year, the blurb when there is one, and how much of it is left, rather than a track count that means nothing here.
Listening
Chapters you can steer by
Real chapter marks, not a bare timeline: jump a chapter, scrub inside one, and see where you are in the book as well as in the chapter. A short step back for when a sentence gets away from you.
Sleep timer
Fifteen minutes, half an hour, forty-five, or an hour. When it runs out Lindale pauses and keeps your place, so the chapter you drifted off in is the one waiting in the morning.
Faster, without the chipmunks
Speed from a slow read to a brisk one, pitch left alone. The setting sticks per book, because a dense history is not a thriller.
Every device agrees
Your position goes back to the server as you listen, so the chapter you fell asleep on the phone is the chapter the Mac opens at. Finish it and it is marked finished, where the rest of your apps can see it.
What is not there
What a book listener might reasonably expect and not find:
- Audiobookshelf is the only provider so far, so no Apple Books, no loose files, no library services
- Adding books and editing libraries stays in your server’s own interface
- No bookmarks or notes inside a book
- No downloading a book for offline listening. A book needs the server within reach
- No CarPlay
Requirements
- macOS 26, iOS 26, iPadOS 26 or tvOS 26, or later
- An Audiobookshelf server you can reach over HTTPS
- Same rules as any source: no plain HTTP, self-signed certificates fine, your API key in the Keychain
Lindale is not on the App Store yet, and it will be free when it gets there. Say hello if you want to hear when that happens.