The ebook reader
built for studying.
Open your textbooks and workbooks, highlight what matters, take notes — and your workbook answers save on their own. Fast, clean, and completely free.
Android only
Scan to install on your phone
Reading apps forgot
what reading is.
Sign-up walls. Sync spinners. Subscriptions to open a book you already own. It shouldn't be this hard.
The Account Wall
Create an account to continue. Verify your email. Wait for the sync. Accept the terms. Now you can read — the book you already downloaded, on the device in your hand.
Just to open a book.
The Cloud Dependency
No connection, no library. Slow sync before every session. Reading pace, highlights, and habits uploaded to servers you can't audit — stored indefinitely, shared freely.
Your content. Their servers.
The Bloated Reader
150MB install. Ads between chapters. Push notifications about books you might like. A premium upsell every other tap. All of it just to read a plain EPUB.
Noise over reading.
Built for reading.
Private by design.
Highlights & Notes
Four highlight colors. Typed notes anchored to any highlight. All annotations stored alongside your book — no account or cloud needed to keep them.
Workbooks Remember Your Answers
Fill in exercises and they save by themselves. Close the app, come back next week — every answer's still there. Even survives a crash or a dead battery.
Textbooks That Look Right
Diagrams, charts, custom layouts, even interactive exercises — they all show up exactly how the author made them. Nothing missing, nothing broken.
Your Books Stay Private
Every book is locked the moment you add it — unreadable to other apps or anyone scrolling through your phone. It's on automatically; there's nothing to set up. (AES-256 encryption.)
Lock Private Books
Hide personal books behind a PIN. Get it wrong three times and the folder erases itself — for good. Only you get in, and there's no backdoor.
Screenshot Protection
OS screenshot API blocked inside locked folders. Content won't appear in the recent apps switcher. What's in the folder, stays in the folder.
Your books are private.
Automatically.
The moment you add a book, it's locked. No file browser, backup app, or person holding your phone can open it — and you didn't have to turn anything on.
File browser · storage/Books/
File browser · storage/Books/
Encrypted on import · Keys stored locally · Decryption in memory only
Some books are
nobody's business.
Medical references. Recovery workbooks. Personal journals. Lock them in a folder behind a PIN — they disappear from your main library, and only your PIN brings them back. Nobody else can open them.
For anyone who just
wants to read.
Fast · Offline · No friction
A clean library, smooth page turns, highlights and notes that sync nowhere. Open the app, open the book. No account prompts, no sync spinners, no subscription nags. Just reading.
→ Start reading immediately12 languages · Workbooks · Study guides
Interactive EPUB workbooks that actually remember your answers. Fill in the exercises, close the book, come back a week later — it's all there. Study in English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and eleven more.
→ Works with any EPUB with form elementsMedical · Recovery · Personal
Some reading is nobody's business. Medical references, recovery workbooks, devotional texts. Lock them in a PIN-protected folder — three wrong guesses and the folder self-destructs, keys destroyed.
→ Zero data ever leaves your device12 languages. Zero accounts.
Full UI in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Khmer, Burmese, Amharic, Russian, and Korean. Works entirely offline. No sign-up ever required.
EN
ES
FR
DE
JA
AR
中文
KM
MY
AM
RU
KO
The only reader that
doesn't compromise.
Every other app trades privacy for features — or features for price. GemReader doesn't.
← Scroll to compare →
| Feature | GemReader | Moon+ | Lithium | ReadEra | Kindle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Works fully offline No connection ever needed | |||||
No account required Open a book without signing up | |||||
Textbooks display correctly Diagrams, layouts & interactive exercises | |||||
Books locked & kept private Every book locked the moment you add it | |||||
PIN-locked secret folders Self-destructs after 3 wrong guesses | |||||
Workbooks save your answers Exercises saved automatically per book | |||||
Truly free, no paid tier No Pro upsell, no premium gate | |||||
No ads Never, not even in the free tier | |||||
Can't connect to internet No network access — can't phone home |
Based on publicly documented features · June 2026
Better EPUB reading,
one clear guide at a time.
Practical notes on Android EPUB reading, study workbooks, privacy, and choosing tools that respect your library.
Features & Study
The Top Shelf: Keeping Your Absolute Favorites Close at Hand
Sorting through a vast digital library shouldn’t feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Discover how GemReader’s new Favorites feature lets you instantly spotlight your most cherished books and study guides.
Read guideFeatures & Study
The Reader’s Lens: Uncovering the Micro-Worlds Within Your Books
An image inside an eBook shouldn’t be a static, low-resolution bottleneck. Discover how GemReader’s new interactive image viewer brings hidden details into sharp focus with seamless tap-to-zoom and canvas panning.
Read guideDesign Philosophy
The Digital Scroll: Honoring the Past While Navigating the Present
From ancient clay tablets to modern touchscreens, the physical shape of literature has always evolved alongside human ingenuity. Discover why GemReader embraces vertical scrolling as the natural rhythm for mobile reading, and how we are exploring ways to bring the classic page-turn into the digital era.
Read guideBefore you
download.
Yes. Free forever — no ads, no paid tier, no premium gate. There's nothing to unlock and nothing to subscribe to.
No. There's no sign-up, and everything works entirely offline. The app has no permission to use the internet, so it couldn't send your data anywhere even if it wanted to.
EPUB files — including textbooks and interactive workbooks. Diagrams, layouts, and exercises display the way the author made them, and your workbook answers save automatically.
Android 13 or higher. Install it from Google Play (open beta) or download the APK directly from this site — it's the same app either way.
Your books are stored, locked, inside the app — safe from other apps, but they're removed if you uninstall GemReader. Before uninstalling, send your books out with the Share button, or keep your original files somewhere safe.
Your books.
Open instantly.
Free for Android. No sign-up, no cloud, no setup. Import a book and start reading in seconds — encrypted by default.
Android 13+ · EPUB format · Free forever