What's New

Hand your books to the phone next to you

• Gem Beam: hand a whole collection to the phone next to you. The sender shows one code, the receiver scans it with the camera, and the books cross directly between the two devices over their own private Wi-Fi link — no internet, no account, no cloud, nothing about your library leaving the room. Large collections land in seconds rather than hours, and a beam interrupted halfway through picks up where it stopped instead of starting again
• What you beam is the whole collection, not just the files: covers, reading position, highlights, notes and study progress travel with the books, so the collection opens on the other phone in the state you left it in. Everything is packed and encrypted before it is sent, and the receiver sees what is being offered — and a reminder that the description comes from the sender — before accepting anything
• Receiving lives in the add menu in the library header, beside importing and browsing catalogs. Sending is on a collection, on a book, and on a multi-select, so you can beam what you have in your hand
• The launch animation, the app-lock screen and the study session's countdown now run their motion off the UI thread, so the sparkle, the lamp and the paper texture stay smooth on modest phones instead of stuttering while the app is still waking up

Every highlight in one place — and free books to fill the shelf

• Gems now has a library-wide view: every highlight, note, image note and saved form answer from every book in one searchable list, grouped by book, one tap from the library header. Tapping a gem opens the book at exactly that place. Books inside a locked collection are counted rather than quietly left out, and join the list the moment you unlock it
• Tags on highlights and notes. Label a gem with why you kept it, then filter by tag, group by tag, or find it by typing the tag into search. Markdown export writes them as #hashtags, the form Obsidian and Notion already index, and Anki export carries them in the Tags column beside the book and chapter
• Your own names for the highlight colours, kept per book. Call yellow "Definition" and pink "For the exam", and the colour filter, the study rail and every gem row say so instead of naming a colour
• A catalog of free books, inside the app. Browse or search Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks and Wolne Lektury from the library header and download a book straight into your library — or add any HTTPS catalog you trust. Downloaded books are encrypted on arrival exactly like the ones you import yourself, and nothing is sent about you to get them
• Adding to your library is one button now. Importing books and making a collection share a single menu in the library header instead of two icons competing for the same corner
• Reading in scroll mode: the top of a chapter could not be scrolled to, taps on a link or on a chapter in the contents landed short of where they pointed, and note markers were drawn away from the text they belong to. Worst the first time a study book was opened

Crisper highlights, and study publications that read in the dark

• Highlights are painted by the page itself instead of by a layer above it: the text under a highlight stays as crisp as the rest of the page, and a highlight inside a tinted box or a table cell is no longer swallowed by it
• Headings and coloured text in study publications are readable on dark themes again. The publisher's near-black and deep-toned headings kept their printed colour on a dark page; they are now lifted just far enough to be read, and keep their hue. Tinted panels are left exactly as printed
• Footnotes in study publications no longer open empty in Korean and in every other non-English edition, where the reference and the note text share one paragraph
• Locked collections are now recognised by an identity of their own rather than by their name, so renaming or moving one can no longer put its books out of reach — and a locked collection can be renamed while it is unlocked, instead of the rename option being hidden for good
• Importing works again after you leave the file picker to open a book from a file manager. The picker never reported back, so every later import failed until the app was restarted
• A book's language is detected again when the book declares more than one, or leads with a blank or placeholder tag — page turns, word selection and text-to-speech all read from it
• App Lock no longer wipes the system clipboard. Copying a password out of GemBox to save it in your password manager used to leave you with nothing to paste
• The status and navigation bars follow the theme you pick from inside a sheet or dialog, instead of staying on the previous one until the sheet closes
• The mini audio player now fills the bottom edge of the screen rather than floating above the gesture bar

Hindi, Portuguese and Indonesian

• The app now speaks Hindi, Portuguese and Indonesian, bringing it to fifteen languages — pick yours in Settings, or let it follow the one your phone is set to
• Launch tips, trivia, and literary quotes in Gemformation are now available in Hindi, Portuguese, and Indonesian
• Text in Hindi, Khmer, Burmese and Amharic no longer has its marks and accents clipped in dialogs and at the top of the library
• A book downloaded from a Gem List opens again. It was stored under a name it had not been sealed with, so every single-book download arrived unreadable
• Books moved out of a locked collection, or left behind when the collection they were in was emptied, are now found and repaired the first time this version starts — the earlier recovery pass could not see them
• Replacing a book you already have while extracting an archive no longer leaves the replacement unreadable
• Moving a book to another storage volume can no longer leave a half-written file behind if the copy is interrupted; the move either completes or leaves the book where it was

Locked collections no longer lock you out of your books

• Books that were already in a collection when you locked it can be opened again. Locking a collection re-sealed those books under a name they no longer had, so afterwards every one of them reported formatting errors and the offer to repair could not help
• Your affected books are recovered the first time this version starts, and books inside a locked collection the first time you unlock it. Nothing was lost and nothing needs re-importing
• Moving a book into or out of a locked collection no longer leaves it unreadable
• Removing a collection's lock and then setting a new one no longer fails partway through

A quieter Gems header, and more room for what you wrote

• The Gems header no longer spends a line on labels: highlights, notes, image notes and form contents are icon buttons that say what they will do when you hold them, and a toast confirms what you just turned on or off
• The buttons in the Gems header now spread across the full width of the row, so each one is an easier target and the header sits in less space
• A gem's row gives more of itself to the note and less to its furniture, so more of what you wrote is readable without opening it
• The search boxes in Gems and in the chapter list no longer trail an ellipsis in their placeholder
• The hint that points at the import button on first launch is now a tooltip anchored to the button itself rather than a banner above the library, so it points where you need to tap and leaves with the first tap
• Adding a note to a highlight keeps the colour you gave that highlight instead of resetting it to the default

Out of open beta — and backups are fast now, with no 2 GB cap.

Backups made by 1.23.0 cannot be opened by older versions. Update both devices before sending a backup across.

• GemReader has left open testing. It is now a full production release on Google Play — no beta to join, and it shows up in search and on any device. The direct download is unchanged, and both are still the same app from the same signing key.
• Backing up your library runs about seven times faster, and restoring one about eleven times faster — what took most of a minute now finishes in seconds.
• A backup can be as large as your library and your free space allow. The old 2 GB limit on restoring one is gone.
• Locking a backup with a long PIN or passphrase no longer makes you sit through the slow key stretching a short one needs.
• Every book, cover and media file is sealed with its own key, tied to the file it belongs to — a file swapped in from elsewhere on the device no longer decrypts.
• Your library moves to that stronger layout on its own, in the background, the first time this version opens it.

Lock-screen audio controls, hardware-accelerated encryption, and a highlight toolbar that stays out of your way.

• The Android encryption engine is checked against the official NIST test vectors before it is used, and refuses to run at all if any check fails, rather than quietly falling back
• The random number generator used for encryption keys is health-checked on startup, so a device with a broken one is caught instead of trusted
• Chapter audio and read-aloud now appear in the notification shade and on the lock screen, with the book's cover art, and answer to headphone, watch and Bluetooth buttons
• Playback speed from 0.5x to 2x now keeps voices at their natural pitch instead of making them squeaky or deep
• Tapping a note you already wrote opens it to read first — formatted text, more of the quote, and Edit one tap away — instead of dropping you into the editor behind the keyboard
• Settings now carries a security check that reports which encryption engine your device is using and whether it passed its self-tests
• Encryption runs on your device's hardware AES instructions where they exist, so opening books, importing them and loading covers all take less time
• The Gems header is readable now: filter chips are labelled and carry counts, and sorting and scope say what they are set to rather than relying on a toast
• The audio scrubber updates more often, so the position it shows keeps up with what you are hearing
• The app asks for fewer Android permissions — the unused photo and download ones are gone
• The highlight toolbar no longer covers the passage it is colouring — it sits below the selection, or above it when there is no room below
• The colour you tap in a swatch is now the colour that lands on the page
• Bottom sheets and menus no longer sit partly under the Android navigation bar, so their last row is tappable again
• Closing a note with unsaved edits now asks before discarding them, whether you tap the backdrop, press back, or hit Cancel
• Audio pauses for calls and other interruptions and picks up again afterwards, instead of playing on underneath or staying stopped
• Starting read-aloud now stops chapter audio and clears its lock-screen controls, instead of leaving both playing over each other

PDFs get a reader of their own

• PDFs now open in a reader built for them: a page counter, page arrows, and a settings sheet that only carries what a PDF can actually use — no more EPUB-only controls sitting there doing nothing
• The app now runs on a newer Android foundation (Expo SDK 57 / React Native 0.86)
• PDF: pinch-zoom no longer stutters, the page count is right, and the control bar stays hidden instead of popping back on its own
• Highlighting: the highlight now lands on the words you watched settle, rather than a slightly different span
• Notes: note boxes and their highlights resize with the text after a rotation or a split-view toggle, instead of clipping or sitting over the wrong line
• Split-pane: jumping from chapters, gems or bookmarks no longer flashes the chapter you came from
• Landscape: the top bar no longer drifts or shifts the study rail while a rail panel is open
• Collections: restoring a backup into a nested collection now shows the parent folders too, instead of leaving the subfolder stranded

GemPack backups now move freely between the Play Store and direct-download builds.

• Importing a large book now checks free space first and warns you before it runs out
• Backing up a collection tells you which books had their embedded video or audio left out, instead of silently dropping it
• A backup made by a newer version of the app now says so, instead of failing with a generic error
• Moving a book with embedded video or audio into or out of a locked collection now re-locks that media to match, so it is always sealed with the collection it lives in
• GemPack backups made in the Play Store build can now be restored in the direct-download build, and the other way round — the PIN was being rejected even when it was correct
• Highlights and notes can be tapped again after turning the page
• Split-pane: notes added from the dictionary now show their margin icon straight away
• Note icons no longer sit on top of the last word of a line
• Footnote, scripture and definition popups now fade out instead of disappearing on the spot
• The Android navigation bar icons follow the app theme instead of the system one
• Time left in the chapter no longer carries over from the book you read before
• Split-pane: the chapters, gems and bookmarks panels no longer flip back to the previous one on their own

Your shelf is nobody else's business.

• Book covers are now encrypted at rest, with the same AES-256-GCM container your books already use — and inside a locked collection, with that folder's key. Cover art gives away what a library holds, so it no longer sits on disk as ordinary image files.
• Covers decrypt on demand as you scroll, so the library is exactly as fast as it was before.
• Selecting books puts the bulk actions straight in the header, instead of behind a second tap.
• The language list in Settings stays collapsed until you open it, so the menu no longer spills onto two lines.
• Fixed: collections spanning the wrong width on widescreen and tablet layouts, covers coming up blank on the home screen after a cold start, and pinching to switch between grid and compact view being missed.

Nothing left in the clear.

• Importing and exporting no longer leaves plaintext on disk — every temporary file is encrypted while it is being worked on, and the scratch space is overwritten and deleted when the job ends, when you lock the app, and at startup.
• Nested folders inside collections can now be renamed.
• GemPack folder backups now sweep in every subfolder beneath the folder you picked.
• Archive imports take up to 200 books at a time, up from 50.
• Moving a book is easier — the folder list scrolls, and nested folders start collapsed instead of flooding the screen.
• "Uncategorized" is now called "Homepage", and the locked-collection, add-folder and add-book icons have been refreshed.
• Fixed: highlight and note icons flickering in split-pane, chapters rendering compressed at the top of the page in split-pane, and out-of-memory crashes when importing or exporting large archives.

Two books, one screen.

• Split-pane reading — open two panes side by side, each with its own gestures, immersive mode intact and no stutter.
• GemPacks can now be encrypted when you export them, and audio files ride along in the backup.
• PIN entry uses an in-app keypad instead of the system keyboard, and screenshot blocking now covers PIN screens too.
• Favorites now include books tucked inside subfolders.
• Reader refinements — better font and text resizing controls, and focus mode dims paragraphs by color instead of opacity so text stays crisp.
• Library page tightened up: less white space, centered header, and collections that span the grid correctly.
• New Velvet and Parchment theme tweaks, plus a refined search field and export screens.
• GemPacks hardened after an adversarial security audit.
• Fixed: filename normalization breaking imports, book open/close animation landing in the wrong spot, a blank frame when sliding between images, image swiping breaking zoom and pan, missing Gem Lists, reading-position tracking inside books, the back button regression from the Android 16 update, the password screen vanishing after saving a GemPack, audio gaps in GemPacks, annotation taps in paged flow, note glyph margins, toolbar jitter, and a startup warning.

Dark mode, mid-chapter.

• Switch between dark and light directly in the reader, with a compact text settings panel a tap away.
• Swipe between images in the same chapter, save or share any image, and copy its alt text.
• PDFs now support in-book search and dark-mode pages.
• Now targets Android 16 (API 36) for Play Store policy — minimum supported version stays at Android 7.0.
• The window-size limit is gone, so large tablets get the full canvas, and quote-card sharing looks right on big screens.
• Gem List sort buttons and default sorting reworked, and PIN security for locked collections hardened.
• Fixed: pressing back rapidly exiting a book early, sample books always coming back, importing via "Open with", the study rail closing when nav bars faded, PDF zoom gesture arbitration and selection ghosting, audio jump-back skipping 15 seconds instead of 10, and EPUB sanitizing writing the mimetype entry incorrectly.

Read PDFs. Listen to your library.

Versions 1.14 and 1.15 were built but never shipped — everything planned for them is included here.

• PDF support — fixed-layout rendering with forms, links, pinch-to-zoom, in-document search, and dark mode.
• Text-to-speech narration — listen to your books, attach custom audio per chapter, and control playback from the lock screen.
• Spaced-repetition review — turn your highlights and notes into a study deck on a dedicated Review page, with Anki (.apkg/.txt) deck import.
• A built-in dictionary — look up word definitions without ever leaving the page.
• GemList downloads — fetch and import books straight from the internet, with gem-type filters now multi-select and further Gem List improvements.
• Share an excerpt as a quote-card image, and attach notes directly to images inside a book.
• Add bookmarks straight from the in-app browser, and open GemPack declarations from anywhere in the app.
• New in-brand toast notifications replace the system style, and Markdown rendering in annotation notes is faster and more reliable.
• New "Ultra" theme variants, with better contrast and dark-mode-aware cover and collection colors.
• Library page refinements — improved list view, a fixed hide-cover bug, and a smoother close-book animation.
• Reader margins trimmed, links and dark text now render correctly inside highlights, and locked collections got a UI polish.
• Fixed duplicate books being deleted across folders, a table-of-contents jump regression, EPUB sharing with unusual filenames, images that could be dragged off-screen after zooming, and books incorrectly flagged as GemPacks during import.

Retrace your steps. Study your gems.

• Reading history — step back and forward through the places you've visited inside a book, like a browser's back button.
• Share GemPacks as scannable QR codes — export and import your annotation packs without sending a file.
• Export your highlights and notes as Anki flashcards for spaced-repetition study.
• JUMBO EPUB import — bring in very large books up to 200 MB.
• Split-screen and multi-window support for reading alongside other apps.
• Library search now shows book thumbnails, including books tucked inside collections.
• More reliable imports — if a transfer gets interrupted, it picks up where it left off and double-checks the book came through intact.
• Fixed the black screen on import, and a cleanup bug that could remove books it shouldn't have.

Welcome to GemReader. Gems stay in sync.

• A new welcome screen on first launch — rotating book quotes and trivia in English and Spanish, with smooth shimmer animations and dark/light theme support.
• Change the app's language directly from your Android system settings (System → Language & region → App languages).
• Collection and folder colors are now part of the theme system, giving your library a unified look that respects your theme choice.
• Copy and search no longer leave stray highlights behind.
• Changing a highlight's color now preserves any notes attached to it.
• Gems list now handles edits and deletes correctly — no more duplicate or disappearing annotations.

Smoother page turns. Faster gestures.

• Book open and close animations now use a sliding transition with a white-flash fix for smoother visual polish.
• Pull-to-refresh gesture refined — activation zone narrowed to the top 15% of the screen for more intentional triggering.
• Fixed external storage migration errors and hiding the option when no external storage is available.
• Highlighting accuracy and rendering improvements for complex EPUB structures.

Notes in your gems. Parallax removed.

• Add notes directly inside the Gems menu with a reveal text box — read and edit annotations without leaving your collection.
• Library and book settings are now more compact.
• Removed the tilt effect on the library (where covers shifted as you moved the phone) to save battery and keep scrolling smooth.
• Fixed swipe navigation edge cases.
• Highlight bug fixes for complex documents.
• Better error handling when Google Play is unavailable on your device.

Your library on an SD card — and it tilts.

• Store your entire library on an SD card and migrate books between internal and external storage in Settings.
• Library list view — switch between grid and list to scan titles and authors faster.
• Pinch to toggle between 2-up and 3-up cover columns in the grid.
• Book covers shift gently as you tilt the phone — a subtle sense of depth.
• A new page-turning animation — the first of several styles we're adding.
• Pull down inside a book to reload the reader page and fix any rendering issues instantly.
• Searching within selected text now searches the full book, not just the selection.
• Broken EPUB metadata and structure is repaired automatically during import, with a clearer message if it can't be fixed.
• Fixed: highlight creation, multi-page highlights, footnotes, references, and scroll stuttering.

Now on Google Play.

• GemReader is available on Google Play as an open beta — install from the Play Store or continue sideloading the APK. Same binary, same signing key, either way.

Your Kindle pile finally has a home.

• Import multi-part ZIP and 7z archives as a single book — no manual assembly needed.
• Scan a QR code on the archive password dialog instead of typing the password.
• Search the table of contents with fuzzy matching and jump directly to any chapter.
• Kindle format support — import MOBI and AZW books alongside your EPUB library.
• Pinyin auto-generates for Chinese books that lack ruby annotations when Show Pinyin is on.
• Footnotes and references have a cleaner, redesigned display.

Reading that feels good to hold.

• Toggle pinyin display — show or hide ruby annotation text in CJK content at any time.
• Haptic feedback when you create a highlight.
• Books now animate open when you tap them in the library.
• New reading fonts: Libre Baskerville and Literata, with expanded Noto multilingual script fonts.
• The screen stays on while you're reading — no more mid-chapter dimming.

Distraction gone. Search arrived.

• Immersion mode hides the status bar and all app chrome so nothing competes with the text.
• Search inside any book and results appear instantly as you type.
• Highlight colors are easier to tell apart at a glance, with refined margin placement and alignment.

Focus the paragraph. Bookmark the moment. Share the book.

• Tap any paragraph to focus it — the rest of the page softens so your eye stays on track.
• Bookmarks are fully rebuilt: a dedicated bookmark list, margin icons, and reliable persistence across sessions.
• Share one or multiple books with other GemReader users — original filenames are preserved end-to-end.
• A new Violet theme and refreshed app icon.

Folders all the way down.

• Collections now support nested subfolders — organize your library into as many levels as you need, with locked folders protecting everything inside.
• A new page-based reading mode lets you flip through books one page at a time using tap zones on the left and right edges of the screen.
• Reading progress is now visible directly on book covers in your library.

Everything smoother. Nothing new to learn.

• Navigation throughout the app is smoother — moving between your library, reader, and settings feels faster and more natural.
• Bookmarks are easier to use with a cleaner interface and more reliable text positioning.
• Notes and highlights now anchor to the exact passage more accurately, even across chapter boundaries.

Your spot saved. Your PIN faster.

• You can now bookmark any reading position and jump back to it instantly.
• A new high-contrast Chalk theme is available in Settings, alongside renamed Paper and Velvet themes.
• Locked folders use a redesigned PIN screen that's faster to navigate.

Two small bugs. Both gone.

• Folder colors now apply immediately after you pick them.
• Fixed a crash some users saw on launch.

Pick your colors. Pinch the diagrams. Find your chapter.

• You can now fully customize the reading theme — pick any color with the built-in color picker.
• Pinch to zoom images inside books.
• The table of contents now scrolls to your current chapter automatically and shows your reading progress on the side of the screen.

Lock the app. Favorite the rest.

• App lock is here — protect the whole app with your PIN or biometrics, with a 5-minute grace period so it doesn't interrupt quick switches.
• Added a Favorites tab so your most-read books are always one tap away.
• You can now import archives up to 2 GB, and the app will detect if you've already added a book so you don't end up with duplicates.

Import everything at once. Organize it your way.

• Import multiple books at once, including from ZIP or 7z archives.
• Collections (folders) let you organize and optionally lock groups of books.
• The app is now available in Russian and Korean.

The privacy release.

• Locked folders keep books, highlights, and notes encrypted separately — protected with your PIN and a per-folder key.
• The app now remembers exactly where you left off in every book.
• Added font support for Arabic, Amharic, Myanmar, and Cambodian scripts.