Originally published on soundleafapp.com

SoundLeaf: A Beautiful iOS Home for Your Audiobookshelf Library

So here’s the thing - I love audiobooks. There’s something weirdly satisfying about having someone tell you a story while you’re doing the dishes or stuck in traffic. But if you’re using Audiobookshelf for your self-hosted library? Finding a good iOS app has been… frustrating, to say the least.

That’s why I built SoundLeaf.

How This Happened

This whole project started because my wife couldn’t get into the Audiobookshelf TestFlight beta. Her exact words were “I cannot live without audiobooks,” which felt just dramatic enough to be a call to action. I’m primarily a backend dev with zero mobile experience, but hey, how hard could it be? (Narrator: It was quite hard.)

What Bugged Me About Other Audiobook Apps

I’ve used so many audiobook apps over the years, and they all drove me a little nuts in different ways. Some looked great but were missing basic features. Others had every feature imaginable but felt like they were designed by robots for robots.

So with SoundLeaf, I tried to fix the things that annoyed me most:

• It actually looks nice on iOS - no weird Android ports or web wrappers
• Multiple color themes (Midnight, Forest, and Espresso) because sometimes you want your app to match your mood
• Downloads that make sense - if you listen to a book for more than 10 minutes, it quietly downloads it so you don’t lose your place when your signal drops
• Sleep timers that fade out instead of abruptly stopping (because that sudden silence at 2am is jarring)
• Simple stats that don’t make you feel bad about not listening “enough”

Easy on the Eyes: Beautiful Themes

I spent way too many late nights perfecting the themes for SoundLeaf. Not because I had to, but because I care about how things look when I’m staring at them for hours.

The Midnight theme is perfect for nighttime reading, Forest gives a calm, natural vibe, and Espresso has that warm, cozy feel for morning listening sessions. Each one is designed to be easy on the eyes while making your book covers pop.

No Flashy Nonsense

I hate apps that constantly try to grab my attention with notifications and animations. SoundLeaf doesn’t do that. There are no ads, no “engagement strategies,” none of that stuff. It’s just your books, presented in a way that doesn’t hurt your eyes.

Making Sense of Your Book Collection

One thing I worked hard on was making it easy to browse by author or series. If you’re like me and have a ton of Brandon Sanderson books, you need a way to figure out what’s what without scrolling through an endless list.

Author pages show you everything by that writer in your library, with some basic info about them. Series pages group books together so you can see what order they go in.

Nothing revolutionary, just stuff that actually works when you’re trying to find your next read.

Your Data Stays Yours

I’m honestly tired of apps that track everything I do. SoundLeaf connects straight to your Audiobookshelf server. No middleman, no analytics tracking your reading habits, no third parties. Just you and your books.

Stats Without the Stress

Look, I’m a numbers guy. I like seeing how much I’ve listened and when I’ve been most active. But I hate how some apps turn everything into a competition or make you feel bad for not hitting some arbitrary daily goal.

SoundLeaf tracks your listening time, streaks, and trends in a way that’s actually useful, not stressful. You can see your lifetime stats (spoiler: they’re probably embarrassingly high), weekly patterns, and even your peak day (mine was during a long road trip).

The listening graph shows when you’ve been binging books without making you feel like you need to maintain that pace. And yes, there are streaks, but they’re just fun little markers of consistency, not a guilt trip if you miss a day.

All your stats stay private and local - because your reading habits are your business, not data to be sold.

What’s Coming Next

I’ve got a bunch of things I want to add, based on what people have asked for:

• CarPlay support (because apparently people listen while driving)
• Better ways to switch between libraries
• Podcast support
• More authentication options
• Maybe even ebook reading

Try It If You Want

SoundLeaf is available on the App Store. The basic version is free. If you want the themes and offline downloads, it’s a one-time payment under $10.

If you have ideas or run into problems, the GitHub repo is where you can let me know. I actually read everything there.

I’m building this because I needed it, and maybe you do too.

Happy listening,

- tb