Book Crawler Reviews

by Mlspray

I have been using BookCrawler for many years and it’s great. However, I have to give your most recent update 1 star. At least I think it’s your most recent update. I can no longer get to utilities or settings from the menu to see for myself. There is a book graphic covering those options up. I also am very disappointed by the layout, it is no longer simple to navigate or look up my cataloged books. The book screen layout now only takes up maybe 2/3’s of my phone screen; I can only see 4 books at one time, when before I could see 8-10 books at one time. I kept thinking I needed to change a setting but I can’t even get to those anymore. I’ve read some recent reviews and I don’t think I’m the only person that dislikes the new look. PLEASE consider changing the layout back to the way it was. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it before. Thank you.

by Itdoditsohdiydohxh

I paid for the larger version years ago and now I’m having the same problem as some of the other people. 🤬 I can’t add anymore books because it says the trial version is over but that’s crap. It does nothing when you click on the restore or purchase. If they want to charge more money fine. I used to think BookCrawler was worth twice what I paid for it but not now. Another review made the comment that maybe they are going out of business. The idea scared me because I would have to go back to what I did before. Having a notebook to carry around is NOT appealing. If they fix this issue I will repost another review

by More Trees Please

I don’t mind purchasing apps but nowhere could I find this is free for only 7 book entries before you have to pay for an upgrade. That was an annoying surprise because 7 books took me WAY too long (20-30 mins using scan feature) and now it’s a total loss because I won’t be upgrading. Given it’s been a year since an update it would be a waste of money because who knows if there will ever be another update.
I like the idea of of BookCrawler . I want a place to catalog and organize my books for teaching and it’s great for that. In fact, I loved the search-ability and simplicity. Unfortunately, it’s dial-up internet slow and the barcode scanner only worked occasionally on newer books (stuff published in the last two years.) Older books didn’t seem to have that problem. I didn’t even have time to check out the other features before the upgrade was demanded. At least I didn’t waste any money. I’ll look elsewhere for a maintained/supported app for my purposes.

by Tazio705

I have been using book crawler for over 10 years, way before cloud support. There was a time where you could call support and actually talk to Jaime ( I did it several times). Now you cannot get anyone to answer let alone call you back or answer an email.

Although I am not a tekkie I am not ignorant of technology but the directions in the help section are very difficult to follow. I have paid for a subscription but for the last two weeks cannot get my cloud syncing to work on my iPad and cannot get anyone to help me.

Very disappointed in support and mostly of Jaime who has let her app fall short of the superior product I once knew.

by BRH12345

The latest version of this wonderful app which I’ve used for many years has been apparently been released well before adequate testing completed. It’s buggy on almost every screen. On the top screen, cannot select “Utilities” or lower options because it is covered up by the book graphic. Entry of a book into an existing author doesn’t show up right away. It has to be edited through the book screen to show up in the author’s list. Dragging a finger along the alphabetical key on the right side of the screen doesn’t work properly. Please retest and fix this mess. iPhone SE + iOS 14.4

by KiraJ202

I prefer to see my large collections in a wall mode, it doesn’t look as though BookCrawler only shows the books in any other way besides a list. I am also having trouble figuring out how to show a little less information in the main menu. There’s the title and author, along with the ISBN number, year of publication, and if the book happens to be a part of a series, it’ll have that number in there too. That’s a bit too much for me, I’d rather just see the title and author, and if for whatever reason I’d like to see the publication year, I can click on the book itself to see.

Also, ten books is far too low before wanting payment.

by NelleRenn

I have a fairly large data base and Book Crawler seems to handle it just fine that is until now. When I want to add a book I now get message telling me to purchase or restore purchase (I already have an on going subscription). When I click on either of the options nothing happens and I can’t enter another book. I am very disappointed. When I go to the website to ask for help I find nothing relevant as it doesn’t even look like a website for BookCrawler.
I sometimes have trouble backing it up to Dropbox as it does seem to take an extremely long time, as it really never says completed but it has backed up.
Hope to continue using BookCrawler as the systems for Apple upgrade. Like the features that show I own the book or have read the book. It has saved me several times from purchasing duplicates.

by Toneybarber

Support response not happening. Disappointed. Family sharing does not work as advertised. Now considering other apps. I’ve just started using the updated app and really like it. However, the user interface needs cleaning up a bit. The bright blue title font is distracting and the shelf background image does not tile through the entire page. I would like to see a few more options for displaying other details on the list. I could live with a smaller font as well. I’m reserving 5 stars for what I’m sure will ultimately be a professional, more customizable UI. Thanks for an otherwise nice app. I’ll be buying the upgrade to support the developer. :)

by GreenQuartz

I’ve been looking for a good app to catalogue my book collection. I don’t typically buy large press books or popular/charting books—I collect old, small press, and rare books. This isn’t really what BookCrawler had in mind when it was designed.

There are a couple of things I hate. When you select a book, two things happen: the book picture becomes 3-D and looks really dumb. It’s a completely unnecessary effect. Second, the book listing, along with the horrible 3-D book hovers over the top of the screen covering the text underneath. Another weird design decision.

Hope this grows on me cause it appears to be the best option on BookCrawler Store...all the others I tried were terrible messes and absolutely not useful.

by The777

I was hopeful with this and purchased it. However, the UI needs some serious updating. It feels old and very clunky. I should have looked to see when the last update occurred. It was a year ago. It freezes quite often and will not sort books as specified.

The search feature when adding books really needs updating as well. I am not able to find any books using the LOCCN. We need to be able to search by date, publisher, etc. On a positive note, BookCrawler found older books better than other apps I tried out. That is primarily why I purchased it and then realized all the problems. Even the search feature to find books in the library is so faulty and confusing.

Last thing as of now - it would be nice to be able to search for covers to books on the internet inside BookCrawler and add those to the book.

I hope that the owner sees that BookCrawler needs improvement. I would even be willing to pay a yearly subscription if it functioned well.

by Colacaper

I have been using Book Crawler for years beginning with the original version. Works better than others but last update altered somethings that are annoying. The title of the book, when entering a new book, no longer caps. You have to manually capitalize each word. How did this change? To me the new date method is also annoying. I am using my iPad but that should not matter. Also I would like to be able to edit elements that pop up automatically. I have less success finding a cover that applies to Kindle and audiobooks. Otherwise great.

by Fxr91

But lately it seems to have fallen flat. I’ve had BookCrawler for years. There was a time when I would scan the ISBN barcode and the info would cover up almost immediately. Title, series, number in series, author, everything. Now I scan and nothing happens. I now have to type in the title and search editions. Whatever happened on this latest release I hope it can be fixed.
Other than that it’s a great app.
Update: rebooting my phone helped some, and I had to go back to all the books I scanned to let BookCrawler update them. I still expect better from BookCrawler.

by Rusciolelli54

After starting with another book database, which is no longer supported, trying several others before choosing this one is the one works best. Wish could also have it in Windows. Would use it both places if I could. Couple of issues (and this is me): would prefer to sort by Author, but it does NOT respond well when sorted by author. Also have issues backing up and downloading to my iPhone.

by S_basquez

I love this for my book inventory! There are some instances where the scanner will stop working, but it’s a simple by closing out BookCrawler and going back into it. I wish it was easier to have my data go between multiple devices (using a log in that saves me info) rather than having to frequently use the back up. But overall, a great way to keep track of my books (and to help prevent me from buying the same book over and over again).

by Boardfrq

I love that Book Crawler is not only an easy to use book database app for everyday use, but it really shines for those who require advanced searching and sorting, I think, based on a Google search, that even libraries use it! It’s very name “Crawler” reminds me of the database search term “metacrawler”, which is accurate, in that BookCrawler provides public library-level search and sort capabilities to expertly navigate your database for those who have large multi-genre collections and past reads. Speaking of libraries, I also love that it can search local libraries for hard to find books and let you know if they are available. That has saved me lots of drive time! It can also show Goodreads reviews for books, though I don’t really use that. Overall, Excellent book database app for novice and expert alike! Highly Recommended!

by Kstripling

One of my favorite things to do is read books, and I read them in all forms. Before discovering BookCrawler, I found myself occasionally buying books that I already owned/had read and it was super frustrating. Just wanted to say BookCrawler is fantastic!! BookCrawler allows me to organize and keep track of all my books, allows me to put in custom tags (so that I can filter even more), and I love that I can export my books list to a csv file. I brag about BookCrawler every chance I get. Keep up the great work!

by Barb Robb

I was delighted when I found Book Crawler. I knew when I came home with books that I had already read that I needed a way to keep track of the books I had read. Because BookCrawler uses color to note books that have been read, I also use it to name other books by the author that I plan to read in the future. I love the fact that BookCrawler includes a picture of each book and a summary of the story. It also allows you to add information on the book being part of a series. Best of all, Book Crawler is very easy to use.

by Terryfic3d

BookCrawler is fabulous, but needs just a few simple enhancements.

1. Sort by title, when viewing an author’s books. I have no idea what the default sort order is, but it’s not useful. (Ditto for the search results when searching an author’s book.) When viewing the Book list, sorted by author, it DOES alphabetize the books as I recently discovered! But when I view an author’s booklist, my purpose is to add something new. When viewing the Book list/author sort, it would be oh so perfect if you could click the author’s name to take you to the author’s pane in order to search for and add more books. I wouldn’t think this would require much programming.

2. When viewing a title, be able to click the author’s name to take you the author’s listings. See above reason - to search more by that author, or to see what else you have read.

I’ve used BookCrawler for some time now and despite the gripes above, it is definitely one of the best apps on my phone and worth every penny.

by Claire N Zolo

Finally able to restore the 245 books in my database with all my notes that I lost all of a sudden several years ago. Now I am trying to purchase the annual subscription and cannot figure out the steps to do that. What is the total number of books that can be saved? I had previously purchased BookCrawler when it was fairly new, but one day I guess I exceeded the number of books allowed and my database was wiped out. (Just restored the old database from an old iPad backup.) Does anyone know the maximum number of books with personal ratings and notes that can be stored on the annual subscription? Does anyone know how to sign up for that?Thank you!

by Boggled6

I have used Book Crawler for over a decade and I think it is an outstanding app. It is very customizable, it has great import/export capabilities, and I really appreciate being able to sort and filter my book list on so many criteria. In addition, I recently had an issue with the “restore purchases” function, and the developer quickly responded to my help request and figured out the source of the problem (which was not BookCrawler ). I highly recommend BookCrawler !

by Eclecticpeanut

I was excited to hear about BookCrawler and downloaded it immediately. After going through my 200+ books and inputting them, I quickly learned that not only is the info wrong, but BookCrawler frequently freezes whenever I go to change the info. I also do not like the fact that I can only put in books that I have physically. I would like to add my 1200 ebooks to my library to keep track of them, but I would have to search for each one manually. I haven’t even mentioned my vast audio library. If you have a library of less than 50 books, then maybe BookCrawler will be ok for you.

by 001jhale

I’ve used BookCrawler for several years, and as a book inventory app, it’s very good. The help function, though, is a joke. Someone needed to spend some serious time and effort and provide detailed help. For ex, can I add a photo of an author if the system can’t provide one? I wouldn’t know. No help there that I could find anywhere.. And BookCrawler doesn’t appear to be able to automatically sync between devices, say an iPhone and iPad. No help there that I can find.

Also, the product doesn’t appear to have been updated in a year. Zero bugs? Have we been abandoned?

by AuntBic

I’ve used BookCrawler for quite a while. I love it. I rely heavily on the database because I don’t want to lose anything. I back up my data base once a month. I have various successes and fails. Currently, back up and export both work but for the last three months it has failed. This happens periodically. I worry that the data I enter will be lost during the ‘down’ times. Please try to keep this feature up and current.

by Ccfowler

I’ve been using BookCrawler for years with a very large library of books. Finding books by title or books by author is very convenient. Being able to keep a backup in Dropbox is very useful to avoid data loss.

The most convenient change would be for the database on my iPhone to synchronize with the Dropbox file rather than requiring backups which take a long time and seem to be wasteful of data transmission requirements. A synchronized database would allow the database to be kept current on multiple devices rather than requiring multiple uploads and downloads.

by HTJax

As someone who loves to read and collect books, I often found myself in a dusty old bookstore trying to remember if I own the book that I’m holding in my hand. Or worse, getting home with my prized new book only to find a copy already in my library. Book Crawler has solved that problem. It’s easy to use and I’ve learned to customize the database to fit my specific needs. This is the perfect app for a book collector.

by ZannyT

Thanks, Jaimie! I have used your app for years—possibly eight years or more—and rely on it to recall each book. I back up BookCrawler , of course, and even saved to an excel spreadsheet when ios changes seemed to get in the way a few years ago.

I use BookCrawler to find locate digital books I borrow from from libraries, or bought from Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks, and hardcopy or paperback books.

Please keep on giving your time!