Audiobooks

A deliberately small audiobook player. It plays your own files, keeps your place, and stays out of the way.

Download for Android APK · 1.0.8 · 60MB Download for Linux x86-64 · 1.0.8 · 12MB

Android 8 or later. Linux build is x86-64.
SHA-256 64e4a7cde014c3ffd20f4a1e45e39483e873ba328740fe677067806d21111162 (Android)
SHA-256 ed1b6058501d4180f43104e90971a7138119b287da2028ae7ee0354894622f3c (Linux)

What it does

Your own files. Point it at a folder of audiobooks. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no catalogue to browse or subscribe to.
Keeps your place. Position, speed and chapter are remembered per book and picked up where you left them.
Simple bookmarks. One button, no naming, no dialog. Starting a sleep timer leaves its own mark, so you can find where you drifted off.
Sleep timer, and skipping by 30 seconds or by chapter.
Optional sync. Sign in and your position follows you between devices. Signed out, the app never touches the network.
Also on Linux, as a desktop build, sharing your place through sync.

Installing

Android

Download the APK above.
Open it. Android will ask whether to allow installing apps from this source; that prompt appears for anything not from the Play Store.
Open the app and choose the folder your audiobooks are in.

Linux

Unpack the archive and run the installer inside it:
tar xf simple-audiobooks-*-linux-x64.tar.gz
./simple-audiobooks-*-linux-x64/install.sh
It installs under ~/.local — no root — and adds an Audiobooks entry to your application menu.

To update, download the newer archive and run the installer again. To remove it, delete ~/.local/lib/simple-audiobooks along with the simple-audiobooks symlink and desktop entry under ~/.local.

Sync, if you want it

Sync is optional and does nothing until you create an account. It carries your position and bookmarks between your own devices — never the audio, which stays where it is. If another device has moved further into a book, you are offered the jump rather than moved without asking.