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Browsing Your Kobo Bookshelf

Last updated: April 24, 2023

Your “Bookshelf” is separated into two tabs: the “Ebooks” tab will list your ebooks, and the “Audiobooks” tab will display your audiobooks. By default, books are displayed in a list view with the title, author, narrator (if applicable), and current reading progress. Double-tapping on any of these details will open the book.

The “Sort by” button allows you to sort and filter the books on your shelf. The text is located after the button rather than being part of it; if you’re swiping right through the screen, you’ll hear an unlabeled button followed by the text. The text also doesn’t specify that both sorting and filtering are on the same screen. You can double-tap the button or the text to bring up the sort and filter screen. The “Sort” and “Filter” options themselves are properly labelled buttons that you should be able to read and double-tap.

While exploring your bookshelf, you will come across a “Toolbar Overflow” button. Double-tapping this expands options to switch views and manage downloads. You can double-tap the “Download All” or “Manage Downloads” buttons if you want to download or delete any books to or from your device, but do not double-tap the “Cover View” button. This switches the view to one that displays book covers but doesn’t include VoiceOver readable text identifying which book is which. If you switch to covers view, you’ll have to switch back to list view by double tapping “Toolbar Overflow” followed by “List View.”

The “LibraryCellMore” button before each book opens a menu of options about that book. Not only is this button poorly labelled, but it doesn’t work reliably. Double-tapping doesn’t always bring up the menu, and some of the menu options either don’t work or aren’t labelled correctly. For instance, the “Remove” option doesn’t remove the book from your shelf; you can double-tap it, but the book will remain. We recommend using the Kobo website to remove a book from your shelf.

Instruction Summary

  1. Navigate to the “Ebooks” or “Audiobooks” tab, depending on which type of book you want to read.
  2. If you want to change how books are sorted or restrict which ones are shown, double tap the “Sort by” text or the button before it and select options on that screen.
  3. Explore the screen or swipe through your books, and double-tap on the one you want to read.

Related Tutorial Pages

  1. Using the Kobo Books app for iOS with VoiceOver
  2. Accessing Kobo
  3. Searching for Content
  4. Browsing for Content
  5. Reading Ebooks
  6. Reading Audiobooks