Read your own EPUB and PDF books on iPhone and keep your place

Somewhere on your phone there's probably a book you meant to read. A PDF a friend sent, a free classic you downloaded, a novel bought straight from an author's website, a course reader from university. You open it once in the Files app, read three pages, and next time it starts from the cover again. So you don't open it again.

Reading a book on your phone should be as easy as opening it and carrying on. That means the right file type, an app that remembers your page, and the book sitting somewhere you'll actually see it. This guide covers all three, along with where to find good books that you can read anywhere.

What's the difference between EPUB and PDF?

Most ebooks you can own as a file come as one of two formats, and they behave very differently on a small screen.

• EPUB is made for reading. The text flows to fit your screen, and you can change the size of the letters, the font and the background. On a phone, EPUB is almost always more comfortable.
• PDF is a fixed page, exactly as it was printed or designed. It's ideal for things where layout matters: cookbooks, comics, workbooks, illustrated guides and academic papers. On a phone you'll often zoom or turn it sideways.

If a book is available as both, choose EPUB for reading on your iPhone and keep the PDF for anything with diagrams or a printed layout you need to see.

Can I read any ebook I've bought on my iPhone?

Not always, and this catches a lot of people out. Many shop bought ebooks have copy protection, often called DRM, which ties them to the shop's own app.

• Kindle books open in the Kindle app.
• Apple Books purchases open in Apple Books.
• DRM free books, from authors, small publishers and free libraries, are ordinary files you can open in any reader you like.

That's not a bad thing on its own: those apps are good at what they do. But it means a reading app that opens your own files is for DRM free books and documents, not your Kindle library. If a file won't open in a third party reader, copy protection is usually the reason.

Where can I find DRM free books?

There are more than you might expect, including thousands of free ones.

• Project Gutenberg offers tens of thousands of free ebooks whose copyright has expired in the US, mostly classics, as EPUB and other formats.
• Standard Ebooks takes public domain books and produces carefully formatted, beautifully typeset EPUBs, also free.
• Authors and small publishers often sell DRM free EPUBs from their own websites or newsletters. It's worth checking an author's site before buying elsewhere.
• Your own documents count too: a thesis, a course reader, a long report, a manual, a recipe book a relative typed up.

Tip: public domain rules differ between countries. A book that's free in one country may still be in copyright in another, so check the site's guidance for where you live.

How do I open an EPUB or PDF on iPhone?

With Apple Books

Apple Books is built into the iPhone and is a good reader. Find the file in Files, Mail or Safari, tap Share and choose Books. EPUBs reflow nicely, PDFs open as pages, and it remembers your place. It's a great choice if you only want somewhere to read.

With anoli

anoli is a free iPhone app that saves posts from Instagram, TikTok and any website into folders, and it reads books too. It's useful if you want your reading to sit alongside everything else you save, so the book about bread lives in the same place as the bread reels, or the course reader sits in your Uni folder with the lecture links.

1. 1Download the EPUB or PDF to your iPhone, for example into the Files app.
2. 2Open anoli and tap the plus button.
3. 3Choose Add a book and pick the file.
4. 4The book goes into a Books folder, made for you the first time. Tap Start reading.
5. 5Read for as long as you like and close the app. Next time, tap Continue reading and you're back on the exact page.

If you've already saved a long PDF, open it and choose Read as a book. It moves to your Books folder and remembers its page from then on.

What can you change while reading?

A book should fit your eyes, not the other way round. In the reader you can:

• Change the text size with bigger and smaller buttons, for EPUBs where the text flows.
• Pick a look: light, sepia or dark. Sepia is gentle in the evening, and dark is kind on your eyes in bed.
• Jump around with Contents, and move to the next or previous chapter.
• See your progress, as a percentage and as page numbers, so you know how much is left.

If a book won't open, the reader tells you why. A copy protected book or a password locked PDF can't be opened outside its own app, and the message says so instead of failing silently.

Why does keeping your place matter so much?

It sounds small, but it's the difference between finishing a book on your phone and never going back. Phone reading happens in scraps: ten minutes on the train, five in a queue, twenty before sleep. If every return starts with finding your page, those scraps get wasted.

A reader that continues at the exact page turns those scraps into progress. A chapter a day in five minute pieces adds up to a book a month without trying.

Tip: set a reminder on the book for your usual reading time, such as the commute or just before bed. A small nudge at the right moment is often all it takes.

How do you read comfortably on a small screen?

A phone isn't a paperback, but a few habits make long reading on it genuinely pleasant.

1. 1Go a size bigger than you think. Slightly larger text means fewer words per page, but far less squinting, and you'll read for longer.
2. 2Match the look to the light. Light in daylight, sepia in the evening, dark in bed. Changing it takes a second.
3. 3Turn PDFs sideways. For a printed layout, landscape makes each line wider and easier to read without zooming.
4. 4Read in chapters, not hours. Use Contents to see how long the next chapter is, and pick one that fits the time you have.
5. 5Silence notifications while you read. A Focus mode on your iPhone stops messages pulling you out of the book.
6. 6Keep notes next to the book. If something strikes you, write a quick note in the same folder. It becomes searchable along with everything else.

If a file won't add or open and it isn't copy protected, the support page has a few things to try.

What about privacy and storage?

Books are files, and in anoli photos, videos and files stay on your phone. They aren't uploaded unless you put them in a shared folder or use them as a cover. Your folders, links and notes sync to your account, so your list of saves is safe if you change phone.

Because the files live on the device, keep a copy of anything precious somewhere else too, such as iCloud Drive. anoli can also export everything you've saved as a zip whenever you like.

On the free plan you can save a limited number of files. anoli Pro, £10 a year, makes notes, photos and files unlimited, so a whole shelf of books is no problem.

Which reading app should you use?

Honestly, it depends on what else you do on your phone.

• Apple Books is free, built in, and a good choice for reading EPUBs and PDFs on their own. It also sells books.
• Kindle is the place for Kindle purchases and nothing else. Its library is huge.
• The Files app opens PDFs fine for a quick look, but it doesn't keep your reading position the way a proper reader does.
• anoli is for people who want their books and documents in the same folders as their saved posts, links and notes. It reads DRM free EPUBs and PDFs, remembers your page, and searches inside PDFs along with everything else you've saved.

That last point is handy for study and work. Search looks inside PDFs, captions and notes, so typing a word from a chapter can bring up the document and the related posts together. We go into this more in an organiser for students, and the idea of keeping everything findable in one place is the heart of building a simple second brain.

Start with one book

Pick one book you've been meaning to read. Download a free classic from Project Gutenberg or Standard Ebooks if you don't have one to hand, add it, and read for five minutes tonight. Tomorrow, tap Continue reading and see how easy it is to carry on.

anoli is free to start, with no account and no card. You can see what else it does on the anoli home page, and what people think of it on the reviews page. When you're ready, download anoli for iPhone and add your first book.