Organizing Your Library¶
Alcove organizes books with tools such as tags, ratings, reading status, series, and cover art. All metadata changes save instantly and are undoable.
Tags¶
Tags are freeform labels you create. A book can have any number of tags. Use them however makes sense for your collection — genre, mood, format, source, reading list, anything.
Adding and Removing Tags¶
Select a book and tap or click Edit Tags… in the detail panel. A picker lists all your existing tags; select a tag to add it, select it again to remove it. Type in the search field at the top to filter, or type a new name and press Return to create it.
To remove a tag without opening the picker, tap or click the × on the tag chip in the detail panel.
Filtering by Tag¶
Tap or click any tag in the sidebar to filter the grid to books with that tag. Tap it again (or select All Books) to clear the filter.
Bulk Tagging¶
Select multiple books, then use Add Tag… or Remove Tag… to apply a tag to — or remove it from — all selected books at once.
Mac Use the Book menu or Control-click any selected book.
iPad Use the Book menu (⋯ button) or touch and hold any selected book.
You can also drag a selection of books from the grid or list onto a tag in the sidebar — Alcove adds that tag to all of them in a single undoable action.
Managing Tags¶
Right-click (Mac) or touch and hold (iPad) a tag in the sidebar to Rename or Delete it. Renaming updates every book that uses the tag. Deleting removes the tag from all books — the books themselves are not deleted.
Ratings¶
Ratings are 0–5 stars. Select a book and tap or click the stars in the detail panel to set a rating. Tap or click the currently selected star to clear the rating back to unrated.
Ratings are shown in list view (Mac) and can be used to filter and sort your library. To bulk-rate, select multiple books and set the stars in the detail panel — the new rating is applied to all of them.
You can also drag a selection of books from the grid or list onto a star rating in the sidebar to set that rating in one undoable action.
Reading Status¶
Each book has one of four statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unread | Not started (default) |
| Reading | Currently in progress |
| Read | Finished |
| Did Not Finish | Abandoned |
Set the status using the segmented control in the detail panel. Tap or click a status in the sidebar to filter the grid to books with that status.
To bulk-update, select multiple books and tap or click the segmented control in the detail panel.
You can also drag a selection of books from the grid or list onto a reading status in the sidebar to set all of them to that status at once.
Series¶
If a book belongs to a series, record the series name and position in the detail panel while in edit mode. The Series field offers your existing series names — select one from the list or type a new name. The Position field accepts a number (decimals are allowed, e.g., 1.5 for a novella between books 1 and 2).
Bulk Assigning a Series¶
Select several books in the grid or list and drag them onto a series in the sidebar — they are all added to that series in one undoable action. Position is left unchanged for books already in the series.
iPad You can also tap the ⋯ overflow button in selection mode and choose Assign Series….
Browsing by Series¶
The sidebar shows a Series section below Tags. Tap or click any series to filter the grid to books in that series, ordered by their series position.
Sorting by Series¶
Choose Series from the sort menu to sort your library alphabetically by series name, then by position within each series. Books without a series sort at the end.
Cover Art¶
The cover image is extracted from the book file on import. You can replace it at any time.
Replacing a Cover¶
Mac Choose Book → Replace Cover…, or Control-click a book and choose Replace Cover….
iPad Tap the Replace Cover button in the toolbar above the book's details, or touch and hold the book and choose Replace Cover….
The sheet shows the book's Current cover beside the Proposed one, and starts searching online for covers right away, showing results as they arrive. Click or tap a result to make it the proposed cover. To use your own image instead, drop it anywhere on the sheet, paste it (⌘V), or choose it: Choose File… on the Mac, Choose… (Photos or Files) on the iPad. The sheet tells you when an image is low resolution. Click or tap Replace to use the proposed cover.
You can also drop an image file straight onto the cover in the book's details.
Covers are stored separately from the book file, so replacing a cover never modifies the original. Covers sync via iCloud along with the rest of your library, and a replacement can be undone.
Replacing Covers for Several Books¶
Select several books, then choose Replace Cover… from the Book menu or context menu.
- A few books (5 or fewer, by default) go one at a time in the same sheet. Apply & Next replaces the cover and moves on, Skip leaves a book as it is, and the arrows move between books. The whole run undoes as one step.
- More books open a review sheet that proposes a cover for every book at once. Confirm or change each one before anything is written; books with no match are skipped.
Open Library asks apps to keep bulk requests small, so a review of more than 50 books at once is declined — select fewer books and run it again. (Alcove Plus subscribers are not affected: their batch lookups use ISBNdb instead.)
Settings → Covers sets which online sources are searched and in what order, and when several books go one at a time or all at once. See Settings → Covers.
Editing Metadata¶
Select a book and tap or click Edit in the detail panel to change its metadata. Tap or click Done to save, or Cancel to discard. All edits are undoable.
Mac Choose Book → Get Info (⌘I) to start editing the selected book with the title field ready. Press Escape to cancel, except in a field that offers completions (publisher and the sort fields): there Escape shows the matching entries first, or the whole list when the field is empty.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Full title |
| Author(s) | Comma-separated list for multiple authors |
| ISBN | 10 or 13 digits; used for metadata and cover lookups |
| Publisher | Typing offers completions from your library |
| Published | Publication date |
| Original Year | Year of first publication; shown only in edit mode when set |
| Series / Position | Series name and number within the series |
| Sort Title | Override where the title sorts. Leading articles such as "The" are already ignored; use this for cases like filing 2001: A Space Odyssey under "Two Thousand One" |
| Sort Author | Override where the author sorts, such as filing Ursula K. Le Guin under "Le Guin" |
| Synopsis | Free text description |
Look Up Metadata¶
For books with incomplete metadata, choose Book → Look Up Metadata… (or Control-click (Mac) / touch and hold (iPad)). Alcove searches Open Library (and ISBNdb, with Alcove Plus), presents a list of candidates, and lets you review each proposed field individually — check the fields you want to accept, then click or tap Accept All. You can process multiple books in one pass using the book list on the left side of the sheet.