Manage. Read. Note.
One app for your whole book workflow. Manage your library, read deeply, keep notes together, and let AI agents help with the rest.
macOS 12+ · Apple Silicon
What you can do
Keep books in Documents, project folders, external drives, or a NAS. Papyrium indexes folders where they already live while letting you organize with tags, categories, and collections.
Scan an existing collection, extract covers and metadata, find duplicates, and gradually organize books without a big migration.
Connect Papyrium to Claude Code and give your AI access to your collection. Ask questions, search across highlights and notes, organize metadata, find duplicates, or build reading lists — all across your entire library.
Highlight passages, add notes, and use PDF markup tools while reading. Useful for textbooks, research papers, technical books, and long-form learning.
Your book files stay on your device. Papyrium is designed for people who want a desktop library workflow without uploading their collection to a cloud service.
Library Management
Your collection, your structure. Import into Papyrium's library, connect external folders, or mix both — it adapts to how you work.
AI Agent Ready
Connect Papyrium to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, or any MCP-compatible agent. Categorize books, clean up metadata, find duplicates, build reading lists, and search your highlights and notes through a local MCP server. It all runs on your machine — your agent decides what it sends to its model.
Built-in Reader
Read inside Papyrium in a tab or a separate window, or hand off to your system app or any external reader you prefer. Your books, your setup.
Highlights & Notes
Select any text and highlight it in colors. Add notes to highlights. Write freeform notes per page or chapter. Browse everything in a unified notes sidebar.
Themes
The app follows your system preference or lets you toggle manually. Both library and readers respect your setting.
What's next
Papyrium is actively developed. Here's what's on the roadmap.
Papyrium is a local-first book management app and ebook library manager for macOS — a modern Calibre alternative that also works as an Apple Books alternative for people who want a real book catalog. Organize and catalog PDF, EPUB, and FB2 collections with tags, categories, collections, reading lists, and smart rules. Read with built-in readers — highlights, annotations, and freeform notes included. Files stay on your disk.
It suits power readers, students and academics organizing research papers and textbooks, PKM and self-hosted enthusiasts, and anyone with a large PDF or EPUB archive who wants modern library cataloging with reading and annotation in one place. Connect folders where your books already live — Documents, an external drive, or a NAS — and Papyrium indexes them in place without moving anything. No cloud, no account, works offline.
Papyrium can also run as a local MCP server, so AI agents like Claude can search your library, read your annotations, and help organize your collection — all on your machine.
Pricing
during Public Alpha
The version you install keeps working. Join the newsletter for the founding offer when paid access launches.
macOS 12+ · Apple Silicon
Get notified when new versions drop, follow development, and help shape what gets built next.
Found an issue or have feedback? Let us know.
Free during the public alpha. A paid version may be introduced in the future — early users will receive a founding discount.
Two ways: import files directly into Papyrium's managed library, or connect an existing folder and let Papyrium index it in place. Connecting a folder means your files never move — point it at Documents, an external drive, a NAS, or even another app's library folder and your existing organization stays intact. You can mix both approaches.
PDF, EPUB, and FB2.
macOS only for now. Windows support is on the roadmap.
No. Core features — library, reading, and annotations — work entirely without an account. Optional cloud or AI features in the future may require one.
Yes. Papyrium has a built-in connection point (an MCP server) that AI apps like Claude Code or Codex can use to search and organize your library. Everything runs on your machine — your files stay local, and your AI client controls what it sends to its model. It's off by default, write access is a separate opt-in, and it's free.