shelff

shelff is a reading app for browsing and managing PDFs stored in iCloud.

All your data lives in iCloud Documents. You are never locked into a proprietary database. Metadata is saved as JSON files alongside your PDFs, so even if you stop using the app, your data remains yours.

■ Library
- Organize with folders or browse in a flat list
- Filter by categories and tags
- Group multi-volume works and magazine back issues into collections, with custom ordering
- Sort by title, author, date added, or last read
- Filter by reading status (unread, reading, finished)
- Full-text search across your PDFs
- Switch between grid and list views

■ PDF Reader
- Immersive full-screen reader
- Single page, two-up, and two-up with cover layouts
- Left-to-right (LTR) and right-to-left (RTL) support
- Highlights with optional comments
- Jump from table of contents or annotation list
- In-document text search
- Crop margins per book, with mirrored or separate settings for facing pages and optional cover exclusion
- Brightness adjustment

■ Metadata Management
- Edit title, author, publisher, publication date, and more
- Auto-extract initial values from PDF metadata
- Automatic reading status transitions (starts reading, finishes at last page)

■ Data Transparency
- All data stored as files in iCloud Documents
- Metadata and display settings (layout, crop, etc.) in JSON; annotations in the PDF itself
- Accessible anytime from the Files app
- You can search and organize your JSON metadata on iCloud using an AI agent and shelff-mcp on your Mac.