Everything Glyph can do

Requirements

• iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or later
• An Apple ID (for App Store install and optional iCloud sync)
• An internet connection for AI features — the reader itself works offline

First launch

1. Install Glyph from the App Store.
2. Open the app — a short walkthrough highlights the library, the import button, and the AI summary entry point.
3. Bundled sample books are pre-loaded, so you can try every feature without importing anything first.
4. When you're ready, tap Import… in the top-right to add your own books.

Glyph supports three formats:

Three ways to import

From inside Glyph

Library → tap Import… in the top-right → choose Import Files… or Import Folder… (entire folders at once).

"Open in Glyph" from anywhere

From Files, Mail, Safari, Chrome, AirDrop, or any app — tap a supported file → Share Sheet → Open in Glyph.

Drag and drop (iPad)

Drag a file directly onto the Glyph icon or the open library view.

What happens during import

• EPUBs — parsed and added; usually under a second.
• PDFs — converted into reflowable chapters with cover extraction. Scanned PDFs trigger on-device text recognition. Conversion happens once; later opens are instant.
• CBZs — unpacked; reading direction auto-detected.
• AI auto-categorization Pro — new books are tagged with up to three categories on import.

Fetch missing metadata

Settings → Library → Fetch missing metadata looks up missing publisher, publication year, and series info for your whole library. EPUB and PDF books look up against OpenLibrary; comic-archive (.cbz) files use Comic Vine, which has better coverage for manga and graphic-novel volumes.

You can also tap Fetch metadata from the web inside any book's More Info sheet to refresh a single title.

Where to find free books

Glyph doesn't bundle a store — bring your own EPUBs. These reputable sites offer free public-domain ebooks you can download and import:

Standard Ebooks

Hand-curated, beautifully typeset public-domain ebooks. Smaller catalog, premium quality — every book is proofread and reformatted from source scans.

Project Gutenberg

The original free-ebook archive. 70,000+ titles across classic literature, history, science, and more. Formatting can be plain but the breadth is unmatched.

Internet Archive

A vast collection of scanned books with downloadable EPUBs, plus a controlled-digital-lending program for modern titles.

Open Library

The Internet Archive's book catalog, with many free downloads and borrowable titles. Searchable by author, subject, or ISBN.

All four sites are also surfaced inside Glyph: tap Find free books from the empty library, the Library ⋯ menu, or Settings → About.

Glyph's reader is built for long, focused reading sessions.

Reading modes

Open the Aa panel (text-format button, top bar) to switch between:

• Page-flip — turn pages with a swipe, like a real book.
• Continuous scroll — scroll vertically through the entire book without page breaks.

Reading position is preserved when you switch.

Focused Mode

Tap the center of the screen to hide all chrome. Tap again to bring it back. Customize what's shown in each mode (chapter title, progress %, time, battery) per theme in Settings → Theming.

The Reader Menu (⋯)

Table of Contents

Jump to any chapter.

Highlights

See every highlight in the current book.

Find in Book

Full-text search of the open book.

The AI Menu (✨)

The sparkles button next to the ellipsis opens AI features for the current book.

• EPUBs and PDFs: Ask · Catch Me Up · Summarize Chapter · Summarize Book
• Comics: Ask · Catch Me Up · Summarize Page · Summarize Issue

Typography (Aa panel)

• Font size
• Font family (system, serif, sans-serif, dyslexia-friendly)
• Line spacing
• Margins
• Text alignment

Per-book overrides stick across launches and devices. To return a book to its theme defaults, tap the red Reset button at the top-right of the Aa panel — it puts font size, alignment, and layout back to whatever the active theme specifies in one tap.

Glyph's AI features run through a privacy-respecting backend that talks to a leading frontier AI provider. Five entry points.

Follow-up conversations Pro

After any summary or Ask, keep the conversation going — "Why did character X do this?", "What's the symbolism of the river?"

Conversations are saved. Revisit them later from Settings → AI → History — full history is browsable, exportable, and prunable. With iCloud sync on, history and the AI summary cache follow you across devices.

Each AI reply now ends with three tappable question suggestions tailored to the answer. Tap one to keep going, or type your own. Turn them off in Settings → Summarization → Follow-ups if you'd rather drive every turn.

Where AI settings live

Under Settings → AI:

• Summarization — usage card (% used today) and the "Suggest follow-up questions" toggle.
• Library — Auto-categorize new books toggle Pro.
• History — browse, export, or prune past AI conversations.

Views

Toggle between Grid (cover thumbnails) and List (compact rows) from Settings → Library → Theming or directly from the toolbar.

Sorting and filtering

The Sort and Filter toolbar button lets you:

• Sort by recently added, recently opened, title, author, progress, or series.
• Filter by reading status.

Reading statuses

Change the default for new imports in Settings → Library → Default Status for Imports.

Categories

Glyph auto-detects categories (Fiction, Non-fiction, Sci-Fi, etc.) from book metadata. Tap a chip in the category chip bar above the library to filter. Hide the chip bar via its own eye-slash button or in Settings → Library.

Series

Books that share a series are grouped automatically. Each series has its own detail view (grid or list per-series, configurable in Settings → Library → Series detail view).

Bulk actions

Long-press a book to enter selection mode → use the action bar to change categories, change reading status, or delete in bulk.

Manual edits

Open any book's info sheet to override title, author, categories, or series by hand.

Deleting books

Long-press → Delete. With iCloud sync on, deletion can propagate to all your devices and to iCloud Documents — you'll be asked.

Comics get a purpose-built reader, separate from EPUB/PDF.

Features

• Native pager with buttery-smooth page transitions.
• Pinch-to-zoom per page with momentum panning.
• LTR / RTL auto-detection from ComicInfo.xml or filename heuristics (manga reads right-to-left).
• Single-page or two-page spread layouts.
• Manual reading-direction override if auto-detect gets it wrong.

Vision-based AI for comics Pro

Because comics are images, Glyph uses image-based AI to summarize them:

Tap a panel

"What's happening here?"

Summarize Page

Narrative summary of the current page.

Summarize Issue

Full-issue recap.

Built-in themes

Each theme owns its full palette, typography, header/footer chrome (Normal and Focused mode), and default page layout (page-flip vs. continuous scroll). Switching themes switches all of them.

Custom themes

Settings → Theming → New theme lets you author your own with:

• Background, text, and accent colors (color picker + swatch grid).
• Font family, size, and line-height defaults.
• Per-mode chrome (what's shown when chrome is visible vs. hidden in Focused mode).
• Paged or continuous-scroll default.

Per-book theme

Each book remembers its own theme. New books follow your app appearance until you change them.

Global app appearance

Settings → Appearance has a separate Light / Dark / System toggle for the rest of the app's UI (library, settings, sheets) — independent of which theme is active inside the reader.

Find in book

Reader ⋯ → Find in Book opens a bottom sheet.

• Case- and diacritic-insensitive substring matching.
• Up to 200 results per query (footer shows "Showing first 200 of N" when capped).
• Each result shows chapter, page, and a snippet with the match highlighted.
• Tap any result to jump to it; match is highlighted in-page.

Library search

The library's top search bar filters by title and author across your entire collection.

Highlights

Select text in the reader → Highlight. Glyph ships five preset colors drawn from the brand gradient, plus a custom color picker (any hex value).

Open the reader's ⋯ → Highlights to see every highlight in the current book with surrounding context, organized by chapter.

Notes on highlights

Tap any highlight → Add Note to attach a free-form note. Notes are searchable and exportable along with the highlight.

Bookmarks

Use the bookmark button in the reader to mark the current page. The bookmark list shows every saved spot with chapter and page number for quick jumps.

Glyph syncs two things, independently:

Settings & reading position

Always-on whenever you're signed into iCloud.

• Reader preferences (font, size, theme, layout).
• Reading position in every book.
• Highlights, notes, bookmarks.
• AI summary cache and conversation history (see the AI Features section).

Book files

The .epub, .pdf, and .cbz files themselves.

Off by default. Turn on in Settings → Sync (gated on iCloud being reachable on the device). Glyph uploads files to your iCloud Documents container and downloads them on demand on your other devices.

What doesn't sync

• Per-device diagnostics logs and Glyph's verbose-logging toggle.

Glyph is free to download with a generous free tier. Pro unlocks the AI features at full strength.

Free trial

New subscribers get 7 days free. All Pro features unlock the moment you start the trial — full AI summaries, Ask, follow-ups, comic vision, auto-categorization — with no card charge until day 8.

• How to start: open the paywall (Settings → AI, or any locked Pro feature) and tap Subscribe. The App Store sheet will show "Free for 1 week, then $4.99/month" before you confirm.
• If you cancel before day 8: you keep Pro access for the remainder of the trial and are never charged.
• If you do nothing: your subscription auto-renews at $4.99/month starting day 8, charged to your Apple ID.
• Where to cancel: Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on your iPhone or iPad, then tap Glyph → Cancel Subscription.
• One per Apple ID: Apple offers the free trial to new subscribers only. If you previously redeemed the Glyph Pro trial on this Apple ID, you'll subscribe at the standard $4.99/month.

What Pro unlocks

The free tier covers casual reading; Pro is for anyone who wants the AI features in their daily routine. Manage subscriptions in Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on your iPhone or iPad.

Restore purchases

Subscribe and restore both live in the Paywall (visible from any locked AI feature, or from Settings → AI). For a new device or after reinstalling: tap Restore Purchases.

Family Sharing

Currently not supported. On the roadmap.

The full privacy policy lives at /privacy. Highlights:

What stays on your device

• Your books (unless you opt into iCloud sync).
• Reading position, highlights, notes, bookmarks.
• AI summary cache.
• AI conversation history.

What's sent to our backend

• Book text chunks (only when you request an AI summary or selection summary) — sent to our backend, which forwards to our AI provider.
• A device-derived hash — for per-device rate limiting; not linked to your Apple ID.
• A book identifier hash — for cross-user summary caching.

What we never collect

• Your name, email, or Apple ID.
• Reading habits or analytics on what you read.
• The contents of your library (we only see chunks you actively send for summarization).
• Highlights, notes, or bookmarks.

Diagnostics (opt-in)

Settings → Support → Report an issue turns on verbose logging, lets you reproduce the bug, then collects the logs with an optional short description and uploads them to the Glyph support team. You'll get a short ticket ID to reference. Nothing is uploaded automatically.