alfred-eBooks📚

List and open your Kindle and Apple Books ebooks with Alfred 5

• Motivation
• Setting up
• Basic Usage
• Known Issues
• Acknowledgments
• Changelog
• Feedback

Motivation ✅

• Quickly list, search, and open your Kindle and Apple Books ebooks

Setting up ⚙️

• Alfred 5 with Powerpack license
• Python3 (howto here)
• Kindle or Apple Books apps installed
• Download alfred-eBooks latest release

Default settings

• In Alfred, open the 'Configure Workflow' menu in alfred-eBooks preferences

  • set the keyword for the workflow (default: !k)
  • set the keyword to force an update (default: ::books-refresh)
  • set the book content icon, i.e. if a book has been downloaded locally (default: 📘)
  • set the 'ghost' book icon, i.e. if a book has not been downloaded or previously loaned (default: 👻)
  • show 'ghost' books (i.e. books not downloaded, or previously loaned)? (default: yes)
  • set target library (Kindle, Apple Books, or both. Default: 'Both')

  Note: alfred-eBooks will search for Kindle Classic and the (new) Kindle app. If both are installed, the latter with be used.

  • set search scope (default: 'Title')
    • Title: search titles only
    • Author: search authors only
    • Both: search across titles and authors

Basic Usage 📖

• launch with keyword (default: !k), or custom hotkey
• enter a string to search, according to the scope set in Workflow Configuration. A few search operators are available:
  • --p will filter for purchased books
  • --l will filter for loaned books
  • --d will filter for downloaded books
  • --k will filter for Kindle books
  • --ib will filter for Apple Books books
  • --read will filter for read books
• enter ↩️ will open the book in Apple Books (if downloaded) or the corresponding webpage on Amazon (if not downloaded)
• data is automatically cached for best performance. You can force a database refresh using the keyword ::books-refresh

Limitations & known issues ⚠️

• I could not figure out how to open a specific book in the Kindle app via command line. If you know how to do that, let me know!
• I could not figure out how the Kindle app can tell if a book was first loaned, then purchased. Currently, if that is the case (i.e. a book was first loaned, then purchased), the book will appear as loaned.
• not tested thoroughly for user-uploaded documents.

Acknowledgments 😀

• Thanks to the Alfred forum community!
• Icon from SF symbols

Changelog 🧰

• 10-07-2024: version 0.2: from kindle to eBooks
• 02-28-2023: version 0.1

Feedback 🧐

Feedback welcome! If you notice a bug, or have ideas for new features, please feel free to get in touch either here, or on the Alfred forum.