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

- 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 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 you Mac.