What this update is about
BookSafe 1.7 is the Year in Review update: your reading year now comes as a film in three designs — alongside the familiar “Gilded”, new as a bound book (“Clothbound”) and as a historic newspaper (“Almanac”). BookSafe also picks up tropes when a book has no blurb, and moves unread borrowed books to the front by due date.
This page describes the changes in more detail than fits into the App Store release notes.
Version 1.7 · released 12 October 2026
New
1Two new film designs for Year in Review
Year in Review has a new palette button. Use it to pick how the film of your reading year looks. Each design comes with its own song, and every film can be shared as a video.
Clothbound tells your year as a bound book in three volumes: bookshelf, paper stack and a card from the reading catalogue, with a cloth cover that opens and pages that turn. The film runs one minute.
Almanac turns your year into a historic newspaper — with printing roller, stamp and sepia engravings. Your book of the year stands on the podium as a cut-out book. This film runs one minute too.
Gilded, the existing design with golden numbers on a glowing gradient, stays (40 seconds).
2Tropes even without a blurb
So far BookSafe only found tropes in the blurb. Now the app also picks them up from the keywords publishers report to the German National Library — such as “Enemies to Lovers” or “Forced Proximity”. Especially for new releases that don’t have a blurb yet, the tropes are there as soon as you add the book.
Improved and fixed
- Library sorted by status: unread borrowed books now come first, the one due soonest at the top
- book data even during an outage at the German National Library: BookSafe then switches to a second data format; if the library doesn’t respond at all, the app says so instead of claiming the book isn’t in any catalogue
- the labels of the numbers in statistics and Year in Review are easier to read
- on the Year in Review podium, VoiceOver reads “Book of the Year – place 1” along with title and author
- the release-day fireworks show the right books and covers from the very first moment
Plus many further refinements. What version 1.6 brought is on the version 1.6 page.
Good to know
| Requirements | iPhone and iPad on iOS 18 or later, Apple Watch on watchOS 11 or later |
|---|---|
| Your data | No account, no tracking. Your library lives on your device and syncs through your own private iCloud. |
| Price | Free for up to 50 books. BookSafe Pro lifts the limit for good: €3.99 once, no subscription. |
| Updating | Comes through the App Store — on iPhone under “App Store → profile → update apps”. |
