Guide · about 10 minutes

Move your Goodreads library into BooksLove

Your shelves, star ratings, date added, date read and written reviews all come across. Goodreads does not put cover images or start dates in its export, so the app fills covers in from the catalogue and shows you exactly which books still need a date.

Do this on a computer first. The export lives on the Goodreads website, not in the Goodreads app. Once you have the file, the rest happens on your iPhone or iPad.

Six steps

  1. Ask Goodreads for your export

    Sign in on goodreads.com, open My Books, and in the left column choose Import and export. Press Export Library. The page tells you the file is being generated.

  2. Download the CSV file

    A few minutes later Goodreads emails you a link, and the same page shows a dated download link at the top. Save the file — it is called something like goodreads_library_export.csv. On an iPhone, save it into Files so the app can reach it; iCloud Drive works well here.

  3. Open the importer in BooksLove

    In BooksLove, open Settings and tap Import your library.

  4. Pick the file, then say where it came from

    Tap Choose CSV File and select the export. The app then asks “Where is this file from?” — choose Goodreads. This is not a formality: each service names its columns differently, and picking the right one is what lets the app read your shelves, ratings and reading dates instead of skipping them.

  5. Check the preview, then start

    Before anything is written, you see how many books were found, “Where they’ll go” — the count landing on each shelf — and “What this file can’t bring”, which lists honestly what Goodreads left out of the export. If the numbers look wrong, “Choose a different app” or “Choose a different file” takes you back. When it looks right, tap Import.

  6. Read the summary and finish the job

    The summary tells you how many books were added and which ones need attention — usually a handful the catalogue could not match by ISBN. “Fix my library” walks through them one at a time: missing covers, missing finish dates, books that need a manual match. Nothing disappears quietly, and nothing is left half-done without telling you.

The BooksLove import screen with the Choose CSV File button

What comes across, and what does not

From your Goodreads export Arrives in BooksLove
Title, author, ISBN, publisher, page countYes
Shelves (read, currently-reading, to-read)Yes, mapped onto the four shelves
Your star ratingYes
Date added and date readYes, when Goodreads recorded them
Your written review and private notesYes
Cover imagesNot in the export — fetched from the catalogue instead
Start datesGoodreads does not export them
Friends, likes, comments, groupsNot imported — there is nowhere for them to go

Dates are never invented. If Goodreads did not record when you finished a book, the app leaves the date empty rather than filling in today. A made-up finish date would quietly corrupt your yearly goal and every statistic built on it, and you would never know why the numbers looked odd.

Importing again later

You can import the same file, or a newer export, as many times as you like. Books are matched by ISBN and by title and author, so a second import updates what changed instead of creating a second copy of your library. Import History in Settings keeps a record of every import: when it ran, which file it was, and how many books it touched.

Other services

The same importer reads exports from The StoryGraph, LibraryThing, Bookmory, Tome, Fable and Hardcover. If your file comes from somewhere else entirely, choose Another app and the importer works out the columns it recognises and tells you which ones it skipped.

Getting your data back out

The same door works in both directions. Settings → Export writes a Goodreads-compatible CSV or a complete JSON file containing everything, including things a CSV cannot hold. It is free, it needs no subscription, and it works on any day you feel like using it.

Ready when you are

Free on the App Store. Bring the CSV, keep the history.

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