Where it is offered
Offline reading is in the desktop app and the Android app. It is left out of a browser tab on purpose: a tab has a reload button and an address bar, and the installed apps are the ones that travel.
The Android app's standalone mode does not need any of this. The phone's own library is already the authority, and a lack of network shows as sync pending while everything you read and write carries on working.
Saving a story
The app uses two different words for two different things, and keeps them apart everywhere:
| Wording | Means |
|---|---|
| Download | The library fetches a chapter from the fiction site into your archive. |
| Save on this device | This device keeps a copy of text the library already holds. |
You can save a story from:
- the right-click menu on a card, in the library or in My Books;
- the On this device card on a story's own screen, which shows what is saved, how much space it uses, and how far behind the device is;
- a chapter selection on the story screen, using Save on device.
Saving copies the chapter text the library already has, along with the pictures in it and enough of the story's details to draw the screens around it. It never fetches anything from a fiction site. Rate limiting, sign-ins and etiquette all live on the server, and a device doing its own scraping would be a second copy of every one of those rules running on a network nobody is supervising.
If a story is subscribed but not yet downloaded, there is nothing to copy, and the app says so.
The three modes
Settings → Offline reading:
| Mode | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Automatic | The default. Use the library when it answers, and this device when it does not. |
| Work offline | Never reach for the server at all, for a metered or unreliable connection. Nothing you read is sent back until you leave this mode. |
| Off | The device stores nothing, falls back to nothing, and queues nothing. |
Automatic notices two different problems. The obvious one is having no network. The one that matters more often is a phone with four bars of signal that has left the house. The library is on the home network and cannot be reached, even though every browser measure says the device is online. A request that fails, or that goes unanswered for ten seconds, switches the app to its own copies; a quiet probe every twenty seconds switches it back.
What works with no connection
- The library and My Books list exactly what is saved on this device. Offering sixty stories that cannot be opened would waste your time.
- Saved chapters open, with their pictures, from the device.
- An unsaved chapter gets its own message saying it is not on this device. Nothing went wrong.
- Anything that needs the network to do the thing, such as subscribing, refreshing, browsing a site or uploading a book, is refused with a sentence saying what it needs the connection for. Queueing those would promise work that has not started.
Saved chapters are read from the device even when you are connected, because they are already there and already checked. They cannot go stale unnoticed: the app compares the version it saved with the version the library currently holds, and replaces the copy when an author has edited the chapter.
What you read gets back
Reading you do while disconnected is queued on the device and delivered when the library can be reached: chapters marked read and unread, reading positions, dismissed edits, and highlights and notes.
Each queued item is keyed by what it is about, so an hour of reading is one position per chapter rather than one per scroll. Everything you do is also applied to the copies on the device straight away, so a button you press does something visible. A queued write that changed nothing on screen would look broken and get pressed again.
Deleting a chapter's downloaded text after reading is deliberately never queued. Reclaiming space hours later, from a decision you have forgotten making, is exactly the surprise the “ask first” default exists to avoid.
Work offline is honoured completely, including at start-up. Choosing it means the device does not reach the network, and that includes delivering a queue.
Managing what is stored
Settings → Offline reading lists what is saved, how much space each story uses, and how many changes are still waiting to go back. You can remove any story from there, or from its own screen, or from the shelf menu.
A bar across the top of the app says which of the two things has happened, whether you chose to work offline or the library could not be reached, how much is here, and what is waiting to be sent.
The On device filter on the library and My Books shelves narrows to what is saved. It hides itself while the app is offline, because everything on the shelf is already a saved story.
This is not sync, and not a backup
Three things it is worth being clear about, because each has a feature next to it that sounds similar.
- Sync reconciles two full libraries against each other. A device copy is one device holding part of one library, plus a short list of things it has done.
- A backup protects you from losing the library. Removing a device copy deletes bytes from that device and changes nothing in the library, which is why the button does not ask you to confirm.
- A second library would have its own subscriptions and fetch its own chapters. A device copy only ever copies what the library already holds, and never contacts a fiction site.