Support

Tap + at the top right of the library to import files or whole folders from the Files app. You can also drop files into On My iPhone › OnlyText in the Files app, or connect your iPhone or iPad to a computer and drag books onto OnlyText in the Files section of Finder (Mac) or the Apple Devices app or iTunes (Windows). Books added this way appear right away, even while the app is open. To download books from a NAS, Nextcloud or another WebDAV server, tap + › Import from WebDAV and add the server. Your folder structure is kept. While a large import runs, you can see its progress and cancel it; books imported up to that point are kept.

On some file servers, such as many NAS devices, iOS doesn’t show other apps what’s inside a folder on a network drive, so the whole folder can’t be imported at once. Use Import Files, open the folder and select all the files: OnlyText puts them in a folder with the same name. You can also copy the folder to On My iPhone in the Files app first. If your server supports WebDAV, use + › Import from WebDAV instead to download whole folders.

TXT, EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2, PDF, Markdown, DOCX, ODT, RTF and HTML. MOBI and AZW3 Kindle books must be DRM-free. PDFs can be viewed as the original, or read as text with your own font and size.

While reading, open Menu › Encoding and choose another encoding, or convert the file to UTF-8 and save it. OnlyText detects UTF-8, EUC-KR/CP949, Shift_JIS, EUC-JP, GB18030, Big5, UTF-16 and Windows-1252 automatically.

Open Reading Settings to change the font, size, line and paragraph spacing, margins and color theme (Paper, White, Sepia, Green, Gray or Black). You can use fonts installed on your device or add fonts from the Files app, and keep separate settings for a single book.

While reading, tap the middle of the screen to open the menu, then tap the magnifying glass at the top. Type a word to search the whole book; each result shows the surrounding text and where it is in the book. Tap a result to jump to that page with the word highlighted. Searching ignores upper and lower case and accents. In an original PDF, the magnifying glass appears when the PDF has a text layer. To find a book in the library, use the search field in the library.

While reading, touch and hold text. The paragraph is selected; keep your finger down and drag, or move the handles, to adjust the selection. Then tap Save to Bookmarks, or Copy. Saved passages are highlighted on the page and appear with a quote icon in Menu › Bookmarks and on Apple Watch. Touch and hold a saved passage to remove it.

Yes. Reading positions and bookmarks sync through iCloud between devices signed in to the same Apple Account. Book files aren’t synced, so import the same file on each device; OnlyText recognizes it by its contents, even if the name or folder differs. Reading settings aren’t synced either. If you read further on another device while a book is open, a button offers to take you there. Sync is on by default; turn it off in Settings › iCloud Sync. Without iCloud, everything else works as usual.

Tap or swipe, use a keyboard, a Bluetooth remote or a gamepad, or press the volume buttons. You can choose the tap zones. Turning pages by tapping the back of your iPhone is an experimental option in Settings › Labs and is off by default.

Pair the remote, keyboard or gamepad with your iPhone or iPad in the Settings app first. Then, in OnlyText, open Settings › Keyboard, Remote & Gamepad and assign its buttons to next page, previous page or the menu.

Turn on the Secret Folder in Settings › Secret Folder. It opens only with Face ID or your passcode, and it locks again when you leave the app. Its books don’t appear in the Files app, recents, library search or on Apple Watch, and they aren’t synced through iCloud. Move books into it by touching and holding a book and choosing Move. To lock a single book instead, touch and hold it and choose Lock. A device passcode is required.

Yes, as an experimental feature. Turn it on in Settings › Labs (it is off by default). Each paragraph is translated on your device with Apple’s Translation framework or Apple Intelligence and shown with the original: stacked, side by side, or translation only. It is still slow, especially with Apple Intelligence, and it can use a lot of battery and warm up your device. A language is downloaded from Apple the first time you use it, and Apple Intelligence needs a supported device with iOS 26 or later. Your book’s text is never sent to the developer.

Every feature is free for 14 days, and the trial never charges you automatically. After it ends, a one-time purchase is needed to open books. It is not a subscription. Your library, importing, settings and the Apple Watch app keep working. On another device, use Settings › Restore Purchases.

Its first screen is a remote for the book open in OnlyText on your nearby iPhone, even with the iPhone screen off. Tap the screen or use Double Tap (Series 9, Ultra 2 and later) for the next page, turn the Digital Crown to go forward or back, or use the button for the previous page. Double Tap works only with your wrist raised and the screen on, so with your wrist resting, turn the crown or tap the screen. You can adjust page-turn vibration, and on the Watch’s Help screen choose how many crown clicks turn one page (4 by default) and the crown sensitivity. Tap the bookmark button at the top left to see the bookmarks you saved on iPhone, grouped by book. To keep the remote on screen, go to Settings › General › Return to Clock › OnlyText on the Watch and turn on Return to App. The Watch app needs watchOS 11 or later.

Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Hindi, Indonesian and Russian.