Balda: EPUB & PDF Book Reader

Balda is an ebook reader for EPUB, PDF, TXT and CBZ comics, with a real bookshelf where you arrange your books. No account and no internet needed: your books, your progress and your highlights never leave your phone.

A BOOKSHELF LIKE THE ONE AT HOME
Put your books on shelves and drag them from one to another with your finger. Each shelf has its own name and theme, with its own wood and spine lettering: "Reading now", "To read", "Finished", or any you create. Classic, Modern and Natural are there from day one; Fantasy, Library and Nocturne unlock by watching a video, for 24 hours. It's the part of owning books that reading apps usually take away.

THE FORMATS YOU ALREADY HAVE
• ePub 2 and 3
• PDF, with pinch to zoom and, on Android 15 or later, text search
• Text: .txt and .md (Markdown is shown as plain text)
• CBZ comics

Add books by picking one or several files at once, or grant access to a whole folder and Balda remembers it. Got a book on WhatsApp or by email? Tap it, choose Balda under "Open with", and it lands on your shelf.

AN EPUB READER THAT FITS YOU
Choose a serif or sans font, text size, line spacing and margins. Four paper colours: Day, Sepia, Night and OLED, for reading in the dark without straining your eyes. Turn pages or scroll continuously, whichever you prefer, and turn them with the volume keys if you like. Balda remembers where you left off in every book.

HIGHLIGHT, ANNOTATE AND BOOKMARK IN EPUB
Select text to highlight it in five colours, add a note or drop a bookmark. All your annotations live in one panel you can filter by type, and you can export them whenever you like.

KNOW HOW MUCH YOU READ
Stats worked out from your own reading sessions: average speed, daily streak, a consistency heatmap and weekly charts. Plus an estimate of how long you have left in the chapter and the book, which gets sharper the more you read. If you like, a daily reminder at the time you choose, only on days you haven't read yet.

READING GOALS
Set a goal of books per year or per month, or pages or minutes per day. For book goals, Balda tells you whether you're on track, cutting it close or at risk of missing it. Home screen widgets keep it in view without opening the app.

SHARE WHAT YOU READ
Turn your streak, your yearly goal, this month's books, a highlighted quote or your review into an image ready for Instagram, WhatsApp or anywhere else. In December, your year in reading. You choose what gets shared, and you can hide titles and covers.

BUILT FOR TABLETS AND FOLDABLES
On wide screens, navigation moves to the side, the annotations panel opens next to the text instead of covering it, and the heatmap grows from 16 to 52 weeks.

READ OFFLINE
No sign-up and no sync to break. Put your phone in airplane mode and keep reading: the only things that use the internet are the ads and, if you leave it on, crash reporting.

FREE, WITH ADS THAT DON'T INTERRUPT
Balda is free and supported by ads, but you will never see an ad while you read: no banner in the reader and no breaks mid-page. Banners appear on the browsing screens, and when you close a book after reading for a while, a full-screen ad may show. During your first days, no full-screen ad will pop up. The extra shelf themes are the only thing unlocked by watching a video, and only if you ask for it.

YOUR DATA
Your books, progress, annotations and stats never leave your phone, unless you choose to share them. Ads use Android's advertising ID, like any app with ads, and in Europe you're asked for consent before the first one is shown. Crash reports are sent so unexpected crashes can be fixed: they never include your books or your reading, and you can turn them off in Settings.

Available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese.