Google Play Books

Google Play Books Free App

Rated 3.91/5 (1,383,599) —  Free Android application by Google LLC

About Google Play Books

Make digital reading even easier with Google Play Books, featuring smart recommendations personalized just for you, access to millions of best sellers, comics, and textbooks, and loads of customizable features.

Just some of the highlights of Play Books are:

* Preview free samples from our catalog of millions of books including romance, comics, mystery, sci-fi, young adult & more
* Read your books, comics, and textbooks on Android, iOS, or your web browser, even when you’re offline
* Find your next read via our highly personalized recommendations, curated series and author pages, and in-app alerts about new releases you’ll love
* Read Discover, a daily feed of book news & stories with articles from Slate, Vox, the Google Play editors, and more (US only)
* Follow your favorite comics series, devour our weekly deals, and read about your favorite superhero with Bubble Zoom, an exclusive technology preview that’s available on select titles
* Customize your reading experience by choosing your preferred font, text size, or page color, and make late night reading easier on your eyes with Night Light
* Rent or buy digital textbooks and study better when you harness the power of Google with integrated Google Search, rapid Skim Mode, Quick Bookmarks, and the ability to easily sync your notes and highlights to Google Drive

How to Download / Install

Download and install Google Play Books version Varies with device on your Android device!
Downloaded times, content rating: Not rated
Android package: com.google.android.apps.books, download Google Play Books.apk

All Application Badges

Free
downl.
n/a
Not
rated
Android app

App History & Updates

What's Changed
You can now use your stylus to highlight and select text while reading.
Stability and performance improvements.
More downloads  Google Play Books reached 1 000 000 000 - 5 000 000 000 downloads
More downloads  Google Play Books reached 500 000 000 - 1 000 000 000 downloads
More downloads  Google Play Books reached 100 000 000 - 500 000 000 downloads
More downloads  Google Play Books reached 100 000 000 - 500 000 000 downloads

What are users saying about Google Play Books

T70%
by T####:

Awesome! ???? Fabulous! I love every features of Google play book. Firstly, the page turning. It gives me the feel of reading real books. Secondly, The In-build Dictionary, I like the easy way of getting meaning of a word within the Google play book. No more need to look up dictionary all the time when everything is here. Thirdly Fonts, I really fond of the fonts and Finally Colour choices and text adjustables. Custom of app really ease my reading. Thank you Google ❤. I would like to recommend this to everyone.

T70%
by T####:

I purchased an important book from this app but i didn't got the book. Amount has been deducted from my bank account but it shows to buy the book again. I've contacted with customer service, agent told me that it will take maximum 3 to 4 hours to fix the issue, now its been almost a day but hasn't fixed. And the most worst part is that now they do not respond to my request.

T70%
by T####:

Pros: - Easy to search and purchase new books - Read Out Loud feature is a nice addition for most books - Large variety of books. I've found all books that I searched for. Cons: - This is a big one for me. I'm not able to create or see custom shelves in the app. I would love to have the ability to categorize my library. I can do this on the site. I would expect an app like this to offer the same feature. (The current sort options and default shelves do not fill my need)

K70%
by K####:

The app itself is very good as well as the books. Unfortunately, the biggest downside is a massive disadvantage, that you cannot yet download the books to the sd card. This means the app will drink up your internal storage thereby limiting me to just one book, which may at some stage need to be uninstalled because of the storage issue. The app itself is smooth to operate and excellent realism to the actual book with the added bonus to zoom in on pages. I also love the night mode it has too!

X70%
by X####:

I switched from Amazon to Google books about three years ago. It was all I used. Yesterday I opened the app to read a book and my entire library was gone! I can access my books through the internet and they will open up in the app but when I close the app the book is gone again and the library is still empty. Customer support was no help to me in resolving this issue. I just want to read my books!

T70%
by T####:

Does what it's supposed to do, but can use some improvements in it's stability. Currently I'm having way too many instances of the app disabling itself that at time I sometimes cannot bring myself to go into the Google Play Store to re-enable it, especially while I use it for my books for class with it's read aloud feature. I hope someone can make the app stay put.

Q70%
by Q####:

Awesome! Just one note...there are lots of words that the dictionary doesn't provide a definition for, although I am sure they are frequent words that must be in every dictionary. I guess there is a bug because I encountered a word twice and once it gave me the meaning while the other time it did not.

N70%
by N####:

It's truly a very versatile app, and I love the different options and the animations and everything really, but I wish you'd increase the upload limit. 100 MB really is too less if I'm reading a really long PDF (of maybe a textbook or something) that easily exceeds the limit. That is my only pet peeve but honestly, I love this app for everything else. Hopefully you can get that upload limit increased, it would be amazing.

T70%
by T####:

My phone was freezing up when I started to read aloud a book. My problem was fixed by turning off the lock screen. But now my phone is always exposed because I use this app too frequently to have any issues with it. My problem is resolved but no thanks to Google. I still cant make the other voices in a voice set work for reading aloud a book I still have to listen to the default first voice in a voice set. Now I don't know if it's Google Play Books issue Google text to speech issue. I have reported this problem on both apps but still it isn't fixed. It has been over a year.

T70%
by T####:

I love that I can buy books thru this app. Only downside is that the read aloud option drains my battery within about 2hrs from 100% to 0% and the phone gets hot to the touch. Other apps like @ReadAloud does not drain my battery at this rate.

T70%
by T####:

Runs a little smoother than Kindle, not as many features. But what really bugs me is that I can't search my own library; the search bar just redirects to Google Play Store :p

T70%
by T####:

I think this app needs serious update. It can't import books from the device. It won't sync with documents or epub on the mobile. Everything has to be done manually by adding each and every single ebook or pdf. Horrible service. Check out the import book service provided by the app like KOBO AND KINDLE. THEY ADD n SYNC all the books, documents directly to the app library.

F70%
by F####:

It was working fine,. Now when I open a book expecting it to go to my page where I left a bookmark it don't it goes to the front of the book. And I have to turn pages to get to the bookmark. I cannot even click the button at top on the bookmark button that goes straight to the front book. Also it used to have a yellow light so I can read at night now it is white so I cannot read at night. Why on Earth do you fix it when it don't need to be fixed.

J70%
by J####:

Whenever I rotate my phone while reading, it resets the brightness to the default (I think ). This is terrible when I am reading in a dark setting like before I go to bed. I will transit from chair to bed, rotating the phone because landscape is more comfortable when lying down, and have this bright orange screen blinding me. (Orange because I use night mode.) I hope you, the developers, do not wish to blind me. This could be a serious health issue for others or it might be isolated to just me. I really hope I don't go blind because of this. Other than that, it is a really good app. There are two or three out there that are better but this is fine if you are just trying out ebooks and want a safe app to try. Love it but it is blinding me.

H70%
by H####:

Don't want enable disable options. Please allow us to uninstall. I don't want this stupid app in my phone. You call your OS an OPENSOURCE but still push your dumb apps on us throw your OS.

M70%
by M####:

Maybe the best book reading app on Android. Night reading and read a loud are excellent. But, the book prices are, in general, incredibly higher than on competing ebook stores. Still not possible to save books on "sd" card for some reason; it can't be because it's slower than internal since the Google Play Music allows it, and we all know that music files are larger and require faster read speeds for obvious reasons.

T70%
by T####:

The reason why i give 1 star is because the app keep disabled. Imagine want to read a book offline and find out the app disable itself. It happen to me while I'm on the plane. Using sony xzs.

T70%
by T####:

The app is soo slow to access a book that is supposedly available offline. I also don't like that if I buy a book from Google play books, I have to use your crappy app to read it. I paid for it, I should get to put it wherever I want. That would be like me buying a book from Barnes and Noble and as I go to leave, I'm stopped at the door by security who tells me "Sorry but you're only licensed to read that book in store". Seriously!?

T70%
by T####:

It's close but it's not keeping up. Why would I buy books from Google when they don't improve their app? Makes me think they're not committed to the service. I love the Drive integration for notes and highlights. But selecting text is cumbersome. And especially so if you're trying to get text over two pages. Resizing the text doesn't work like you would expect. Dictionary definitions get in the way of selection. It's like it's stuck in 2013.

T70%
by T####:

Bubble tech works remarkably well. In 3 books, I only hat one word order of zooms. Not sure I'll stark using it much, though. The one thing I miss for regular books, in comparison to the kindle app or moon reader, is the small “[xx] minutes left in chapter/book“ and the percentage (how far I am in the book).

T70%
by T####:

I use the app daily, and but multiple books a month. Love the read aloud feature for when I am driving. Last update caused it to start offering me books that I have already purchased, and recommending them to me again. Very annoying!

T70%
by T####:

I like the app, but i agree with people about the disadvantage that you can't put the books on the sd cards yet. When you guys make it so that books can be put on the sd card, will rate five stars.

T70%
by T####:

None of the reading Apps Ive tried have free books. I can't enjoy all the books I like if I have to pay for them. The books at my public library are free, I guess I will have to do that indstead

T70%
by T####:

My go to reading app, easy to use and looks clean and organized. However, after the last update, the screen starts flickering if you change the brightness level to below about 2/3 of the max brightness.

C70%
by C####:

I actually love the app, but I had to low rate it so can the developers see my feedback. I'm a xiaomi mi max 2 user on a miui 9 global version. And the app keeps disabling on its own :( after two days or less after I enable it, I don't know why. Plz help.

T70%
by T####:

So happy with the new addition to place books in the read shelf after reading. Im terrible at remembering if I've read a book or not lol

K70%
by K####:

Was really good. But I saw every year there's a downgrade of the quality instead of upgrade. Started from big size playbook widget for tablet which is discontinued and deleted after the update, and the shelves changed to list view instead of book cover view when you try to see all the books.

T70%
by T####:

After Android 8.0 update: this app keeps getting disabled automatically. And it's been months yet Google haven't fixed this. Pathetic.

T70%
by T####:

I love almost all Google apps I tried so far and this one is no exception. There is only one thing bothering me: the app just keeps disabling on its own! I can't figure out how and why. I just see the icon suddenly missing from my desktop. Please fix this and I'll give 5 stars. Thank you

T70%
by T####:

App is now literally unusable because Google Play Protect keeps disabling it. I understand that the bookstore is not available in my country of residence but it seems unfair that I lose access to my personal book collection as a result.

T70%
by T####:

The read aloud feature could use some improvement. The voice seems to read very fast and robotic. It also reads in a manner that seems to ignore punctuation which makes it difficult to understand.

T70%
by T####:

Very buggy. It keeps moving me back several pages if not several chapters. Oftentimes when switching in and out of the app, but a few times while I'm trying to turn the page forward. It's infuriating. I also wish it had the kind of status bar that Kindle app has with position info, time remaining estimates, and the current time. Highlighting is also more of a pain than on Kindle.

T70%
by T####:

It keeps getting disabled and disappearing from my app drawer. I had to look it up at google play each time to enable it.

S70%
by S####:

I like it but I hate that it doesn't work offline. Tried to read a book on an airplane and the app doesn't work because it can't connect. Please catch up with Kindle and offer this.

G70%
by G####:

Some of the authors and/or titles I would like to read again are not here. I wish they would get the full Donald Goines collection.

T70%
by T####:

Not intuitive or user friendly. No obvious menu and the only options I get can get are to copy, search, and translate text. A result of Google's stupid decision to remove the menu button no doubt. I can't even figure out how to jump to a specific page.

T70%
by T####:

There is no way to organize uploaded or purchased books - users have been asking this for years, but in different ways. There needs to be a way to organize your uploaded or purchased books into series or authors or how every the user needs. Google are you listening!

T70%
by T####:

Excellent app but lack Gujarati TTS support. Pls add support for Gujarati language for read a loud feature... So that we can purchase Gujarati books and listen to it. Then will give 5 stars.

T70%
by T####:

Good app over all, only downside is that it doesn't allow you to store you're downloaded books on the sd card, witch means I constantly struggle with storage space. Play music and movies don't have this issue so I don't understand why play books doesn't have this option jet.

O70%
by O####:

Expected better feature than Kindle app. Disappointed. One feature you can include is text reflow and font resize of Personal PDF files which are uploaded so that they can be easily read on phone without staining eyes.


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Rating Distribution

RATING
3.95
1,383,599 users

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