CaliMob Help — Troubleshooting & Support

My cloud folders appear empty

CaliMob connects to Calibre library folders — directories that contain a metadata.db file created by Calibre on your desktop. When you browse Drive or Dropbox in CaliMob, it shows Calibre-structured directories, not individual files.

Solution:

• Make sure your Calibre library folder (the one with metadata.db) is uploaded to your cloud storage
• In CaliMob, navigate to that folder and select it
• To browse and open individual files from Drive/Dropbox, use Local storage from the Add Library screen instead

How do I import books from my device?

On the welcome screen, tap Open a book for one file, or Scan this phone to pick several ebooks into My Books without copying them (they stay on your phone). That is not the same as Connect my library → Local folder, which opens a full Calibre library on the device. You can also share files to CaliMob from any file manager.

Books are not downloading

If downloads fail or stay at 0%:

• Check your internet connection
• Verify the cloud storage (Drive, Dropbox, etc.) is still authorized — re-authenticate if needed
• For large libraries, the initial sync may take a few minutes
• If using WebDAV or FTP, verify the server URL and credentials

Covers are not showing

Cover images are downloaded separately from book files. On first sync, covers may take a moment to appear. If covers remain missing:

• Pull down to refresh on the library screen
• Check that covers exist in your Calibre library on desktop
• For OPDS sources, cover availability depends on the catalog server

Text is too small or too large

Tap the center of the screen while reading to open the toolbar, then tap the Aa icon. You can adjust font size, font family, margins, and line spacing.

Text-to-speech stops or skips

TTS uses your device’s built-in speech engine. If it stops unexpectedly:

• Check that a TTS engine is installed in your device Settings → Accessibility → Text-to-speech
• Try a different TTS voice or language
• Some complex EPUB layouts may cause the TTS to skip sections

How does sync work?

CaliMob syncs through a cloud folder today; a second method, plugin sync, is still in preparation:

• Cloud folder sync (Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, WebDAV, FTP) — reads your Calibre library structure directly from the cloud
• Plugin sync — a CaliMob plugin for Calibre that will push changes bidirectionally between desktop and mobile. It is not published yet, so you will not find it in Calibre’s Plugin Manager — we are still working on it

Cloud folder sync keeps your metadata, covers and reading progress aligned. Highlights and notes sync between CaliMob and CaliWeb; they do not travel back into Calibre on your computer yet — that is the part the plugin will do.

“You are further back” — why is CaliMob offering to jump me ahead?

Because another of your devices had taken that book further than where you are now. A book has one place in it, and the device that spoke most recently wins: if you finished chapter eight on your phone this morning and open the tablet tonight, still sitting at chapter two, chapter eight would quietly disappear. So the app remembers it and, when you open that book, offers it back:

You are further back
You are about to open at 4%. On Google Pixel 7, at 07:40, you reached 42%. Go to 42%?

Go there takes you to the phone’s spot. Stay here touches nothing: the book stays where it is, and if you change your mind the offer is waiting the next time you open it. It goes away on its own once you have caught up, and it never appears for the device you are holding.

It is not a notification and it never arrives while you are doing something else: it appears only as you open a book to read it. It tells you three things: where you are about to open, where the other device got to and when, and — in the question itself — where the button would take you. A percentage is used only when it can be told honestly: the book’s total length is something the app learns by opening the book, so right after a restart it talks in chapters instead (“You are about to open at chapter 3… Go to chapter 9?”), and if neither can be said it names just the device and the moment. We would rather say less than say “97%” without being sure. For audiobooks nothing is offered: a place in audio is made of minutes and a place in text of characters, and the two cannot be compared.

“Further ahead” is counted in the book’s own text, not in pages. A page number means different things on two devices — the same line is page 9 on a phone with large type and page 2 on a tablet — so comparing page numbers could send you backwards while telling you it was moving you on. For books made of text the app counts characters from the beginning of the book, a number that is the same everywhere. PDFs and comics are the exception, and the honest one: there a page really is a page on every screen, so the page is what gets compared.

Sync is not completing

If sync seems stuck or doesn’t finish:

• Ensure CaliMob has a stable internet connection
• If you sync through Calibre’s content server, check that the server is running and that the device can reach it
• Large libraries (10,000+ books) may take longer on first sync
• Try closing and reopening CaliMob

A book’s CaliWeb backup is paused or unavailable

This is not an error — it happens when your library has grown past your current plan’s limit (a subscription lapsed, or you downgraded). Instead of deleting anything, CaliWeb pauses the backup for the newest overspill:

• Those books still appear in your library — nothing is deleted
• Books from your own source (Dropbox, a drive, your device) keep opening and reading normally
• Only books whose sole copy is CaliWeb itself become unavailable to download
• Freezing always starts with your most recent additions; your highlights and notes are never affected
• Re-subscribing to a plan that fits re-activates everything automatically — nothing to click
• You can export a library’s details (CSV/JSON) from the website at any time

Library Health says it couldn’t check my files — is something broken?

No. Library Health (in CaliMob: open a library → Settings → Library Health) checks two different things — your catalogue (titles, authors, languages, duplicates, leftovers) and your actual files. The catalogue checks always run. Whether the file checks can run depends on where the library comes from:

• On-device library — the storage is right there, so every check runs.
• Cloud drive (Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, WebDAV, FTP) — files are checked against the list the service itself reports. If the service can’t be reached at that moment, the file checks are skipped and trying again later usually clears it.
• Calibre Content Server, OPDS, wireless Calibre — these connections never publish a list of the files behind them, so the file checks cannot be performed at all. The app skips them and says so.

The band across the top of the screen currently speaks of a check having “failed” and asks whether you’re offline. On a Calibre server, OPDS or wireless library that wording is misleading: nothing failed, and retrying will not help — read it as “this cannot be checked from this kind of library”. The app would rather skip a check than declare your whole library missing on no evidence.

Why is my health score a dash instead of a number?

A dash (—) labelled Unknown means the check did not cover the whole library, so no honest score can be given — the file checks were skipped, the scan was stopped, or too many folders could not be read. The findings listed underneath are still real; only the single summary number is withheld.

When there is a score, it is the share of your books with nothing wrong — counted per book, not per problem, so a book with three faults still counts once.

Is it safe to let Library Health delete a folder or merge duplicates?

Both of those actions really do delete, and both ask first. Read the confirmation:

• Delete a leftover folder — the folder of a book you already deleted. The dialog names the folder and warns that it and everything inside it will be removed permanently, with no undo. It is offered only on libraries stored on the device, where the app can see the real files. On a cloud library, a folder that looks abandoned is usually just a book you have not downloaded yet, so the option is not offered at all.
• Merge duplicates — the copies you do not keep are deleted. This has its own confirmation on the duplicates screen, and is available on any library type.

Everything else is safe. Most entries simply tell you what is wrong, or open the book’s editor so you can correct it by hand, and the one-tap “cover flag” repair changes the catalogue record only — your files are not touched. After any repair, the check runs again by itself.

Library Health found “vector files” — what are they, and can I delete them?

They are search indexes, and yes — the ones it offers to delete are safe to delete.

When you use search inside this book, CaliMob builds a small index file next to the book so the next search does not have to read the whole thing again. Nothing else in the app ever mentions these files, so when one is left behind there was previously no way to find out. The Vectors category is where they now surface. It reports three things:

• Orphan — an index for a book that is no longer in the library. Nothing will ever open it.
• No longer addressed — the book is still there, but the index file’s name no longer matches the one the app now looks for. Also dead weight.
• Broken — the index exists under the right name but can no longer be read, so search will ignore it.

For the first two the app offers to delete the file, and the confirmation names it exactly. Deleting costs you nothing but the disk space it frees: search inside that book simply builds the index again the next time you ask.

The broken one deliberately offers no button. Deleting it would not be a repair, and rebuilding it means reading the whole book again — not something the app should start on its own. The entry tells you the fix instead: open the book and search inside it, and the index is rebuilt as part of that search.

These checks run on libraries stored on the device. Search-inside-a-book indexes are built and kept on your device by design, so there is nothing of this kind to look for on a server or a catalogue connection.

The storage panel says it cannot measure my library

That line appears on a library you opened from a folder the system hands the app through a permission grant — a folder you picked on Android, or one reached through a bookmark on iPhone and iPad. On those the app cannot simply walk the folders as it does with its own storage: it has to ask the system for each listing, and on iPhone and iPad that particular kind of grant offers no way to list a folder at all.

When it cannot list, the panel says so instead of showing a number. That is deliberate: 0 B would be a claim — nothing here is taking up space — and it would be false. The same rule governs the Vectors line just below it, which disappears for the same reason on the same libraries.

On Android the listing does work, so the total is real: it counts every file under the library folder, not only the ones the app recognises. If you see a number there, it was measured, not estimated.

Can I ask a book questions from inside Calibre?

That is what the CaliMob plugin for Calibre is for: select a book, open the plugin’s menu, choose Ask this book, and the conversation window opens next to the library you were already browsing. The plugin is not published yet, so for now ask your questions from the CaliMob app or from CaliWeb.

It works on one book at a time. The menu entry stays greyed out when nothing is selected, or when you have selected several, and hovering over it says which of the two it is. It is also greyed out for a book that has not been synced to CaliWeb yet: Cali has to have heard of the book before it can read it, so sync it first and the entry wakes up.

Everything else behaves as it does on the website, because it is the same thing — the same account, the same credits, the same one-off indexing the first time you ask about a book. Nothing costs less, or more, for happening on your desktop.

One place the window is deliberately talkative: if CaliWeb does not have the book’s file yet, it will not quietly send it. You get a panel that spells out what is about to happen — the file goes to your CaliWeb space, then its index is computed — with the estimated cost in credits and an Allow and prepare button. Nothing leaves your computer until you press it.

Where does book indexing run — on my phone or on CaliWeb?

The first time a book needs an index, the app asks where the work should run: on this phone (free, slower, the text stays on the device) or on CaliWeb (faster, uses AI credits, uploads the book). That same choice appears when you turn on smart search inside an open ebook, when you start Ask the book, and when you open X-Ray before the book is indexed — one dialog, one index.

If you choose on this phone and tap Start before an embedding model is downloaded or selected, the app opens the local model settings — the same screen as the gear next to that option — so you can pick and download a model first.

Searching by meaning inside the reader still needs the on-phone index. If you send the work to CaliWeb from there, Ask the book and X-Ray will use it when ready; the next in-reader search can build the local copy if you choose the phone option.

What are the suggestion chips under an empty book chat?

On CaliMob, before you type anything, Ask the book shows a few ready-made prompts (for example about a character or what just happened). Tap a chip, then choose to send it or put it in the composer so you can edit it. From the Cali AI hub, while chatting on Reading or Library, you can open a full chat screen if the compact hub view feels cramped — and on Reading it keeps the conversation you already had open, rather than starting blank.

On the hub Reading bar, ‹ / › move among books in your current home filter (grey at the ends). Change opens Search and Browse to pick another book without leaving the hub.

How do I know an AI answer is not made up?

Open Passages cited under the reply. An answer about one of your books is built from real passages of that book, and this is where you see them — the exact quotes it leaned on, each marked with roughly where it sits in the book (a page marker and how far in it is, as a percentage).

Read the quotes against the answer. If they say what the answer said, you can trust it. If they don’t quite match, you have caught the AI stretching — and you already know which part of the book to go and check for yourself.

A reply with no passages listed is not a fault: it means the question was answered without leaning on one specific quote, which is normal for general or summarising questions.

Can I see other books by an author I already have?

Yes. From an author in your library, open More by this author. CaliWeb looks up that name in the local Open Library catalogue and lists works that are not already on your shelf (title, optional cover, link to Open Library), plus a short bio when one is available. If the author is not linked in the catalogue, or you already own every match, the list is simply empty — the page does not break.

Cali AI knows nothing about one of my libraries

A library you keep on the device itself, or reach straight from Calibre at home, is invisible to CaliWeb — so the assistant has nothing to answer with. Each library has its own switch for this: open the library, go into its settings, and turn on Make available to Cali AI. The line under the switch is the whole deal: “Send titles, authors, tags and reading state to use AI with this library.”

It is off until you turn it on, nothing is ever sent by itself, and you decide shelf by shelf — share the novels, leave the work PDFs out of it. What travels is the catalogue, not the books: titles, authors, series, tags, the blurb, your rating, whether it is a favourite, the format, and how far through it you are. The book files themselves are not uploaded by this switch. The built-in demo library has no such switch, because it is a read-only sample shelf that is not yours to share.

While the handover runs the line reads Sending…. If it cannot finish, the switch goes back off rather than pretending, and tells you why — you have not opted in to AI yet, you need to sign in to CaliWeb again, CaliWeb is not connected, or only part of the shelf arrived and the rest will be retried. A switch that shows on always means the library really did arrive.

Can I keep a passage the AI quoted?

Yes. Under Passages cited, each quote has a Save as note button that files it with that book’s notes, alongside your own highlights and jottings. The button then reads Saved, so after a long answer you can see which quotes you have already kept. If the save fails you are told plainly — “Couldn’t save this passage. Please try again.” — and the button stays as it was so you can try again.

The note appears in the book’s notes view with everything else, carrying the page and how far into the book the quote sits. One honest limit for now: the note is a record of the passage, not a doorway back to it — opening the note will not jump you into the book. Use Go to passage from the chat for that.

“Go to passage” doesn’t land on the quote — is it broken?

No — it is meant to be approximate, and the app says so right under the button: “Opens the reader near this passage — not exact.” The jump is worked out from how far through the book the passage sits, as a percentage, not from an exact position on an exact line. Sometimes you land on the very paragraph; often you open half a page early or late and need a glance up or down to find the sentence. Treat it as a lift to the right neighbourhood, not a pin on the doorstep.

The button also needs the book to be on the device you are asking from. If you have never opened that book on this phone or tablet, tapping it tells you so — “Open this book on this device first to jump to a passage.” — instead of opening nothing.

Does CaliMob access my personal data?

No. CaliMob does not collect, store, or transmit any personal data from your library. Your books, reading history, highlights, and notes stay entirely on your device. We have no analytics, no tracking, and no telemetry.

Read our full privacy policy.

What cloud permissions does CaliMob need?

CaliMob requests read-only access to the specific folder you select in Drive or Dropbox. It does not access any other files or folders on your cloud storage. You can revoke access at any time from your Google or Dropbox account settings.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? We’re happy to help.

• Email: [email protected] — we typically respond within 48 hours
• FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
• Getting Started: Step-by-step setup guide