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

The home-screen widget only ever shows one book

The Continue reading widget holds your four most recent books. On Android, tap the arrow on either side of the widget to move from one to the next; the dots along the top tell you which one you are on, and the widget stays on the book you left showing. The arrows appear once you have at least two books in progress.

Tap the cover, the title or the Continue button to open that book at the page you stopped on. On iPhone and iPad the widget shows the most recent book only: a home-screen widget there can be opened with a tap, but not browsed. Add a second widget if you want another book in view.

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

How do I read my CaliWeb library in KOReader?

Install the CaliWeb plugin for KOReader and connect the reader: CaliWeb → Connect this device, then approve it here on the web. From that moment the plugin adds its own entry, CaliWeb, to KOReader’s Cloud storage list. You never type the address — the plugin already carries it — and you never type a password: the entry signs in with the device connection you have just approved.

Open Cloud storage, tap CaliWeb, and your libraries are folders. Disconnect the device and the entry goes away with it.

A reader without our plugin you still set up by hand, with an app password from API & tokens.

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.

Each option also says how much work is already done on that side — for example 3 books already indexed here under on this phone, counted for the embedding model you have selected — so you can see at a glance which side already holds the library. When a count cannot be read (no model picked yet, CaliWeb unreachable) the line is left out rather than showing a misleading zero; a measured no book indexed here yet is spelled out.

The dialog also says how long the work takes, and the number belongs to whoever will do it. For on this phone it is a measurement taken on your own device. For CaliWeb it comes from the indexings CaliWeb has actually run recently, and it is shown as a range — from 3 to 9 minutes on CaliWeb — because half of those runs finish by the lower figure and nine out of ten by the upper one. A single CaliWeb number means there is no measured spread to report yet; CaliWeb has not said how long it takes yet means it could not estimate at all, which is not the same as “instant”.

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.

The indexing bar turns forever, and the jobs list doesn’t say which book

Indexing a book runs as a job, and a job can fail — a model deleted halfway through, a book the app could not read to the end. Every screen that was waiting for it now notices: the bar stops, the band says the index could not be finished, and it offers Retry. That holds on Ask the book (in the reader and full-screen), on X-Ray and on “Previously on…”, and it holds when you reopen a screen later, not only while you are watching it. Searching by meaning inside the reader asks again where to build the index, instead of answering that the old work is still running.

While the work is alive, the band reports the real percentage with a filling bar, and the job number next to it opens the jobs list on that row. In that list a failure now names the book — Riddle of the Seven Realms — The index for this book could not be completed. Try again. — so several books indexing at once no longer share one indistinguishable message.

X-Ray says it is building the guide — how long, and can I stop it?

The guide is built on CaliWeb, and on a long book that takes a while. The X-Ray screen shows the progress instead of a bare spinner: a band names the work and counts the parts of the book read so far — for example 3 of 12 parts read on CaliWeb — and the same work appears in the app’s jobs list under the book’s title, so you can leave the screen and come back. When it is done, the guide opens by itself.

Hide stops the app from following the work, not the work itself: CaliWeb has no way to cancel an X-Ray once it has started, so the app says so rather than pretending to cancel — the guide will be waiting, already paid for, the next time you open X-Ray. If CaliWeb could not build it, the band says that too, and offers Retry.

The X-Ray list is long — how do I find one character, or the page they appear on?

Three things in the guide. The search box at the top filters it as you type, by name. The chips under it switch between the groups — All, people, places and the other kinds — and each carries its own count, so you can see there are 14 characters and 3 places before tapping anything. Search and chip work together, and the caption above the list says how many entries are shown out of how many matched; when nothing matches, the screen says No entry with that name instead of going blank.

Each row shows how many times that name appears in what you have read — for example 7 mentions. That number follows your reading position, so two people reading the same book at different points legitimately see different counts for the same character. Tap a row for a sheet with the full description and, under Where it appears, the passages themselves: the chapter and the sentence. Go to this point in the book opens the ebook at that exact sentence, not at an approximate percentage. If there is no book file to hand where you opened X-Ray from, the app asks you to open it from the library instead.

“Previously on…” says a moment of preparation is needed

The recap is written from short summaries of the chapters you have already read, and the first recap in a book may find that those summaries do not exist yet. The screen then says A moment of preparation is needed and offers Prepare it now: tap it and CaliWeb works through the chapters behind you — only those, so nothing ahead is spoiled.

You can close the app, the work carries on, and it is done once per book: come back in a few minutes and the recap is waiting. Preparing those summaries uses AI credits like any other AI work, and the screen says so if your balance is not enough; if the summaries already exist, nothing is charged and the recap appears straight away.

X-Ray and “Previously on…” answer in the book’s language, not mine

That is deliberate. The Answers in: … control decides the language of everything written for you alone — chat, Ask my library, Define, Explain, Translate. The X-Ray guide and the “Previously on…” recap instead follow the language the ebook file declares, and English when it declares none — or when the ebook file itself has not been uploaded to the server, since there is then nothing to read the language from.

The reason is the cost: those two are built once and then shared by everyone who owns the same edition, so nobody pays again for work another reader already paid for. One copy per reader’s language would undo that saving.

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.

I asked a book cited in an answer and lost the arrows

They are back. When a reply cites one of your books and you tap it, then choose Ask this book, the chat that opens keeps ‹, › and Change on its bar — the same list you were moving through, so you can carry on without going back first. This works both from a book chat and from Ask my library.

One exception, on purpose: a chat opened from inside the reader has a read-only bar. Moving to another book there would leave the screen talking about a book other than the one open underneath.

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.

How do I find duplicates and the volumes I am missing?

Open the library, then Maintenance. The page has two lists. Same book, two files groups the books CaliWeb recognises as the same work inside that library, so you can pick which copy to keep; the same book in two different libraries is not a duplicate. Incomplete series lists the series missing a number, reading the series index already stored in your library. Neither list queries the internet. A series numbered by year (2010, 2011) is not reported: that is not a volume numbering. The page starts switched off: if you do not see Maintenance in the library, an administrator has to turn it on.

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. The app does send anonymous usage statistics — which features are used and whether they worked — through Google Firebase Analytics, plus a crash report when it closes unexpectedly. No titles and no search terms are ever sent, and you can switch it off with Share usage data in Settings.

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