Calibre-Web

Calibre-Web is your ebook library, reachable over its OPDS catalogue. Pocket Homelab gives it a Books tab for browsing, sending to your eReader, downloading formats and uploading new books. It works with stock Calibre-Web and with Calibre-Web Automated (CWA).

What you get

• Home tile (“Ebooks”): value <n> books, caption shows the latest addition or the author/series counts.
• Books hub (titled Ebooks): a Recently added cover strip, Hot books, Top rated, Random picks, Unread/Read shortcuts, and Browse by Series/Authors/Categories/Publishers/Shelves.
• Book screen: Send to Kindle, Share, per-format download/preview/save, mark read/unread, delete.
• Upload: pick a file and upload it straight to the library.
• Quick action: Ebooks.

Set up

A URL alone only produces a browser link; the password is required for everything else.

Key	Field	Required	Secret	Where to get it
CALIBRE_URL	Calibre-Web URL	Required	—	Base URL of your instance. Leave empty to hide Calibre-Web features.
CALIBRE_USER	Username	Optional	—	Used for OPDS + Send-to-Kindle. Defaults to admin when left empty.
CALIBRE_PASSWORD	Password	Required	Secret	Password of that user.

On iPhone

• 

  Send to Kindle picks the best available format automatically (EPUB, then AZW3, MOBI, PDF, then anything else) and always shows a confirmation naming the destination address and file size first.
• Each format has its own menu: Send to Kindle as <FORMAT>, Share, Save to Files, Preview (PDF only), Copy download link.
• Delete from library, in the book’s More menu, removes every format for that book after a confirmation; this cannot be undone.
• Round button: beside the +, the Books tab has a round button with Recently added, Unread, Authors, Upload a book and Refresh, and further Hot books, Top rated, Random picks, Read, Series, Categories, Publishers, Shelves and Open Calibre-Web. The first five show until you pick your own with Customise in the open menu; turn the button off in Settings → Screen action buttons. The toolbar’s Upload and More stay.

On Mac

Books sits in the sidebar under Media (⌥⌘8; ⇧⌘E opens it from anywhere). The Mac has its own layout, built for a desktop window:

• One bar: the views Home, Books, Series, Authors, Categories, Publishers and Shelves, a Search title, author, series, tag field with the results in place, Upload and ⋯ (Refresh, Upload a book, the six book lists, Open Calibre-Web).
• Home: a Your library hero with the book, author, series and category counts, the newest book and Browse Books; then full-width cover shelves for Recently added, Hot books, Top rated, Random picks, Unread and Read, each with See All, and the browse trees as cards.
• Books and the browse views: a cover grid across the full width that loads more as you scroll, with a Filter field; the Books view has a menu to switch between the six lists. Series, authors and the other trees show as cards, letters as a compact A to Z index. Right-click a cover for Open, Open in Calibre-Web, Copy link and Copy author – title.
• A book is one scrolling page: the cover beside the title, authors and facts, then Read (downloads the best format and opens it in its default app), Download (its arrow lists every format), Send to Kindle, Mark as read / Mark as unread, Share and ⋯ (Send to Kindle as, Open as, Copy download link, Delete from library and the copy actions). Below, the Summary (with Show more) and Formats (each with Open and Save…) sit beside a Details card; click a category there to search the library for it.

The Mac ⌘K palette has an “Ebooks · Calibre-Web” scope with live title/author/series/tag search.

Actions

• Send to Kindle: needs an eReader e-mail set on that Calibre-Web user’s profile; without one you get a reminder rather than a failed send.

• Mark read / unread.

• Upload a book: reads title/author from the file’s own tags unless you fill them in yourself.

• Delete from library: removes every format, confirmed first, and cannot be undone.

• Notes about this: a book’s page ends with the notes that link to it and Write a note about this, when your Nextcloud has Notes.

Works with

• No direct link to Chaptarr/Readarr; books requested there do not appear here, and vice versa.
• Shares the same on-device download cache and Settings → Downloads storage view as Nextcloud, Paperless and Immich.

Tips & troubleshooting

• The Download, Upload and Delete actions each need the matching Calibre-Web permission on your account; a rejected action names the exact permission to add under Admin → Users.
• A reverse-proxy sign-in page in front of Calibre-Web breaks OPDS and downloads; the app tells you plainly when a response looks like a web page instead of the expected catalogue or file.
• Kindle’s format preference order is EPUB, then AZW3/MOBI/PDF as fallbacks; other formats like CBZ or TXT are offered last.
• Calibre’s placeholder date for an unknown publish year is hidden rather than shown as “0101”.