Best App to Catalog Your Library (Books, Movies, TV, and More)
Looking for one app to catalog your whole library? Goodreads, Letterboxd, Libib, Notion, and Achriom compared for books, films, TV, albums, and anime.
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If you want one app to catalog books, movies, TV shows, albums, and anime together, Achriom is the answer, and it is the only app on this list built for exactly that. But “catalog my library” means different things to different people, and the honest guide covers the single-medium specialists too. Goodreads is still the default for books. Letterboxd is still the best film diary ever made. Libib scans barcodes faster than anything else. Notion lets you build whatever you want, if you have the patience.
This guide compares all five, so you can match the app to the library you actually have.
Last reviewed: July 2026.
Quick verdict:
- Best for books only: Goodreads
- Best for films only: Letterboxd
- Best for physical collections and barcode scanning: Libib
- Best for total control, at the cost of total manual effort: Notion
- Best for one catalog across every format, with AI: Achriom
What to look for in a library cataloging app
Before the breakdowns, the criteria that separate a catalog you maintain for years from one you abandon in a month:
Coverage. Does the app handle everything you collect? Most people’s libraries are not one format. A shelf where Piranesi sits near a Blu-ray of Arrival and a vinyl copy of In Rainbows needs a catalog that can hold all three.
Fast intake. Cataloging a few hundred items by hand is where most projects die. Look for imports from apps you already use, barcode scanning, or shelf scanning. The first week determines whether the catalog survives.
Your data stays yours. A catalog is a long-term asset. If the app cannot export your library in a standard format, you are renting your own records.
Search that understands the collection. A list you can only sort by title is a spreadsheet. The useful question is rarely “what starts with P.” It is “what do I own that fits this mood” or “which of these have I actually finished.”
It should get better as it grows. The best catalogs pay you back. More entries should mean better recommendations and sharper patterns, rather than a longer scroll.
Goodreads
Best for: Cataloging books, and only books
Goodreads remains the largest book cataloging service in the world. The database is enormous, shelving is flexible enough for most readers, and the mobile app scans book barcodes. If your library is books and nothing else, it still does the job, and its CSV export means you can leave whenever you want.
What it does well:
- Massive book database, including obscure and out-of-print editions
- Barcode scanning in the mobile app for physical shelves
- Custom shelves for organizing however you think about your collection
- Free, with CSV export
The limitation: Books only, forever. The UI has barely changed in a decade, the recommendations are weak, and Amazon has shown no appetite for improving either. The moment your library includes films or albums, Goodreads becomes one app among several. We compared it directly with Achriom in Achriom vs Goodreads.
Letterboxd
Best for: Cataloging films, with the best diary format in the business
Letterboxd is what happens when people who love movies design a movie catalog. The diary model (log the film, the date, a rating, a review) is so good that every other tracker has copied it. Lists are a genuine pleasure to build, and the community reviews are some of the best film writing on the internet.
What it does well:
- Elegant logging: film, date, rating, rewatch flag, review, all in one screen
- Lists that are actually fun to make and share
- A large community whose reviews are worth reading
- Free tier is generous; Pro adds stats for about $19 a year
The limitation: Films only. No TV, so Fleabag has no home here, and no books or music either. Letterboxd is also public-first, which suits some people and quietly bothers others. If the public part is the problem, we wrote about private Letterboxd alternatives separately.
Libib
Best for: Physical collections and barcode scanning
Libib is the app closest to the literal meaning of “catalog my library.” It covers books, movies, music, and video games, and its whole design centers on the barcode scanner: point your phone at a shelf of paperbacks or DVD cases and work through them one beep at a time. Small lending libraries and classrooms use it for a reason.
What it does well:
- Four formats in one catalog: books, movies, music, video games
- Fast, reliable barcode scanning for physical media
- Free plan covers up to 5,000 items, which is most home libraries
- CSV export, plus lending features on the paid plan
The limitation: Libib is a database, and it stays a database. There are no recommendations, no patterns, no sense of what the collection means. It records that you own things. It has nothing to say about them. TV shows and anime also have no first-class home, and digital-first libraries (streaming watchlists, Spotify saves) do not fit its physical-media model.
Notion
Best for: People who want to design the catalog themselves
Notion is not a cataloging app, but enough people use it as one that it belongs on this list. You build a database, define the properties, add the cover images, and end up with a catalog shaped exactly like your brain. Templates for media libraries are everywhere, and some of them are genuinely well designed.
What it does well:
- Total structural freedom: any format, any property, any view
- One workspace can hold books, films, albums, and anything else
- Databases can be filtered, sorted, and related to each other
- Free for personal use
The limitation: Everything is manual. No media database sits behind it, so every title, year, cover, and creator is typed or pasted in by you. Maintenance becomes a hobby of its own, and the catalog knows nothing about its contents: it cannot recommend, connect, or answer a question. We ran the full comparison in Achriom vs Notion for media tracking.
Achriom
Best for: One catalog for books, movies, TV, albums, and anime, with an AI librarian
Achriom is built on the premise the other four ignore: your library is one library. Books, films, TV shows, albums, and anime live in the same catalog, and an AI librarian sits on top of all of it. Ask it what you own but have not started, what connects your five-star ratings, or what in your collection fits a rainy Sunday, and it answers from your actual shelves.
Intake is the fast part. Import your Goodreads history in a few minutes (guide here), bring in your Letterboxd diary, or photograph a bookshelf and let it identify the spines in one pass. A few hundred items of cataloging collapses into an afternoon.
What it does well:
- Five formats as first-class citizens in one catalog
- AI librarian that searches, recommends, and finds patterns across everything
- Shelf scanning and imports from Goodreads, Letterboxd, and TV Time
- Private by default, no public profile required
- Full export at any time; free to start, $9.99 a month for unlimited use
The limitation: Achriom does not have Letterboxd’s community or Goodreads’ twenty years of database depth, and physical-media collectors who want barcode-level edition tracking will find Libib more literal about it. If you only collect one format and love your single-medium app, keep it. Achriom’s case begins the moment your library spans more than one.
Cataloging five formats means running this exact search five times, once per app. Achriom is one catalog for your books, films, shows, albums, and anime, with an AI librarian that connects all of it and full export back out whenever you want. Free to start, no card.
Catalog everything once →Quick comparison
| App | Catalogs | Intake | AI | Export | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | Books | Barcode scan, CSV import | No | CSV | Free |
| Letterboxd | Films | Search, CSV import | No | CSV | Free / Pro ~$19 yr |
| Libib | Books, movies, music, games | Barcode scan | No | CSV | Free / Pro $9 mo |
| Notion | Whatever you build | Manual entry | No media awareness | Markdown, CSV | Free / paid tiers |
| Achriom | Books, films, TV, albums, anime | Imports, shelf scan, chat | AI librarian | Full export | Free / $9.99 mo |
Which should you use?
Use Goodreads if: Your library is books, full stop is not a phrase we use, so let us say books entirely, and you want the biggest database with zero cost.
Use Letterboxd if: Films are the collection, you enjoy the diary ritual, and a public profile is a feature rather than a concern.
Use Libib if: The library is physical, the barcode scanner is the priority, and you want a clean inventory of what you own across books, discs, and games.
Use Notion if: Building the system is part of the pleasure, and you would rather have total control than automatic metadata.
Use Achriom if: Your library crosses formats and you want one catalog that can actually think about what it holds.
The honest answer
For a single-format library, the specialists win. Goodreads and Letterboxd have depth in their lanes that no generalist matches, and Libib is the most literal cataloger of physical stuff on this list.
But most libraries are not single-format, and the standard fix (one app per format, four apps total) means four catalogs that never speak to each other. Your reading history cannot inform your film picks. Your albums live nowhere near the books they share a sensibility with. The catalog fragments exactly where your taste does not.
That gap is what Achriom exists for, and if you want to see the tracking side of the same argument, we compared the best all-in-one media trackers separately.
Related guides:
- Achriom vs Notion for Media Tracking
- How to Organize Your Book Collection
- How to Import Your Goodreads Library
Common questions
What is the best app to catalog my library?
It depends on the library. Books only: Goodreads. Films only: Letterboxd. Physical media across formats: Libib. A library that spans books, movies, TV, albums, and anime: Achriom, which catalogs all five and adds an AI librarian that can search and reason across the whole collection.
Is there one app that catalogs books, movies, TV, and music together?
Achriom covers all of those plus anime in a single catalog. Libib covers books, movies, music, and video games, and is a good fit for physical collections, though it is a static inventory with no recommendations or intelligence built in.
Can I catalog physical books and discs by scanning them?
Yes. Libib is designed around barcode scanning and is the fastest option for discs and games. For books, Achriom can go faster: photograph the whole shelf and it identifies the spines in one pass instead of one barcode at a time.
Is Notion good for cataloging a media library?
It can be, if you enjoy building it. Notion gives you complete structural control, but there is no media database behind it, so every title, cover, and detail is entered by hand. People who want a catalog to exist tend to burn out; people who want to design one tend to love it.
Can I get my catalog back out if I switch apps?
Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Libib all export CSV. Achriom offers full export of your library at any time. Whatever you choose, confirm the export exists before you spend a weekend cataloging. A catalog you cannot take with you is a lease.
Is Goodreads good for anything besides books?
No. It catalogs books only, and there is no sign that will change. That single-format ceiling is usually what sends people looking for a cross-media catalog in the first place.