Years of reading history shouldn't be a reason to stay put. If you've been logging books on Goodreads, you can bring your entire library — shelves, ratings, reviews and reading dates — into Book Nest in a few minutes. Goodreads offers an official export of your data as a CSV file, and Book Nest reads that file directly.
Here's the whole process, step by step.
Step 1: Export your library from Goodreads
The export is easiest to start from a desktop browser:
- Sign in to Goodreads and go to My Books.
- In the left sidebar under Tools, choose Import and export (or go directly to the Import/Export page in your account settings).
- Click Export Library.
- Goodreads prepares the file — this can take a moment for large libraries. When it's ready, a download link appears: Your export from (date).
- Click the link to download the CSV file (usually named
goodreads_library_export.csv).
That one file contains your whole library: titles, authors, ISBNs, shelves, ratings, reviews and dates.
Step 2: Get the file onto your phone
Book Nest imports the file on your phone, so the CSV needs to get there. Any route works:
- Cloud storage — save the CSV to iCloud Drive, Google Drive or Dropbox, then open it from the Files app (iPhone) or your file manager (Android).
- Email it to yourself — attach the CSV, open the email on your phone, and save the attachment.
- AirDrop or direct transfer — if you exported on a nearby computer.
Alternatively, skip the computer entirely: you can request the export from your phone's browser using the same Goodreads pages, and the CSV downloads straight to your phone.
Step 3: Import into Book Nest
- Open Book Nest and go to Settings.
- Tap Import from Goodreads.
- Select the CSV file you saved.
Book Nest reads the file and shows you what it found before anything changes.
Step 4: Choose how to handle existing books
If some books in the CSV are already in your Book Nest library, you choose the import mode:
- Ignore — keep your existing Book Nest entry untouched and skip the imported one. Safest if you've already been tracking in Book Nest.
- Replace — overwrite the existing entry with the Goodreads data. Useful if Goodreads has your fuller history.
- Add — import as an additional copy alongside the existing one.
If this is your first import into an empty library, any mode works — there's nothing to collide with.
What carries over
The import maps your Goodreads data onto Book Nest's structure:
- Shelves → reading statuses — read becomes Finished, currently-reading becomes Reading, to-read becomes Want to Read.
- Ratings — your star ratings come across as-is.
- Reviews — your written reviews are preserved on each book.
- Dates — date read and date added carry over, so your reading timeline stays intact.
Your books, auto-enriched
A Goodreads CSV is fairly bare — mostly titles, authors and ISBNs. During import, Book Nest matches each book against its database of 40M+ titles and enriches it automatically: cover art, page counts, series information, publication details. Your imported library doesn't arrive as a plain list; it arrives looking like a library.
After the import
A few nice next steps once your books are home:
- Skim your Finished shelf — it's a surprisingly pleasant walk through your reading history.
- Add genres, tags and favourites to make the library truly yours — see How to Organize Your Home Library with Tags, Shelves & Series.
- Set a reading goal by books, pages or minutes to pick up where your momentum left off — here's how to choose one that sticks.
And if you ever want your data back out, Book Nest exports your full library as JSON anytime. Import in minutes, leave whenever you like — that's how it should be.
