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I know you can already do this for the Kindle and between Android devices with say Moon+ reader installed. What I meant is for EPUBs and between platforms. I would like to read on my Android phone for example and then pick up where I left off on my desktop. Is this possible?

I'm looking for a solution that does not involve using Kobo or Amazon's apps.

R.K.
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  • Editing the question doesn't change the validity of my answer. NO, there is no such thing. – Auspex Nov 21 '14 at 03:32
  • I am not saying your answer is invalid. Heck, I upvoted it. If I thought it was invalid, I'd have downvoted it or told you so. I'm just not ready to take your word for it just yet.

    I just want to see other answers. I just wanted to make it clear that I am aware of the Kobo and Kindle apps and that those weren't the options I was looking for. I just wanted to have other options before I accept your answer on the off-chance that there is another way.

     – R.K. Nov 21 '14 at 03:48
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    And I'm not saying you said it was invalid :-) Just saying there is no such beast. I'm working on it,... The problem is, there's no standard way to record location, nor even a serious attempt to make it easy for one app/device to read another's location. Sony records the location using an epub2 bookmark stored in a sqlite table. Kobo uses a similar, but not identical, bookmark in a different table. calibre uses a completely different format for the bookmark, and stores it in the epub. FBreader stores a paragraph/word offset into the whole book (in a database structure that makes me cringe...). – Auspex Nov 22 '14 at 15:34
  • Must've been the all caps man. heh. Sorry for being defensive. Thanks for the answer. I wish it were part of the ePub spec. I think it's important enough. Otherwise, the proprietary ecosystems like Amazon and Kobo will always win due to ease of use. – R.K. Nov 22 '14 at 15:51

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As a general principle, no. But most software vendors provide compatible apps for PC/Mac/Android. So if you will be happy using their reader app, you just install their apps and get synchronization across all platforms.

For instance, I don't own a Kindle, but I buy ebooks from Amazon and read them on both Kindle for PC and Kindle for Android

The same is true of Kobo.

What this doesn't do is let you sync sideloaded books, or any book not purchased from that particular vendor.

Auspex
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  • Actually it syncs sideloaded books just fine. At least it syncs my Kindle books with the Kindle App on my phone. I just wish there was a standard way of doing this. I rather like Moon+ reader. Though there are times that I wish I could sync my reading progress on the desktop. – R.K. Nov 13 '14 at 05:48
  • Kindle currently prohibits WhisperSync sideloading on desktop. – mcandre Apr 15 '21 at 19:53
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Try the Bluefire reader ( http://www.bluefirereader.com/ )

I had to switch to Bluefire from Kindle after getting a windows 8 tablet since the win8 kindle app doesn't allow sideloaded books. Bluefire on the other hand has apps for ALL the major ecosystems (ios, android, windows). In order to sync between devices you will need to set up a free adobe ID which you will use to register each of your apps, then dump your epubs to DropBox and download from dropbox to each of the apps.

Neil
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  • This is interesting and useful -- though I prefer Google Play Books as my cloud/syncing solution. Main problem with Bluefire is that it mangles the display epub files; as a publisher I just gave up trying to make it look the same as my other files... (GPB is the best, though even that has some problems with presentation) – idiotprogrammer Apr 26 '16 at 21:12
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Google Play Books does a great job of syncing epub files and even remembering where you were on another device.

idiotprogrammer
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    its navigation is bad. no touch-to-next-page, no vertical swipe, only hori-swipe only. – Luke Nov 29 '17 at 18:34
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BookFusion can sync reading progress across Android, iOS and web application. I'm happily to use it to read my PDF books. Currently the reading experience is acceptable but not perfect. I've sent some feedback email, the support team says there will be a big update in Q3-Q4 2020.

ding van
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I used to use Aldiko (and AldikoSync) on all my android devices, but this is now too much hassle as the device needs to be rooted to work (you used to be able to use an older version of Aldiko on un-rooted devices, but that stopped working on my latest android devices.) However this wouldn't work on desktops.

I now use Google Play books which, as "idiotprogrammer" states, works great across android (tablet and phones) and chrome on desktops. My next step is to find an e-reader that I can use Google Play books on (I have an old nook which I used for Aldiko, but it won't run GPB.)

Gerrard
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The app "PocketBook" is an alternative to Kindle and Google Play. It's worth a look if you don't have/want to use an Amazon or Google account.

It will sync your books, notes, progress, and so forth across devices, using Dropbox as a back-end. It is on both iOS and Android.

http://reader.pocketbook.digital/eng

I discovered it just by going through the various ebook apps on the different platforms. The best overall iOS eBook apps (Marvin and Hyphen) unfortunately do not have any way of syncing to Android.

john
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For what it's worth, Apple Books (formerly iBooks) does exactly this for ePubs across Apple devices.

Calion
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I believe Foxit Reader (Android) and Foxit Phantom (Windows) can do this with PDF docs.

Gary Nowels
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Google Play Books is currently the most widely supported cross-platform ereader application for sideloaded bookmark sync.

Be warned: Google has a history of dropping support for sideloaded content. Books could easily go the way of Music at any point.

Its Web app is limited in features (no dark mode), and Google refuses to make native GUI apps for desktop. But it's better than nothing.

mcandre
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  • This should be an edit to the answer mentioning Goolge Play Books https://ebooks.stackexchange.com/a/6584/107 – mmmmmm Apr 16 '21 at 20:57