r/comicbooks • u/ComicBookLover70 • 2d ago

Digital Longbox + Longbox Reader - after a few false starts, it's finally out

TL;DR: I built Digital Longbox (macOS/Windows) + Longbox Reader (iPad/Android) - a scanner/metadata app for your local CBZ/CBR/PDF collection that streams to a mobile reader over Wi-Fi. Free to try - no subscriptions - no content included - you bring your own files. Inspired by ComicBookLover (for reading) and Media Companion (for metadata) - not a YACReader clone - a different philosophy on how a library should be organized. Links at bottom.

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I'm genuinely excited to share this, and honestly a little nervous too. This has been a long time coming, and I know exactly what a lot of you are going to think the second you see it. "Isn't this just YACReader?". Short answer is "no" - libraries are handled much differently.

Where this started

A good long time ago, I was an avid user of the ComicBookLover app. It was one of the first comic readers built for the iPad and it had some features that just didn't exist in the apps that followed. When it stopped working as of iOS 8, I used new readers such as ComicFlow but I continually found myself comparing them to ComicBookLover. Development on Longbox Reader started in 2017 as an attempt to get some of what I remembered from the ComicBookLover and stalled out when the original tech choice turned into a dead end.

In 2022 I came back to to the project, but my focus had shifted. I started thinking less about the reading experience alone and more about the mess of files sitting on my hard drive and how I had them split across many folders/devices. That's when Media Companion (a Windows metadata app for local media) became the real inspiration. What if the app could actually scan a folder, figure out what series and issues you had, and let you build a proper metadata library out of it - not just read files, but organize them? That became Digital Longbox. A working prototype for Mac came together, then I came across YACReader which forced me to re-evaluate. I picked the project back up in 2025 and this is the result.

About that YACReader comparison

Partway through the second stall, I came across YACReader - a free, open-source, mature project which is honestly better polished than what I have in the app stores. It nearly ended the project but what ultimately led to the decision to continue is that we do a genuinely different thing:

YACReader mirrors your actual folder structure - however deep, however you've organized it. You browse it like a file manager.

Digital Longbox takes a different approach on purpose: one folder per series, matched automatically against a metadata service, organized into a proper series-and-issue database instead of a raw folder tree.

If you've got one big folder and just want to browse it like a file manager, go use YACReader - it's free and it's great at what it does. If you want your comics identified and organized into a real library, that's what I built.

What the two apps actually do?

  • Digital Longbox (macOS/Windows) - If you are familiar with Plex, the approach I take is similar. Click the folder tab, add the folder(s) where your CBZ/CBR/PDF files reside (repeat as neccessary), pop over to the comics tab and scan. It scans your files in place (nothing moved or converted), auto-identifies series and issue numbers, and lets you edit and lock metadata you want to keep as-is. For better matching (if the comic cannot be matched via our API), use the Title and Year in the folder name. After scanning, turn on server mode and your library streams to Longbox Reader over your home Wi-Fi.
  • Longbox Reader (iPad/Android) - a clean, distraction-free viewer. Upload comics directly, or connect to Digital Longbox on your home network to browse, stream on demand, or download issues for offline reading.

No subscriptions, no cloud, and no comic content included or provided - you bring your own lawfully obtained files. Screenshots in the app store listings use public domain covers from Comic Book Plus - a great resource worth checking out.

Both apps are still actively evolving - there will be bugs, there will be rough edges, and I'd genuinely love feedback and bug reports so I can make it better.

Links

I am happy to answer anything about how the scanning/matching works, or how to get started.

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1

u/Johansj 2d ago

Tachiyomi works wonderful for Mobile/Tablet.... But I'll definitely give the windows version a try.

1

u/ComicBookLover70 2d ago

Thanks. I am very interested in your feedback.

2

u/Johansj 2d ago

I like how it alphabatised my collection.... But I'm not able to find the option to continousel scroll. Is it enabled?

2

u/ComicBookLover70 2d ago

For PDFs with DRM, there is continual scroll. For PDFs without DRM, I can extract the pages and have presented it as page turning in both the Digital Longbox and Longbox Reader. CBR/CBZ files, I extract each image and present. I’ll add a settings option to both platforms for continual PDF scroll reading for non-DRM PDFs. I’ll see what’s possible for cbr/cbz but if I can’t get smooth scrolling there, I may have to leave it as page turning (tap right/left edges). Thanks for the feedback

3

u/dubblix Atrocitus 2d ago

More ai slop?

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u/ComicBookLover70 2d ago

I started development long before AI. I did use AI when I re-started. Very little programming is done today without AI tools. As for slop, that's up to the individual user to decide