Your comics and manga open in the same library as your books. CBR archives are repacked the moment they come in, so there is nothing to convert, and a manga that carries its own ComicInfo.xml opens right to left without being asked. iPhone and iPad.
Read a comic one page at a time, as a two page spread, or leave it on Auto and let the reader follow the device. Turn an iPad to landscape and the spread appears on its own; turn it back and you are on single pages again.
Fit the page the way you like it and pick the colour that sits behind it, so a scan that does not match the shape of the screen is framed the way you want rather than the way the file decided.
There is no separate comics tab and no second app to keep in sync. CBZ and CBR files land in the same library as your EPUBs, PDFs and audiobooks, each with a comic badge on the cover. Filter by format to see only comics, or tap the chip twice to see everything except comics.
They count, too. Time spent on a comic feeds the same streaks, the same daily goal and the same statistics as time spent on a novel, instead of disappearing into an app that tracks nothing.
Reading direction has three settings: Auto, left to right, and right to left. Most of the time you will never touch it, because a manga that carries a file named exactly ComicInfo.xml at the root of its archive already says which way it reads. When that file's Manga element is set to YesAndRightToLeft, the comic opens right to left with nothing set by you.
That is metadata, not a guess at the language or the filename. When an archive carries no metadata at all, nothing can read a direction that was never written down, so you choose right to left once and carry on reading.
Pinch to zoom into a panel, or double tap to jump straight to three times the size, centred on the exact spot you tapped rather than on the middle of the page. Small lettering on a dense page stops being a reason to give up.
When you need to move, a grid of page thumbnails takes the place of a table of contents, because a comic has no chapters to list. There is a go to page control as well: type the number and you are there.
Import CBZ and CBR files straight from the Files app, or point justRead at a folder that iCloud Drive, Dropbox or Drive already syncs into Files. You can also download comics from an OPDS catalogue such as Komga, Kavita, calibre-web or COPS.
iOS expands a ZIP on its own but never a RAR, which is why tapping a CBR in Files gets you nowhere. justRead repacks CBR archives as they are imported, so they open like any other comic and nothing has to be converted by hand.
Choose single page, a two page spread, or Auto and let the device decide. Reading direction is Auto, left to right or right to left, and a manga carrying a ComicInfo.xml is already right to left when it opens.
What sets justRead apart from the dedicated comic readers on iOS
iOS has no built-in way to unpack a RAR archive, so a CBR sits in Files doing nothing, and most advice sends you off to a desktop to rebuild the file before you can read it.
justRead repacks CBR archives when they are imported. There is nothing for you to convert, no converter app in between, and nothing is converted while you read.
Most comic readers ignore the metadata inside the archive, so every manga volume starts the wrong way round until you find the toggle and flip it yourself.
A comic carrying a ComicInfo.xml opens right to left with nothing set. The direction comes out of the file, and you can still override it with Auto, left to right or right to left.
A dedicated comic reader keeps your comics in its own app, away from the novels, the PDFs and the audiobooks, with its own progress and its own statistics that nothing else can see.
Comics sit beside everything else with a comic badge, a format filter and an exclude filter, and they count toward the same streaks, goals and statistics as the rest of your reading.
See what readers are saying on the App Store
★ 4.6 / 5 · 24 App Store ratings
Fantastic eReader
Best app I've found for syncing with Calibre. Customization rivals the great Marvin app, with superior library management.
Great app, responsive dev
The reading experience is already top notch. Really exciting to see where this app develops over time.
Excellent and complete
Beautifully designed and a pleasure to use. The developer had a clear plan from the very first version.
Excellent
Really well designed, and so pleasant to use.
Reading as you want it
A great new iOS epub reader with responsive developers actively adding features. Configure your reading experience just the way you like it.
The best reader on the App Store
Absolute control of customization. Custom font support. The ability to vote on next features and development.
My new mobile happy place
A beautifully made reader app. Love the statistics and how it works with my 5,000+ book library and cloud storage.
Comprehensive epub reader for iOS
Finally an app that manages a book collection and acts as a fully functional reader. Streams from Dropbox without using phone storage.
Everything you need to know about reading comics and manga in justRead
No. CBR archives are repacked when they are imported, so afterwards they open exactly like a CBZ, and the reader converts nothing while you read. You do not need a desktop or a converter app in between.
Reading direction has three settings: Auto, left to right, and right to left. If the archive contains a file named exactly ComicInfo.xml at its root, and that file's Manga element is set to YesAndRightToLeft, the comic opens right to left with nothing set by you.
Nothing can read a direction that was never written down, so no app can know. Set reading direction to right to left yourself and read on. Adding a ComicInfo.xml to the archive on a computer works too, and it is the same file that servers like Komga and Kavita already read.
CBZ and CBR. CBT, CB7 and folders of loose images are not supported, and neither is anything with DRM on it. PDFs open as PDFs, in the same library.
Yes. Comics count toward your streaks, your daily goal and your statistics in the same way a novel does, because they sit in the same library rather than in a separate app.
Yes, over OPDS. Add the catalogue once, browse it by category or search it, and comic downloads land straight in your library alongside everything else. Komga, Kavita, calibre-web and COPS all speak OPDS, and so do plenty of smaller servers.
A grid of page thumbnails takes the place of a table of contents, because a comic has no chapters to list. There is also a go to page control: type the number and you are there. Pinch to zoom into a panel, or double tap to jump to three times the size on the exact spot you tapped.
There is no panel by panel guided view, and no comic store, streaming service or catalogue to buy from, so you bring your own files. Highlights, notes, bookmarks, in-book search, the dictionary and metadata editing belong to EPUB and PDF rather than to comics, and Read Aloud does not apply to a comic. justRead is an iPhone and iPad app; there is no Mac, Android or desktop version.