What is the best library app for free ebooks and audiobooks?

Library apps are storefronts for collections your library licenses. The same book can be in Libby at one library and in cloudLibrary at the next town's library, so the first step is not choosing an app but checking which services your library pays for.

• Look on the library website for a page called something like eLibrary, digital collection or ebooks and audiobooks. It lists every service and links to each app.
• Ask at the desk. Staff can tell you which apps your card works with and whether your card number needs a PIN for them.
• Use more than one. Many libraries offer two or three services. Each one has different titles, so a book with a long hold in one app may be available now in another.

Once you know your services, install those apps only. The table below shows what each one does.

All four are free with a card from a library that subscribes. They differ in what they lend, how waiting works and what they record about you.

Libby and cloudLibrary mostly work like a physical library: your library buys a set number of licenses for each title, and when they are all out, you join a hold queue. Libby's help pages explain how to place and manage holds.

Hoopla works differently. Many of its titles can be borrowed at once by anyone, but your library caps how many items you can borrow each month, and the count resets on the first of the month. That makes Hoopla good for the book you want tonight and Libby good for the book you are happy to queue for.

In practice, the best setup for a heavy reader is both: place holds in Libby for new releases, and fill the gaps with Hoopla's instant titles.

• Place holds early. Join the queue as soon as a book is announced in your library's catalog; the wait runs while you read something else.
• Stagger your holds. Spread holds over a few months so books do not all arrive in the same week.
• Check every service your library offers before you buy. A title on hold in one app may be free to borrow in another.
• Use the Palace Bookshelf for classics and public domain books. It needs no library card.
• Read on a Kindle if you prefer e-ink. Libby can send ebooks to a Kindle for US libraries.
• Mind the loan period with long audiobooks. Speed up playback a little, or borrow when you have a long drive or project ahead.

For more free options beyond the library, see the best free reading apps, and for a side-by-side of the two big apps, read Hoopla vs Libby.

Privacy labels vary more than you might expect between apps that all serve libraries. Libby's App Store label lists only diagnostics as linked to you. Hoopla's lists contact info, user content, identifiers, usage data and coarse location, and says your email address and user ID may be used for the developer's own marketing. cloudLibrary's listing says it may use your location even when the app is not open; the same listing says your library card displays when you are near the library.

If privacy is the deciding factor, Libby has the shortest label of the apps we checked. Whichever you use, you can turn off location access in your phone's settings and still borrow.

It happens to most library readers sooner or later. Place a new hold straight away; when the book comes back, your place usually returns with it on the same account. If weeks pass, the bigger problem is remembering the story.

Magic Bookmark works with a library loan in any format, because it never holds the book itself: you photograph the page you were on, type the page number, or enter the last phrase you heard, and it recaps the story only up to there. It covers supported titles only, runs on iPhone, and costs $1.40 to $4.99 per book after a free first credit. Our page on getting back into a book covers the free ways to do this too.

Libby and Hoopla both lend audiobooks, and they suit different listeners. Libby gives you speed control from 0.6x to 3.0x, a sleep timer, bookmarks and CarPlay, and your position syncs across devices, which matters on long books you listen to in the car and at home. Hoopla's instant borrows suit a listener who wants something now, and it also offers CarPlay, offline downloads and a sleep timer.

Audiobook loans run out like ebook loans. If you listen slowly, borrow when you know you have time, or download the book before a trip so a weak signal does not interrupt you. For paid options when the library does not have a title, see the best audiobook apps and what one audiobook really costs.