Guide
How to connect Audiobookshelf to your Mac
You may not need an app at all. Audiobookshelf ships with a web interface, so open your server address in Safari or Chrome, sign in, and your whole library is there. It plays, it remembers your place, and it costs nothing extra.
An app earns its place when the browser starts to get in the way. A native player sits in the menu bar instead of a tab you keep losing, keeps playing when you quit the browser, answers your keyboard media keys, and can hand playback over to your phone. That is what the steps below set up, using PoRaBar at $2.99 once with a 60-day free trial.
Connect your server in four steps
You need a running Audiobookshelf server, a Mac on macOS 13 or newer, and about three minutes.
- Open the Audiobookshelf page in PoRaBar Pick Audiobookshelf in the sidebar, then press Connect server.
- Enter your server URL Type the full address, including
https://and the port if it is not the standard one. A typical self-hosted address looks likehttps://audiobooks.example.com:13378. If a reverse proxy serves Audiobookshelf from a subpath, include that path and it is kept. - Choose how you sign in Either an API token or your Audiobookshelf username and password. You find the token in Audiobookshelf under Settings, then Users, then click your username. The token is stored in the macOS Keychain. A password is only used to sign in and is never stored.
- Press Connect PoRaBar signs in and loads your libraries. There is nothing to pick, because every library on the server comes across, both books and podcast libraries. If you want a friendlier label than the hostname, fill in the optional display name before connecting.
One server at a time. Saving a new one replaces the connection you had.
When it does not connect
You use a self-signed certificate
macOS refuses it, and the connection fails before your credentials are even checked. Three ways out. Open the certificate in Keychain Access and set it to Always Trust, which fixes it for every app on that Mac. Or connect over plain http://, which works and is reasonable on a network you control. Or put a real certificate in front of the server, for example a reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt, which is the option that also fixes your phone.
Your server only exists inside Tailscale or a VPN
Use the address your Mac can actually reach, so the MagicDNS name or the 100.x.y.z address, plus the port. Check that your Mac is connected to the same tailnet at that moment. An address that resolves on your phone means nothing here.
You left the port off
Without a port the request goes to 443 for https and 80 for http, and a default Audiobookshelf install listens on 13378. If you did not deliberately put it behind a proxy on 443, the port belongs in the URL.
Sign-in is refused
Try the other method. An API token rules out a typo in a long password, and a username and password rule out a token that was regenerated on the server. Tokens change when you recreate them in Audiobookshelf, and the old one stops working immediately.
After it connects
- Your position is written back to the server every 30 seconds while playing, and again when you pause or finish. Stop on the Mac, continue in the web app or on your phone.
- Audiobooks stream from your server, so you need to be able to reach it. Podcast episodes can be downloaded for offline listening.
- The same app plays internet radio, podcast feeds and YouTube livestreams, and none of that needs a server.