Buy & listen to audiobooks

You can listen to audiobooks on your computer, mobile device, Google Home, and Google Assistant.

Buy & download audiobooks

You can explore and buy available audiobooks from play.google.com.

  1. On a mobile browser, like Safari, open play.google.com/books.
  2. Sign in to the same Google Account as the one you have on your Google Play Books app.
  3. Search for an audiobook or browse recommendations.
    • To learn more about an audiobook, tap the cover image.
    • To download the audiobook, tap the price and then Buy.
    • To listen to a sample, tap Play Sample.

Tip: You can't buy or rent audiobooks using the Google Play Books app on your iPhone and iPad.

Find an audiobook you bought from Google Play

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Play Books app Play Books.
  2. Sign in to the Google Account that you bought your audiobooks with.
  3. At the bottom, tap Library and then select your audiobook.

Download using Wi-Fi only

To avoid data charges, you can download audiobooks using Wi-Fi only. To turn this feature on or off:

Tips:

  • You can choose to download standard or high quality audio. In Play Books settings, under "Audiobook playback," tap Audio quality. High quality audio requires more device storage space and bandwidth to download.
  • Some audiobooks may come with PDF attachments. Learn how to get the PDF attachments.

Listen to audiobooks you've downloaded

After you've downloaded an audiobook, you can listen to it on multiple devices.

Tip: If you start listening on one device, then open the audiobook on another device, the audiobook will start playing from where you left off. You'll start listening at the closest natural stopping point from the last time you listened.

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  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Play Books App Play Books.
  2. At the bottom, tap Library.
  3. Tap Audiobooks and then tap the title of the audiobook. It will play automatically.
  4. Optional: You can also change how the audiobook is played:

Add & remove a bookmark

Export the audio version

You can only export the audio using your desktop. Learn how to export the audio file.

Download PDF for an audiobook

Depending on the publisher, your audiobook may come with additional materials such as visuals, charts, graphs, maps, or other appendices.

Types of audiobooks

Abridged audiobooks

An abridged audiobook is a shorter version of an audiobook that has been edited for length. You'll still understand the major plot points of the book, but minor details will be left out.

Abridged audiobooks are available as a separate item in the Play Store from the full length version of the audiobook. Double check which version of the audiobook you want to buy before you finalize your purchase.

Auto-narrated audiobooks

Auto-narrated audiobooks use text-to-speech technology to create audio from an ebook.

These audiobooks use a digital voice to read ebooks. You might encounter:

  • Mispronounced words
  • Pauses in places that don't make sense
  • A mismatch between the tone or emotion of word pronunciations and the content

At this time, auto-narrated audiobooks are only in English.

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