Boundless is a reader for manga, manhwa, and light novels for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. It arrives empty on purpose: there is no built-in catalog, and no account is needed to start reading. You decide what the app can reach by adding source repositories, and where your reading is kept is also your decision.
What you need
- An iPhone running iOS 15.1 or later
- An iPad running iPadOS 15.1 or later
- An Apple Silicon Mac, where it runs as the iPad app
- An Android device running Android 7.0 or later
Boundless is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and runs on an Apple Silicon Mac as the iPad app. Android is a direct download. Both live on the download page.
Your first few minutes
The app ships with zero content sources, so the first job is pointing it at a repository. A repository is simply a URL that lists sources you can install. The official one is:
https://boundless.moe/repo
That repository carries only public-domain and openly licensed material. To get reading:
- Open Boundless and go to the Settings tab.
- Open the source repositories screen and add the URL above.
- Install a source from the repository. Today that means Project Gutenberg, a catalog of more than 70,000 public-domain books with browsing, search, and genre filtering, and Komga Demo, which connects to Komga's own public demo server so you can see what a self-hosted comics and manga library looks like inside the app.
- Switch to Browse, choose the source, and look through what it offers.
- Open a title and tap a chapter. Gutenberg books are split into real chapters, so you get a proper chapter list instead of one endless wall of text.
Adding sources goes deeper on what repositories are, how sources run, and how to judge one before installing it.
The five tabs
Boundless uses a floating tab bar with five destinations.
- Library: the titles you have added, with your progress through each one. See Your library.
- Browse: the catalogs of your installed sources, one source at a time.
- Search: look for a title across what your sources expose.
- History: what you have read recently, with a route back to where you stopped.
- Settings: sources, appearance, reading preferences, downloads, backup, and parental controls.
Where your reading lives
Signed out, Boundless is entirely a local app. Your library, your position in every chapter, and your history are stored on the device you read on, and nothing is sent anywhere. Signing in is optional, and it exists so that data can be saved rather than tied to one device, and so your privacy settings and parental controls have somewhere to live. You can use the reader indefinitely without an account.
Reading signed out has two consequences worth knowing up front.
- Your reading data is private by construction, because it never leaves the device. The privacy page has the details.
- Progress does not follow you between devices. If you read on both iPhone and iPad, each one keeps its own position, and a wiped device starts over unless you have a backup.
On iPad and Mac
Boundless is built for all three platforms rather than stretched to fit them. On iPad and Mac, long-form screens are width-capped and centered so text keeps a comfortable measure instead of running edge to edge, and the library grid adds columns as the window grows rather than inflating every cell.
Alternate app icons are an iPhone and iPad feature. Everything else in Appearance behaves the same across platforms.
Where to go next
- Adding sources for repositories, installing sources, and how extensions run on device.
- Your library for adding titles, bulk chapter actions, and downloads.
- Reading for the two readers, tap zones, and auto-scroll.
- Appearance for accent themes, background styles, and ambient effects.
- Parental controls for setting a PIN.
- Troubleshooting when a source misbehaves.
Release notes and longer write-ups go on the blog.