How to use Smart Lists in Book Tracker

Smart Lists are dynamic views of your library. You define which books should appear in them with one or more filters, and the list updates automatically whenever a book matches (or stops matching) your criteria. There’s nothing to add or remove manually.

A few examples of what’s possible:

  • All Unread books with less than 200 pages.
  • All books rated 5 stars with the tag Fantasy.
  • Books purchased this year but still unread.
  • All books in a series I haven’t finished yet.
  • Recently added books from a specific publisher.

How to create a Smart List

  1. Go to the Smart Lists section:
    • On iPhone → Home → scroll to Smart Lists.
    • On iPad / Mac → Sidebar → Smart Lists.
  2. Tap + Add Smart List.
  3. Give it a name (required).
  4. Add one or more filters. See the next section for the full list of criteria.
  5. Save.

The list appears immediately in the Smart Lists section, and updates automatically as books in your library change.

The 17 filter criteria

Book Tracker supports 17 different filter types. You can combine as many as you want in the same Smart List.

CategoryFilters
StatusSection (Library / Wishlist / Not Owned), Reading Status (Unread / To Read / Reading / Read / DNF)
ContentFormat, Categories, Languages
PeopleAuthors, Translators, Illustrators, Narrators, Publishers
Your organizationTags, Series
NumbersUser Rating, Pages
DatesReading Date, Insertion Date, Purchase Date

Each filter accepts the specific values that exist in your library. For example the Tags filter lets you pick from all the Tags you’ve created, the Format filter lets you pick from the 15 book formats supported by Book Tracker (Paperback, Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook, Manga, and so on).

Dates work in two directions

For the date filters (Reading Date, Insertion Date, Purchase Date) you pick a date and a direction:

  • From (after a given date) — e.g. “books read from January 1, 2026 onwards”.
  • To (before a given date) — e.g. “books purchased to December 31, 2025″.

Numeric filters use thresholds

  • User Rating offers granular thresholds — at least N stars or at most N stars.
  • Pages offers preset ranges — no page count, ≤ 100, ≤ 200, ≤ 300, … ≥ 1000 — to keep the experience consistent across editions.

Match rules: how filters combine

For each filter you add, you choose one of three rules:

  • Match all — the book must include all the selected values. Example: Tags matchAll [Fantasy, Signed] → only books with both tags.
  • Match any — the book must include at least one of the selected values. Example: Tags matchAny [Fantasy, Sci-Fi] → books with either tag.
  • Exclude the selected — the book must not include any of the selected values. Example: Tags matchNone [Wishlist priority] → everything except those.

ℹ️ Combining different criteria is implicitly AND. If your Smart List has Reading Status = Unread AND Format = Audiobook AND Tags includes “Comfort read”, a book must satisfy all three to appear. There is no global OR between different criteria. The OR/AND logic only applies within a single criterion via Match all / Match any.

Concrete examples

1. “Unread audiobooks I haven’t started”

  • Reading Status — matchAny — Unread
  • Format — matchAny — Audiobook

2. “Top-rated fantasy”

  • Tags — matchAll — Fantasy
  • User Rating — ≥ 4 stars

3. “Books bought in 2026 but still unread”

  • Purchase Date — from — January 1, 2026
  • Reading Status — matchAny — Unread, To Read

4. “Long reads I’ve been postponing”

  • Pages — ≥ 600
  • Reading Status — matchAny — To Read

How Smart Lists differ from Tags

A Tag is manual. You decide which books carry it. A Smart List is rule-based. Books appear automatically when they match the filters and disappear when they don’t.

The two are complementary. You can include Tags as one of the filter criteria in a Smart List, which is often the most powerful pattern: tag a few books with Read for thesis and let a Smart List combine that tag with other rules.

What Smart Lists do NOT save

  • Sorting: Smart Lists save which books to include, not how to sort them. The sort order is the one applied to the current list view (you can change it any time from the list itself).
  • Icons or colors: Smart Lists are identified only by their name. Choose names that clearly describe what they show.

Manage your Smart Lists

  • Rename or change filters — long press the Smart List (or right-click on Mac) → Edit.
  • Delete — long press → Delete. Removing a Smart List does not affect any of the books in your library.

You can have as many Smart Lists as you like.

Best practices

  • Name them like a sentence — “Unread audiobooks longer than 10h” is easier to find than “Audio queue”.
  • Start simple. Two or three filters are often enough. Add more only if the list gets too large.
  • Match all vs Match any is the most common source of confusion. Re-read the rule when results look wrong.
  • Pair Smart Lists with Tags for the most flexible system: tag a few books with a custom label, then build a Smart List that combines that tag with other rules.
  • Use the Pages and Date filters to build “themed shelves”. Your monthly purchases, your short reads for travel, your long reads for winter.