Four steps

How it works

1

Export a CSV from your current app

Goodreads: My Books → Import/Export → Export Library. This only works on the desktop site — on a phone, open the link in Safari or Chrome and switch to Request Desktop Site, because the export button doesn't exist in the Goodreads app.

StoryGraph: Profile → Import/Export → Export your library.

LibraryThing, Hardcover, or anything else: use whatever "export CSV" option it offers.

2

Open the importer in LitList

Go to Profile → Data & Privacy → Import and pick the source that matches your file. There are dedicated importers for Goodreads, StoryGraph and LibraryThing, plus a universal CSV importer for everything else.

3

Pick your file

Choose the downloaded CSV from your Downloads folder. LitList checks the file first — if the export came out empty, or it's a file from a different app than the importer expects, it tells you before anything gets added to your library.

4

Review and confirm

Each row gets matched to a book with covers and metadata pulled in automatically. Your shelves become statuses, your star ratings carry over, and your read dates land on the right days. Large libraries take a little longer — a few thousand books is normal and it keeps going in the background.

What transfers

What comes across,
and what doesn't

No surprises. Here's exactly what a CSV can and can't carry.

Comes across

Titles and authors, ISBNs, your shelves (read, currently reading, to-read), star ratings, date read, date added, and page counts. Covers and book details are re-fetched fresh, so you get better artwork than most exports contain.

Starts empty on purpose

Spice ratings and trope tags. No other tracker records them, and LitList never guesses or scrapes them — spice data only ever comes from readers. Tagging your favourites is the fun part anyway.

Depends on the export

Reviews and private notes come across when your export includes them. Goodreads includes review text; some other exports don't. Anything missing can be pasted into your LitList journal by hand.

And back out again

Export from LitList any time on the free tier — a full JSON backup, or a CSV that imports cleanly into Goodreads and StoryGraph. Leaving is as easy as arriving. That's deliberate.

A note on this

Your history isn't a hostage

The strongest thing keeping most readers in a tracker they don't love isn't the tracker. It's ten years of logged books and the sinking feeling of starting over.

That's a bad reason to stay anywhere. So LitList imports from everything, exports to everything, and never charges for either. If LitList turns out not to be for you, take your data and go — with the same two-minute process that brought it in.

An app should keep you because it's good, not because leaving is expensive.

Questions

Import troubleshooting

The export button isn't showing in Goodreads

You're almost certainly on mobile. Goodreads only offers library export on the desktop site — it isn't in their app at all. Open goodreads.com/review/import in Safari or Chrome, tap the menu (⋯ or ⋮), choose Request Desktop Site, and the export button appears.

My export downloaded but the file looks empty

Goodreads generates the file in the background, and clicking too early gets you an empty one. Go back to Import/Export, run the export again, and wait for the download link to appear on the page before saving it.

Can I import more than once?

Yes. Books you already have are matched rather than duplicated, so re-running an import after adding more books elsewhere tops up your library instead of doubling it.

Some books came in without covers

Usually an edition without artwork in the book databases — common with older titles and self-published books. Open the book in LitList and use the cover picker to choose a different edition or submit a better cover, which also fixes it for everyone else.

Something's wrong with a book's details

Report it from the book's page in the app and it goes into the review queue. Catalogue fixes apply for every reader, not just you. Anything bigger belongs on the community board.