← Guides 30 September 2026 · Aloud

How to listen to an EPUB on iPhone

This guide covers getting an EPUB onto your iPhone and into an app that plays it like an audiobook. The file might be from a DRM-free shop, a public-domain library or something you wrote yourself.

If you’d like every method compared first, that’s in four ways to turn an EPUB into an audiobook.

Step 1: Check the file is DRM-free

An EPUB from a store that uses DRM is encrypted and only opens in that store’s own app. No reader app can play it, and none should try. These do work:

• Books from shops that sell DRM-free, which usually say so on the product page.
• Public-domain books from Project Gutenberg and similar libraries.
• EPUBs you exported yourself from Pages, Word, Scrivener or something similar.
• Review copies and newsletters that publishers send as plain EPUB files.

Step 2: Get it onto the iPhone

From a Mac

Right-click the file, choose Share → AirDrop and pick your iPhone. When it arrives, the phone asks what to open it with.

From a Windows PC

Put the file in a folder that syncs, such as iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. Then open the Files app on the iPhone, find it under Browse and tap it. Emailing it to yourself and tapping the attachment works too.

From a download on the phone

Safari saves downloads to the Downloads folder in Files. Long-press the file there and choose Share to send it to an app.

Step 3: Open it in a reader that can narrate

Apple Books displays an EPUB well, and Speak Screen can read it aloud (swipe down from the top with two fingers once it’s turned on). That’s fine for a chapter. For a whole book there’s no chapter list for listening and no sleep timer, and you find your own place every time.

In Aloud, share the file to the app or import it from the library screen. It splits the book on the real chapters the table of contents points to, and saves your place in each book.

Step 4: Set it up for listening

• Choose a voice. There are 52. Try a few on a chapter with dialogue, because a voice that’s fine on narration can grate on conversation.
• Pick a speed. Most people end up a little above normal once they’re used to a voice.
• Use the sleep timer if you listen in bed, or you’ll wake up four chapters on.
• Check the start. Lots of EPUBs open with a title page, a copyright notice and a contents list. Skip to chapter one.

What to expect

Synthetic narration is good now. It’ll still mispronounce the odd made-up name or read a heading flatly. For dialogue-heavy fiction, a human-narrated audiobook is better if one exists. Plenty of books will never get an audio edition, like niche non-fiction, older titles and your own drafts, and for those this is how you get to hear them.

Common questions