Send books to your phone over Wi-Fi

What you need

• Lectern 1.28 or newer on your phone.
• Both devices on the same Wi-Fi. Mobile data cannot work for this: your computer has no route to a phone on a mobile network.
• Any browser on the sending machine — Windows, macOS, Linux, another phone, a tablet. Nothing to install.

Send a book, step by step

1. Open the transfer screen. In your library, tap the + button and choose Send from computer (Wi-Fi).
2. Read the address. The screen shows a short address and, under it, a six-digit code. There is a QR code too — handy when you are sending from a tablet that can scan it.
3. Open the address on your computer. Type it into the address bar exactly as shown, including the http:// and the port number. It is your phone's address on your own network, so no search engine will ever find it.
4. Enter the code. The page asks for the six digits. After eight wrong tries it stops accepting anything at all until you reopen the screen on your phone.
5. Pick your files. Choose one or more ebooks and send. They go one at a time; keep the transfer screen open on your phone while it runs.
6. Watch them arrive. The phone counts up — “3 books received” — and the page tells you what landed and what it skipped.

Where the books end up

Sent books are stored inside Lectern itself, grouped under Received — the same place as books you share from another app. They are on your device, other apps cannot read them, and they are indexed the moment they arrive.

Worth knowing before you move a whole library. Because they live inside the app, uninstalling Lectern deletes them with it. If these are your only copies, keep the originals on your computer, or copy the files into a folder you added under Settings → Library instead.

What Lectern accepts

The same formats the library scanner takes: EPUB (including Kobo's .kepub), PDF, MOBI, AZW, AZW3, PRC, FB2, FBZ, TXT, and the comic archives CBZ, CBR, CB7 and CBT. Anything else is refused and listed as skipped, so you can see why a file did not appear. A single file can be up to 256 MB.

Why this does not break the offline promise

Nothing goes to the internet. The file travels from your computer to your phone across your own network, the way it would over a cable. There is no server of ours in the middle, no account, no upload.

Local is not the same as private, though, so the screen protects itself. Every session gets a fresh six-digit code that each request has to carry, uploads are refused without it, and the server exists only while the screen is open. Close the screen and there is nothing left to reach.

Fix the common problems

No address appears

The phone is not on Wi-Fi. Lectern deliberately ignores mobile data here, because an address handed out by your carrier is one your laptop can never reach. Connect to Wi-Fi and the address appears by itself — you do not have to reopen the screen.

The address does not open on my computer

Usually the two devices are on different networks: a guest network, or a VPN on the computer that routes everything away from the local one. Turn the VPN off, join the same network, try again. Some routers also have “client isolation” or “AP isolation” switched on, which stops devices from seeing each other at all.

“That code doesn't match”

Type only the six digits, no spaces. The page tells you how many tries are left; after eight it locks. Close the transfer screen on your phone and open it again for a fresh code.

Some files were skipped

The result page lists them. Skipped means the format is not one Lectern reads — a .zip, a .docx, a stray note. Rename it only if it really is an ebook whose extension is wrong.

The transfer stopped halfway

The screen has to stay open: it is the server. If the phone locked or you switched apps, reopen the screen and send the rest. Nothing is half-added — a file that did not finish simply is not there.

Wi-Fi transfer questions