tbard — audiobook manager and listener for the terminal

Audiobook manager and listener for the terminal. tbard keeps your audiobook library in one place and plays it from the terminal. It connects to your Audible account to list the books you own, downloads them in the best available quality split into one file per chapter, plays them with mpv, and keeps your listening position in sync with the Audible app on your phone.

[⏎] Install [G] Source code [R] Releases

Library

Fuzzy search, sections (in progress, downloaded, finished…) and cover art in the terminal, with Kitty/Ghostty graphics or half blocks.

Downloads

The best quality Audible offers, split losslessly into one .m4b per chapter with title, track number and cover.

Player

Chapters, ±30 s, speed from 0.5× to 3×, volume and a sleep timer. Speed and volume are remembered per book.

Sync

Your position goes back and forth with the Audible app. Offline, it waits in a queue and is sent later.

Private by design

Credentials are encrypted with a key kept in your system keychain. No telemetry, nothing sent anywhere but Amazon and Audible.

Your terminal, your colors

Uses your terminal's palette, or a colors.toml that reloads live (Noctalia template included).

Disclaimer. tbard is an unofficial tool, not affiliated with Audible or Amazon. It talks to Audible's private API, which may change at any time. Use it only for books you have bought, for your personal listening. Removing DRM may be restricted where you live; you are responsible for how you use it.

Install

tbard needs mpv (playback) and ffmpeg (decryption and splitting). The package managers below install them for you.

Any distribution

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/abelland-lgtm/tbard/releases/latest/download/tbard-installer.sh | sh

Then install mpv and ffmpeg with your package manager:

Debian / Ubuntusudo apt install mpv ffmpeg
Fedora (ffmpeg from RPM Fusion)sudo dnf install mpv ffmpeg
Archsudo pacman -S mpv ffmpeg

Homebrew on Linux

brew install abelland-lgtm/tap/tbard

Homebrew

brew install abelland-lgtm/tap/tbard

Installs mpv and ffmpeg too. Without Homebrew:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/abelland-lgtm/tbard/releases/latest/download/tbard-installer.sh | sh

Scoop

scoop bucket add extras; scoop bucket add abelland https://github.com/abelland-lgtm/scoop-bucket; scoop install abelland/tbard

Installs mpv and ffmpeg too. Without Scoop, use the installer and then install mpv and ffmpeg yourself:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/abelland-lgtm/tbard/releases/latest/download/tbard-installer.ps1 | iex"

An .msi installer is also on the releases page.

With Rust

cargo install tbard --locked

Nix

nix run github:abelland-lgtm/tbard

Prebuilt binaries

For every platform on the releases page.

Check the installation

tbard doctor

It shows where tbard keeps its files and whether mpv, ffmpeg and your session are ready.

Quick start

tbard

The first time, tbard asks for your language and your Audible store, opens Amazon's sign-in page in your browser and asks you to paste the address you land on. Then it opens your library.

First run: choose English or Spanish — Choose your language.

First run: list of Audible stores — Choose your Audible store and sign in.

From the command line

logintbard login --locale us — sign in (us, uk, ca, au, in, de, fr, it, es, jp, br)
librarytbard library — refresh and list your books
playtbard play dune — play, downloading first if needed
downloadtbard download project hail — download only
synctbard sync — send positions queued while offline
doctortbard doctor — check programs, folders and session
logouttbard logout — remove this device from Amazon and delete the credentials

Keys

tbard's player: the current time in big digits, a now-playing box with progress bars and the chapter list — The player.

Library

search/
section1–5
listen⏎
downloadd
refreshr
settingsc
playertab
quitq

Player

pausespace
±30 seconds← →
chapter[ ]
speed+ -
volume9 0
sleep timert
stops
librarytab

Sync

on starttbard uses the most recent of the local and the Audible position. If both changed since the last sync and they are more than two minutes apart, it asks.
while playingthe position is saved locally every 5 seconds and sent to Audible every 2 minutes, when you pause and when you stop.
offlinepositions wait in a queue and are sent when the connection comes back (or with tbard sync).
accuracychapter files line up with the Audible app to within milliseconds, so the minute you see in tbard is the one your phone shows.

Privacy

tbard stores everything in your own user folders. Nothing is shared with other users of the computer, and nothing is sent anywhere except to Amazon and Audible. There is no telemetry.

What	Linux	macOS	Windows
Settings and theme	`~/.config/tbard`	`~/Library/Application Support/tbard`	`%APPDATA%\tbard\config`
Credentials and database	`~/.local/share/tbard`	`~/Library/Application Support/tbard`	`%APPDATA%\tbard\data`
Cover cache	`~/.cache/tbard`	`~/Library/Caches/tbard`	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\tbard\cache`
Log	`~/.local/state/tbard`	`~/Library/Application Support/tbard/logs`	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\tbard\data\logs`
Audiobooks	`~/Audiobooks`	`~/Audiobooks`	`%USERPROFILE%\Audiobooks`

Credentials

Signing in registers tbard as a device on your Amazon account, like a phone with the Audible app. Its tokens and private key are saved encrypted (AES-256-GCM) in credentials.enc; the key lives in your system keychain (macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, GNOME Keyring or KWallet). A copy of the file is useless on another machine or account.

Permissions

On Linux and macOS the folders are created 0700 and private files 0600. On Windows they live in your user profile. Logs never contain tokens or download links.

No keychain?

On a machine without one (a server, a minimal desktop) tbard stores credentials.json unencrypted, readable only by you, and tells you so.

Removing everything

Run tbard logout: it removes the device from your Amazon account and deletes the credentials and the keychain entry. Then delete the folders above.

Configuration

config.toml lives in the settings folder. The settings screen (c) writes it for you.

library_dir = "~/Audiobooks"   # where new downloads go
language = "en"                # "en" or "es"
mpv_path = "/opt/mpv/bin/mpv"  # only if mpv is not on PATH
ffmpeg_path = "C:\\tools\\ffmpeg.exe"

Colors

tbard uses your terminal's colors. To change them, create colors.toml next to config.toml; tbard reloads it while running. With Noctalia, the included template generates it from your wallpaper.

primary = "#ffb000"
on_primary = "#1a1200"
secondary = "#e8c37a"
tertiary = "#ff7a45"
error = "#ff5f56"
on_surface_variant = "#9b8f7a"
outline = "#5b5142"

The settings screen with the download folder and the language — Settings: download folder and language.

Nix and home-manager

inputs.tbard.url = "github:abelland-lgtm/tbard";

imports = [ inputs.tbard.homeManagerModules.default ];
programs.tbard.enable = true;

Troubleshooting

“mpv was not found” or “ffmpeg was not found”

Install them (see Install) or set mpv_path / ffmpeg_path in config.toml. tbard doctor shows what it finds.

The sign-in page did not open

The login screen also shows the URL: open it yourself, sign in, and paste the final address (it starts with https://www.amazon…/ap/maplanding).

“no system keychain”

Install and unlock a Secret Service provider (GNOME Keyring or KWallet) and sign in again. Until then the credentials are kept unencrypted, readable only by you.

Covers look blocky

Your terminal has no graphics protocol, so tbard draws covers with half blocks. Kitty, Ghostty, WezTerm and iTerm2 show real images.

The position did not reach my phone

Without a connection positions wait in a queue. Run tbard sync, then reopen the Audible app. The log (see Privacy) says what happened; run with TBARD_LOG=debug for more detail.

Anything else: open an issue.

Inspiration

tbard is inspired by Libation and similar projects. It brings Libation's idea of a personal, DRM-free audiobook library to the terminal, together with a player and position sync.

Libationthe main inspiration: a desktop app that backs up your Audible library as DRM-free files.
audible-cliand the audible library, whose work documenting Audible's API made projects like this possible.
Toutuia terminal audiobook player that inspired tbard's player.
mpv · ffmpegthe playback and audio work.

tbard is an independent implementation and contains no code from these projects.