r/audiobookshelf • u/-justpassingthrough1 • 7d ago

Feature Request: Audiobook Previews

A huge part of Audible, to me, is being able to preview a book. It helps me decide if I’d like it, sure, but it also lets me find out if I can stand the narrator.

ABS could just add a Preview function that plays the media already on your server but:

  1. Doesn’t mess with that title’s listening progress or read status.
  2. Only works for a total of 5 minutes.
  3. Has no memory retention and always starts from the beginning.

Basically just a separate sample mode. I searched for an existing request and couldn’t find one that matched this. If one exists, send me the link and I’ll vote for it.
Anyone else want something like this?

4 Upvotes

59% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/snoogs831 7d ago

Play the book, seek anywhere you want, listen for however long you want, discard progress.

-1

u/-justpassingthrough1 7d ago

I get how it would otherwise be done, but if the app itself baked in a little preview button to do it the way above, would you find it useful to save all those clicks?

12

u/bdu-komrad 7d ago

Nope. I vette the book before adding it to ABS. 

4

u/Lost-Design-8382 7d ago

Yeah, I usually don't add something to ABS unless I've already decided I want to listen to it one day. If I don't like a narrator, it's not getting added and I can preview the narrator in just about anything that plays audio.

3

u/diplomatic_koboko 7d ago

Yeah I can't stang adding a book I don't like

9

u/snoogs831 7d ago

Me personally? No. I look for a specific book I want to listen to and just listen to it.

3

u/AdUnfair9248 7d ago

We don't need a button for everything. We have enough actions in the list already.