Learn how to download books from Google Books, including both the Google search engine and the Google Play Books store.
Google offers a vast repository of ebooks via Google Books. There's the Google Books search engine and Google Play Books store. Both services let you save copies of books to read them offline, making downloading books pretty easy. All you need to do is follow these steps.
Firstly, let's look at how to download a book from Google Books for free.
The Google Books search engine has been around since 2004. It lets you search more than 30 million titles, each of which Google has scanned and converted into text using OCR. Several magazines are also included.
When you click on a search result, you'll see the scanned pages, information about the book (such as author, publication date, and blurb), and links to buy the title in either ebook or print form.
You can also add your own review and save the book to your library.
No. Each title on Google Books is assigned one of four access levels. They are:
Google Books is a great place to download unique free books if you know how to use it. But, how do you download books from Google Books that are in the Full View category?
Unless you know which out-of-print title you want, we'd recommend using the Google Books Advanced Search feature. It lets you enter several specific parameters, one of which is the category of the book. Obviously, you need to choose Full View.
You can also enter keywords, preferred publishers, authors, ISBNs, ISSNs, and titles. When you're ready, hit the Google Search button in the upper right-hand corner.
From the list of results, click on the title of the book you're looking for. The book's information page will load. You can find the download link in the upper left-hand corner. It is labeled as EBOOK—FREE.
By hovering over the link, you can see which devices you can read the book on and which additional features (such as flow reading and scanned pages) the book supports.
When you click on the link, you'll receive an additional prompt to confirm your decision. Select Read, and the book will become available in the My Books section of the Google Play Store. To download it, click on the three dots on the listing and select Download PDF or Download EPUB (depending on availability).
Google Play Books is Google's ebook store, and it's the second-largest ebook shop on the web behind Amazon. It offers more than six million titles for purchase, and you can also use the platform to buy audiobooks and rent textbooks.
Google Play Books lets you download any book you own so you can read it offline. The options available to you will vary depending on whether you bought the book or if it was free.
If you have free ebooks in your library (either because you saved them from Google Books using the previous method or took advantage of a free ebook offer on the store), you can download a PDF or EPUB version of the file.
However, for paid books, you can only download a copy onto your device for reading when offline. You will not be able to access the PDF or EPUB file.
To download the books, you will either need the Google Play Books smartphone app (for mobile devices) or the Chrome browser and the Play Books extension from the Chrome Web Store (for desktops).
To download a book onto your mobile device, follow the instructions below:
The download process will start automatically. When it's finished, you will see a tick appear on the book's thumbnail.
To see which books you have already downloaded from Google Play, go to Menu > Downloaded Only.
Download: Google Play Books for Android | iOS (Free)
If you'd prefer to download a book on your desktop machine instead, use these instructions:
If you want to remove the book in the future, just untick the same checkbox.
Note that, at the time of this writing, the Google Play Books app on Chrome has not been updated for a few years, but it still works. We cannot promise how long this will last.
Download: Google Chrome (Free)
Download: Google Play Books for Google Chrome (Free)
So, there you have it; that is how to download books from Google for free. The methods described in this article will help you ensure you always have plenty of reading material to hand, even if you're going to be offline for an extended time.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to download free books, so you'll always have something new to read. Project Gutenberg is one of the most well-known repos of free books. Check it out if you have time.
Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. You can also find him roaming the show floor at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hi if you’re going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.
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