Personal Project

ManhwaShelf — one shelf
for every manhwa,
across every site.

An iOS app I designed and built to fix how I actually read manhwa — scattered across a dozen scanlation sites, with nothing remembering where I left off. Save any series and your exact chapter from any site, jump straight back to the next one, and keep it all synced between the app and a companion browser extension. Live on the App Store.

View on App Store
45%
activation
23%
DAU/MAU
~$2–3
per install
Role
Designer · Engineer · PM
Timeline
2026 – present
Platform
iOS + browser extension
Scope
0→1 · Solo
ManhwaShelf library — 114 series tracked in one shelf ManhwaShelf latest updates — new chapters across every series you follow ManhwaShelf search — most saved series with ratings, across everyone's libraries

The reading is easy. Keeping track of it isn't.

Serious manhwa readers follow dozens of ongoing series at once — and those series are scattered across a dozen different scanlation sites, none of which talk to each other or remember where you are. The job readers are actually trying to get done is simple, and it has nothing to do with any single site:

"When a new chapter drops, help me remember which series I follow, where I left off, and where to pick back up — without tracking it all by hand."

With no tool built for that job, readers improvise. Some keep a spreadsheet of titles, sites, and last-read chapters and update it manually every session. Others lean on a graveyard of bookmarks and pinned tabs. Most just try to remember — and constantly lose series or waste time re-finding their place. It's a real, recurring job that every heavy reader hacks around in their own fragile way.

Save from anywhere, resume in one tap.

ManhwaShelf meets you where you already read. Capture a series from any site, and the app becomes the one surface you open to keep going.

01 · Save
Capture from any site
Save a series with the browser extension or the iOS share sheet. ManhwaShelf grabs the title, cover, and the chapter you're on — from whatever site you're reading on.
02 · Resume
Jump to the next chapter
Open a series and go straight to where you left off, or "Search Newest" to find the latest chapter — no scrolling the source site to find your place.
03 · Library
Shelf & favorites
Your whole collection in one grid, sorted by recently updated, with favorites pinned for the series you're actively binging.
04 · Discover
Ratings & summaries
Every series is enriched with a rating and a short summary, so deciding what to start next doesn't mean opening ten more tabs.
05 · Sync
Access anywhere
Sign in with Apple to keep your library in sync across the app and the browser extension, on every device you read on.

A lean, solo-run stack — app, extension, and backend.

ManhwaShelf is deliberately lightweight — a native app and extension over a serverless backend, wired so one person can build, ship, and keep it running.

SwiftUI iOS appThe native reading shelf — library, progress tracking, ratings, and the share-sheet save flow, built entirely in SwiftUI.
Browser extensionA companion capture surface that grabs the series, cover, and current chapter from whatever scanlation site you're reading on.
Cloudflare Workers + D1The serverless backend and SQLite database — one edge API powering sync, the shared library, and the feed across app and extension.
Sign in with AppleFrictionless auth that keeps a user's library in sync across every device and both surfaces, with anonymous-to-Apple account upgrades.
Metadata enrichmentA scheduled job scrapes and normalizes ratings and summaries from external sources, writing straight to the database the app reads live.
Push notificationsNew-chapter alerts driven off the feed, so readers get pulled back the moment a series they follow updates.