How to buy and listen to audiobooks on Google Play

When you get audiobooks from Google Play, you can listen to the audiobook on your computer, mobile device, Google Home and Google Assistant.

How to buy and download audiobooks

Go to play.google.com.
At the top, click Books Audiobooks.
Find the book that you want and click its cover image.
- To purchase the audiobook: Click the price Buy.
- To listen to a sample: Click Play sample.

Tip: Users can also buy audiobooks through Play balance.

How to listen to audiobooks that you've downloaded

Go to play.google.com.
At the top right, click your profile icon.
Click Library and devices Books.
Use the 'Format' filter to filter for Audiobooks.

Tip: If you listen on one device, and then switch to another device, the audiobook plays where you left off, at the closest natural stopping point.

More that you can do with audiobooks on Google Play

Add and remove a bookmark

On your computer, go to your Play Books library.
Open an audiobook.
From the bottom of the audio player, click Bookmark .
- To delete a bookmark, go to the 'Bookmarks' tab. Click More Remove bookmark.

Export audiobook files

Go to play.google.com.
At the top right, click your profile icon.
Click Library and devices Books.
Use the 'Format' filter to filter for Audiobooks.
On the book that you want to download, click More Export.

Tip: Some audiobooks are not available for export. Open the book's details page, scroll to 'Additional information', and check under 'Export option'.

Download PDF for an audiobook

Some audiobooks come with additional materials such as visuals, charts, graphs, maps or other appendices.

Go to play.google.com.
At the top right, click your profile icon.
Choose Library and devices Books.
Find the audiobook in your library and open it.
Click More Download accompanying PDF.

Types of audiobooks

Abridged audiobooks

An abridged audiobook is a shorter version of an audiobook that has been edited for length. You’ll still understand the major plot points of the book, but minor details will be left out.

Abridged audiobooks are available as a separate item in the Play Store from the full length version of the audiobook. Double check which version of the audiobook you want to buy before you finalise your purchase.

Unabridged audiobooks

An unabridged audiobook contains the full literary work. These are the vast majority of the audiobooks in our catalogue.

AI-narrated audiobooks

AI-narrated audiobooks use text-to-speech technology to create audio from an eBook.

These audiobooks use a digital voice to read eBooks. You might encounter:

Mispronounced words
Pauses in places that don’t make sense
A mismatch between the tone or emotion of word pronunciations and the content

If you find an issue with your AI-narrated audiobook, contact us to share your feedback.