Works out of copyright, read end to end and summarised in our own words. Every jacket here is set by us, in the colour the app gives that book — not one of them is a publisher’s cover borrowed for a landing page.
Name one idea from the last book you finished.
Take your time.
Most people cannot, and it is not a failure of attention or intelligence. You read it once, at the pace of a page, and then nothing ever asked you about it again.
That is the part Mindroll fixes. Not how much you read — what survives the week.
How it works
Three things, and nothing else
The whole product is one loop. It is short on purpose: a session you can finish is a session you come back to.
01
Five ideas, picked for you
Tell it what you want to get better at and how long you have. The day’s five are chosen from 88 sources across 14 topics — arguments worth having, not headlines.
02
It ends
A session has a last page. Five ideas, about five minutes, then you are done and the app says so. There is no feed underneath it and nothing loads when you reach the bottom.
03
The ones you keep come back
Save an idea and it returns after a day, then three, then seven, then sixteen, then thirty-five. Two answers — you remember it, or you don’t. After the last one it stops asking, because you have it.
Anatomy of a card
This is one idea
Not a chapter, not a summary of a summary. A claim, the reasoning that makes it true, and something to do about it before tomorrow — with the source it came from named underneath. These are five real cards from the app.
The claim, in one line
The obstacle is information
Why it holds — the argument, kept intact
A blocked path tells you something about the terrain. Aurelius treats interference not as an interruption of the work but as the material the work is now made of. This is less inspirational than it sounds: it is a practical instruction to stop waiting for conditions to improve before you act.
Something to try before tomorrow
Ask of the current obstacle: what does this let me practise that a clear road would not?
Where it came from, always named
BookMeditationsMarcus Aurelius
The claim, in one line
The cost of a thing is the life you exchange for it
Why it holds — the argument, kept intact
Thoreau's most durable idea is an accounting one: price the purchase in hours of your life rather than currency. A more expensive flat is not more money, it is more years at a job you would otherwise leave.
Something to try before tomorrow
Before the next significant purchase, divide the price by your hourly take-home pay and sit with that number.
Where it came from, always named
BookWaldenHenry David Thoreau
The claim, in one line
You lose the ability to tell how impaired you are
Why it holds — the argument, kept intact
The consistent finding in restricted-sleep studies is not just that performance drops. It is that self-rated alertness stops dropping with it. People plateau at "a bit tired" while their measured performance keeps sliding. The instrument you would use to check on yourself is the instrument that breaks first.
Something to try before tomorrow
Do not use how you feel to decide whether you are fit for something that matters. Use how much you slept.
Where it came from, always named
TalkWhat Sleep Debt Actually DoesMira Adeyemi
The claim, in one line
Pay yourself first, before anyone else
Why it holds — the argument, kept intact
A tenth of everything earned is kept before any obligation is met. The order is the whole idea: saving what remains after spending produces nothing, because spending expands to fill whatever it is given. Saving first makes the rest the variable.
Something to try before tomorrow
Move the transfer to the day you are paid, not the day before the next one.
Where it came from, always named
BookThe Richest Man in BabylonGeorge S. Clason
The claim, in one line
The dose-response curve is steepest at the very bottom
Why it holds — the argument, kept intact
The largest gains in mortality risk appear between doing almost nothing and doing a little. Going from sedentary to a short daily walk moves the number more than going from moderately active to very active. This is the least motivating finding in the field and the best supported.
Something to try before tomorrow
If you do nothing, the useful target is not a programme. It is ten minutes, most days.
Where it came from, always named
Research paperThe Exercise Findings That Held UpDaniel Okonkwo
1 / 5
Try it. This is the control that puts an idea into review.
It comes back on these days, and stops once you have it:
Tomorrow
Day 3
Day 7
Day 16
Day 35
Learned
Forget one and it goes back to the start.
Features
What you get
Eight things the app does. No others, and none of them a roadmap item.
A feed built from your answers
Topics, a goal, a daily length, and the books you already meant to read. Not from what keeps you scrolling.
The argument, not the headline
Every card gives you the claim, why it holds, and something to try. Open “Go deeper” when one lands.
Spaced review
Only what you save enters review, and a session is capped so it always ends. Seven a day, maximum.
Listen to any of it
Every idea narrated, with background playback and lock-screen controls. Pro.
Download for offline
Keep ideas and audio on the phone for a flight or a tunnel. Pro.
Scan a book you own
Point the camera at a cover or a barcode and Mindroll finds its ideas. The barcode is read on your device and no photograph is uploaded.
A library that is yours
Save ideas, sort them into collections, and keep the notes and reflections you wrote against them.
Analytics off unless you say otherwise
Usage analytics are off by default and stay off until you turn them on. Card details never reach us: Apple handles payment.
What’s inside
Real sources, named on the page
Every idea says where it came from, who owns it and when it was last checked. There is no anonymous “distilled wisdom” here, because an idea you cannot trace is an idea you cannot check.
39 books18 articles12 podcasts7 talks6 essays6 research papers
88
sources
616
ideas
14
topics
Where it comes from
Mindroll publishes two kinds of thing, and only two. Works out of copyright — Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Montaigne, Darwin, Mill and others — read and summarised in our own words. And original editorial written for this app. Nothing is lifted from another product’s summaries, and every source carries its licence.
Original series
Written here. Drawn here.
The catalogue is public-domain works read properly, and original series made for this app. These are the second kind, with cover art drawn for each one.
Deliberate DifficultyThe Practice Interviews, episode fourThe Conversation Nobody HasThe Practice Interviews, episode fifteenNotes On Changing Your MindWhat Changed My Mind, episode eightSeven Minutes With The DoctorThe Practice Interviews, episode fourteenSleep And The Next DaySeven Minutes With The Doctor, episode elevenSmall Talk Is Not SmallThe Practice Interviews, episode sevenThe Argument You Keep HavingThe Practice Interviews, episode nineteenThe Money ConversationThe Practice Interviews, episode twenty-oneThe People You Stop CallingThe Practice Interviews, episode sixteenThe Quiet HoursThe Practice Interviews, episode nineWhat Changed My MindThe Practice Interviews, episode twelveWhat The Room RewardsThe Practice Interviews, episode twenty-three
Deliberate DifficultyThe Practice Interviews, episode fourThe Conversation Nobody HasThe Practice Interviews, episode fifteenNotes On Changing Your MindWhat Changed My Mind, episode eightSeven Minutes With The DoctorThe Practice Interviews, episode fourteenSleep And The Next DaySeven Minutes With The Doctor, episode elevenSmall Talk Is Not SmallThe Practice Interviews, episode sevenThe Argument You Keep HavingThe Practice Interviews, episode nineteenThe Money ConversationThe Practice Interviews, episode twenty-oneThe People You Stop CallingThe Practice Interviews, episode sixteenThe Quiet HoursThe Practice Interviews, episode nineWhat Changed My MindThe Practice Interviews, episode twelveWhat The Room RewardsThe Practice Interviews, episode twenty-three
Topics
Fourteen topics, each with real depth
Chosen in onboarding and adjustable any time. Deliberately few: a topic with two items in it is worse than no topic at all.
Clear thinking
Reasoning well, spotting your own errors, and deciding under uncertainty.
30 sources
Psychology
How people actually think, feel and decide — including you.
32 sources
Habits
Building behaviour that survives a bad week.
21 sources
Productivity
Doing the work that matters without burning out.
13 sources
Attention
Protecting the scarcest resource you have.
13 sources
Money
Earning, saving and thinking clearly about risk.
15 sources
Career
Skill, leverage, and choosing what to work on.
19 sources
Leadership
Getting a group of people somewhere none of them would reach alone.
19 sources
Communication
Being understood, and understanding other people accurately.
24 sources
Relationships
The people part: trust, conflict, repair.
14 sources
Health
Sleep, movement and the unglamorous basics that actually work.
11 sources
Science
How we find things out, and how often we get it wrong.
11 sources
History
What has already been tried, and how it went.
19 sources
Philosophy
Old questions that refuse to go away, and why they still matter.
18 sources
Not a summary app
The difference is small to describe and it is the entire product.
What the category sells
Thousands of titles, and a count that goes up every quarter.
A book compressed into fifteen minutes, read once.
Finished-books-this-year as the number on your profile.
A feed that continues for as long as you keep looking at it.
What Mindroll does
88 sources, each one read properly and named on the page.
One idea at a time, with its argument intact and something to try.
Recalled — not read — as the number that counts.
Five ideas, then a last page. Come back tomorrow.
The app
Four screens, and the whole of it.
TodayYour five, ready. The ring shows how far through them you are.
The readerOne idea, its argument, and something to try before tomorrow.
One card, end to endThe whole format on a single screen, its source named underneath.
ExploreBooks, articles, podcasts, video, essays and research, by topic.
Plans
The free plan is not a demo. You can read the whole catalogue on it, for as long as you like.
Free
No card, no trial to forget
Five personalised ideas a day
The whole catalogue to read
Spaced review on what you save
Up to 50 saved ideas and 3 collections
30 days of reading history
Mindroll Pro3 days free
Two ways to pay. Cancel any time.
Subscribe here and it works in the app — the same account, no App Store needed.
AnnualBest value
£89.99a year
3 days free, then billed yearly. £1.73 a week.
Weekly
£19.99a week
Billed weekly.
Checkout opens with the app. Until then, these are the prices.
Everything in Free, plus:
Every idea narrated, with background playback
Downloads for offline
Unlimited saves and collections
History with no cut-off
Progress insights — what you actually retain
No sponsored cards
Billed by Apple. Cancel any time from your Apple account — Mindroll cannot bill you after you do, and a cancelled subscription runs to the end of the period you paid for. Terms · Privacy
Questions
Is this a book summary app?
No, and the distinction matters. A summary compresses a book so you can say you have read it. Mindroll takes one idea at a time, keeps the argument that makes it true, and then asks you about it again days later. You will finish fewer books here and remember considerably more of them.
Does this replace reading the book?
It is not meant to. Half of what it is good for is telling you which book is worth your next month — you read one idea from it before committing to four hundred pages. Every source is named, so going to the original is always one tap away.
What is actually in it?
88 sources — 39 of them books, the rest articles, podcasts, talks, essays and research — broken into 616 ideas across 14 topics. All of it is either out of copyright and summarised in our own words, or written for this app. Every item carries its licence and the date it was last checked.
How does the review actually work?
Only ideas you save enter review, because saving is you saying that one mattered. A saved idea comes back after one day, then three, then seven, then sixteen, then thirty-five. You answer one of two things: you remember it, or remind me. Forgetting sends it back to the start, and a review session is capped at seven so it always ends.
Will it work without a signal?
Reading works offline once the day has loaded. Downloading ideas and audio to keep permanently on the device is part of Pro.
What do you collect about me?
What the app needs to give you a personalised plan and remember your progress: your onboarding answers, what you read and save, and your subscription status. Usage analytics are off until you turn them on. We never see your card details, we do not sell anything about you, and the whole of it is set out in the privacy policy.
How do I cancel?
In your Apple account settings, in two taps, exactly like every other App Store subscription. We are not involved and cannot be a reason it fails. You keep Pro until the period you have paid for runs out.
Five minutes, and something left over.
Swap one scroll for one idea that is still there on Thursday.
