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Content Restrictions

Content Restrictions let admins control what books are visible to specific users based on metadata like categories, tags, moods, age ratings, and content ratings.


Content restrictions are configured per user in Settings > User Management. Expand a user’s card to find the Content Restrictions section.


TypeDescriptionExample values
CategoryFilter by book genre/categoryHorror, Romance, True Crime
TagFilter by book tagsviolence, explicit-language
MoodFilter by book moodsdark, disturbing
Age RatingFilter by numeric age rating0, 6, 10, 13, 16, 18, 21
Content RatingFilter by content rating labelEveryone, Teen, Mature, Adult, Explicit

The value dropdowns are populated dynamically from your actual library metadata, so only categories, tags, and moods that exist in your collection are available to select.


Each restriction operates in one of two modes:

Hides any book that matches the restricted value. For example, excluding the category “Horror” removes all horror books from the user’s view.

For age ratings in exclude mode, the system uses the minimum excluded age as a ceiling. Excluding age 13 and above means the user only sees books rated below 13.

Shows only books that match the allowed values. For example, allowing only the category “Children” means the user sees nothing else.

Both modes can be combined across different restriction types. A user can have exclude restrictions on categories and allow-only restrictions on content ratings at the same time.


Restrictions apply in two places:

  • Book listings are filtered before results are returned, so restricted books never appear in the book browser, shelves, magic shelves, or search results
  • Direct book access is checked when opening a specific book. If a restricted book is accessed directly (e.g., via URL), the server returns a 403 Forbidden response