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mrgreeneyes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
823
38
Gatineau,Canada
Are you looking for a book management app? Check out Calibre. If you're just looking to back them up in a folder... create a books folder and sync to iCloud?
I am using the Apple Books app to sync books to my iPad and iPhone. but I would like a way to back them up offline, to a folder on a external drive. I just don't know how to get them out of the app.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,741
2,958
Do you see them in

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

?
 
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mrgreeneyes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
823
38
Gatineau,Canada
Do you see them in

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

?


this is all I see, it can't be possible in the books app, I see hundreds of books, and I can open them.

1607104722702.png


1607104804494.png
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,741
2,958
it can't be possible in the books app, I see hundreds of books, and I can open them.

I'm wondering if only the downloaded books are there. If you select a book which hasn't been downloaded and download it, does it show in the folder?
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,028
but where are they located? I just want to see where on my Mac they are placed.
I just searched in Finder for EPUB and most of my books are in:

1607284211211.png

iCloud Drive --> Books --- but this folder is not visible in finder.

Other books are located here:

1607284134635.png


<shrug>

I think a lot of these books are heavily infested with DRM thus moving them from service to service is not easy (like Kindle to iBooks, etc.). Removing the DRM takes a lot of work - especially Kindle. I haven't tried with iBooks but ... I use iBooks as my primary library so I'm happy with everything there at the moment.


I spent about a month moving my Kindle library (purchased only) to my iBooks library. It was ... not easy.
 

mrgreeneyes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
823
38
Gatineau,Canada
I just searched in Finder for EPUB and most of my books are in:

View attachment 1688047
iCloud Drive --> Books --- but this folder is not visible in finder.

Other books are located here:

View attachment 1688046

<shrug>

I think a lot of these books are heavily infested with DRM thus moving them from service to service is not easy (like Kindle to iBooks, etc.). Removing the DRM takes a lot of work - especially Kindle. I haven't tried with iBooks but ... I use iBooks as my primary library so I'm happy with everything there at the moment.


I spent about a month moving my Kindle library (purchased only) to my iBooks library. It was ... not easy.
I did some google searching, took me a few websites, but I found the solution

Find books ( in terminal )


open ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud\~com\~apple\~iBooks/Documents/
 
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BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,028
I did some google searching, took me a few websites, but I found the solution

Find books ( in terminal )


open ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud\~com\~apple\~iBooks/Documents/
Well look at that! Thank you! That's awesome! :)

That has all my books in one place!
 

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
5,765
6,739
Seattle
you probably should consider an actual backup plan for all of your files - just in case.
Look at either a local Time Machine backup to an external drive or try something online like Backblaze.
 
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Partron22

macrumors 68030
Apr 13, 2011
2,655
808
Yes
iBooks has the lovely behavior of taking all your nicely named book files and replacing the name with a non human readable code. I keep all my properly named book files in a Books2 folder, where iBooks can't find them. If I want to read one, I'll Copy the file over to where iBooks can see it.
Once the books have their name taken away and given a nu,ber, it becomes a difficult task to find them by name or rename them.
 
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