Show only books without Metadata in Calibre for any format

[mom34spartan]

I am sorry if this has been asked before, or if there is a plugin that can be used. I am not real "savy" with Calibre but absolutely love the program. Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Adoby]

It is almost impossible to add a book to calibre without also adding at least some metadata. To find a book that lack some form of metadata, just click on the header for that field in the table view. Then all the books will be sorted on that field and you should be able to very easily find books without metadata.

The books in the GUI for calibre are displayed and sorted using only metadata (and covers), so any blank values means that metadata is missing.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by mom34spartan

I am sorry if this has been asked before, or if there is a plugin that can be used. I am not real "savy" with Calibre but absolutely love the program. Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Metadata once it hits Calibre is not a Singular

Everything in now by field.
Clicking a column header should group 'like' values together.

Typical searches for unassigned fields:
publisher: false
comments: false

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by mom34spartan

I am sorry if this has been asked before, or if there is a plugin that can be used. I am not real "savy" with Calibre but absolutely love the program. Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated. Thank you.

The Quality Check plugin has options for various metadata checks - including missing publisher, rating, etc, etc... and missing formats.

BR

[MishoCana]

Originally Posted by theducks

Metadata once it hits Calibre is not a Singular

Everything in now by field.
Clicking a column header should group 'like' values together.

Typical searches for unassigned fields:
publisher: false
comments: false

Comment:false is a smart way to search. thank you for sharing

[MishoCana]

I found Quality Check good with epub, but not PDF books.

[theducks]

Quality Check is mostly about what is in Calibre (what you see).
Think of Calibre as a super-card-catlog

Depending on how it (the Calibre entries) got there, it may not represent the books internals.
Calibre has 2 ways to get metadata during ADD BOOKS: Read internals (as good or bad, as they are) or from the file name (and template used). Only 1 method can be used during the current operation. Preferences: Adding Books: Read Metadata...

And some formats do not support much internally. So you might not be able to get or force embed later If you use the MDE (metadata Editor):
Select a format on the Right (may only be one): there are 2 Icons handy for GETing existing metadata from THAT format : (both are to the Left of the formats box) The top one extracts the cover IF IT WAS MARKED inside. The bottom reads the internal metadata (same as Add Books would have done if the file name mode was not used. This WILL overwrite any MDE changes. Be prepared to CANCEL (abort) that MDE session

[enuddleyarbl]

Originally Posted by theducks

Metadata once it hits Calibre is not a Singular

Everything in now by field.
Clicking a column header should group 'like' values together.

Typical searches for unassigned fields:
publisher: false
comments: false

Thanks for pointing out the field value of "false". Just yesterday, I was trying to filter for empty values in one of my custom columns and couldn't figure it out. Using "false" solved that.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by theducks

Typical searches for unassigned fields:
publisher: false
comments: false

Note that title:false and author:false won't work as they default to Unknown.