External and local copies of books and pdf

[JCSullivan]

I'm in a dilemma here.

I've been creating a library of my pdf and audio books (separately) using the drag-n-drop from my directory holding the files into Calibre (portable).

The thing is, as I went to do a backup I have come to the realisation that Calibre has grown to over 12Gb and now realise that a copy of the books has been created in the Calibre directory.

All I wanted was the details and covers of the books.

Can I keep the libraries intact if I delete the Calibre copy and WITHOUT creating a catalogue?

Thanks

[kiwidude]

On the right-click menu for Remove books, there are various options to remove the associated formats for a book entry. If you do that, you will be left with what is known as an "Empty book", which is a perfectly valid way to keep a catalog of books without having an associated ebook for them. You can search and catalog them, you obviously can't actually launch from calibre to read them though. People frequently use such entries for wishlist items, keeping track of paper books they own etc. You can manually add more empty books using ctrl+shift+E or the Add dropdown menu.

Do *not* however go into the calibre folders and delete books from there manually - use that Remove menu within the calibre applciation to do it so that calibre's database is kept in sync.

[JCSullivan]

THANKS KiwiDude, your fast response saved my bacon. I bow to you buddy.