Copying device library to Micro SD card

[RobertJSawyer]

I've been using a Kobo Glo for a while now and today added a 16GB Micro SD card. Is there a way to move my existing Kobo library from the device's main memory to the card without manually deleting and reinstalling each book?

Also, for kepubs I buy directly on the device from the Kobo bookstore, is there a way to direct them to install on the card instead of in main memory?

I'd like to have the whole library on the card so that I can just swap the card into another device if I upgrade my hardware, and so that the library will survive a factory reset. I can't find anything in the Kobo documentation about this.

Thanks!

Rob

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

I've been using a Kobo Glo for a while now and today added a 16GB Micro SD card. Is there a way to move my existing Kobo library from the device's main memory to the card without manually deleting and reinstalling each book?

What I did was to add the books from the internal storage to my Calibre library, delete the books from the internal memory and then restore them to the external card. After all this was completed, I compacted the database. DavidFor's Kobo Utilities plugin for Calibre among it's many other functions, will verify, compact and backup the ereader's database.

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Also, for kepubs I buy directly on the device from the Kobo bookstore, is there a way to direct them to install on the card instead of in main memory?

I'd like to have the whole library on the card so that I can just swap the card into another device if I upgrade my hardware, and so that the library will survive a factory reset. I can't find anything in the Kobo documentation about this.

As far as I know, the only time .kepubs purchased from Kobo will be stored on the uSD card is when you run out of space on the internal card. However, any .kepubs from Kobo would be automatically resynchronized after a factory reset. If you add a new device with the same Kobo account, your books will be synchronized to that device as well.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What I did was to add the books from the internal storage to my Calibre library, delete the books from the internal memory and then restore them to the external card. After all this was completed, I compacted the database. DavidFor's Kobo Utilities plugin for Calibre among it's many other functions, will verify, compact and backup the ereader's database.



As far as I know, the only time .kepubs purchased from Kobo will be stored on the uSD card is when you run out of space on the internal card. However, any .kepubs from Kobo would be automatically resynchronized after a factory reset. If you add a new device with the same Kobo account, your books will be synchronized to that device as well.

Do you know, if I click the "Download" button on Kobo and pull down the ACSM file, then double click it and open it in Adobe Digital Editions and send it to the Kobo from there, will it be the exact same version of the book I get if I download directly to my Kobo Reader over Wi-Fi?

[robko]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Do you know, if I click the "Download" button on Kobo and pull down the ACSM file, then double click it and open it in Adobe Digital Editions and send it to the Kobo from there, will it be the exact same version of the book I get if I download directly to my Kobo Reader over Wi-Fi?

Yes, HOWEVER formatting/display is different between kepubs that you get over wifi and regular epubs you'll get with the acsm link. You can try both to see which you prefer.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by robko

Yes, HOWEVER formatting/display is different between kepubs that you get over wifi and regular epubs you'll get with the acsm link. You can try both to see which you prefer.

Thanks. That confirms it. I had tried to sideload from ADE and the book was poorly formatted so I deleted it and downloaded it again over Wi-Fi and the same book was beautiful.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Do you know, if I click the "Download" button on Kobo and pull down the ACSM file, then double click it and open it in Adobe Digital Editions and send it to the Kobo from there, will it be the exact same version of the book I get if I download directly to my Kobo Reader over Wi-Fi?

Well, yes and no. The file you download using the .acsm file is an Adobe epub. The file you directly download is a Kobo kepub. The Kobo epubs use a double file extension of .kepub.epub to distinguish them from .epub files. The text inside the book is very likely the same but the renderer used to display kepubs is the ACCESS NetFront BookReader while the renderer used for .epubs is Adobe's Reader Mobile SDK. There are differences in how those two will display an ebook. I've seen epubs where I was happier with the formatting and kepubs where I was happier with the formatting.

Regards,
David

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

I've been using a Kobo Glo for a while now and today added a 16GB Micro SD card. Is there a way to move my existing Kobo library from the device's main memory to the card without manually deleting and reinstalling each book?

Also, for kepubs I buy directly on the device from the Kobo bookstore, is there a way to direct them to install on the card instead of in main memory?

I'd like to have the whole library on the card so that I can just swap the card into another device if I upgrade my hardware, and so that the library will survive a factory reset. I can't find anything in the Kobo documentation about this.

As the other David said, don't worry about kepubs. They will be downloaded automatically to the new Kobo device. And if you force them to the SD card by filling the main memory, they won't be used when you move the card. Plus, only Kobo devices and apps can read them

And as well as using the Kobo Utilities plugin in calibre to manage the database, you can also use it to store and restore the reading status of sideloaded books. If the books are in the calibre library, you can store the reading status, delete them from the main memory, send them to the SD card and disconnect. Let the device process the books and connect again. Then you can restore the reading status of the books.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

I've been using a Kobo Glo for a while now and today added a 16GB Micro SD card. Is there a way to move my existing Kobo library from the device's main memory to the card without manually deleting and reinstalling each book?

I have the same hardware and will gladly share my techniques, which don't involve any specialized software.

Unfortunately, as has already been noted, you can't get the device to automatically download new purchases to the card. I wish there were, but it's just not an option.

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

I'd like to have the whole library on the card so that I can just swap the card into another device if I upgrade my hardware, and so that the library will survive a factory reset. I can't find anything in the Kobo documentation about this.

First and foremost, realize that you're looking at three groups of ebooks in your device's library:

1. Books you've bought from the Kobo store and have downloaded to the device, typically through the sync mechanism (directly via wi-fi or indirectly via the desktop app and a USB connection) or the device/store interface.

2. DRM-protected books that you've sideloaded. These are a special headache, as the device and the computer that downloaded those books both have to be authorized with the same Adobe ID. (That's the only way the decryption will work properly.)

3. Unprotected books that you've "sideloaded" onto the device, for which DRM is not a concern.

At this point, there are two paths: The Approved Path and The Illegal Path. The latter boils down to stripping the DRM from all of your purchases, thus eliminating the middle category (and, if you're so inclined, the first as well) altogether. That involves using your computer to download your purchased files, DRM-stripping software on that computer to unlock them, the Kobo desktop (or iOS/Android) app to "delete" them from your cloud*, and then treating everything as one big library of unprotected ebooks that you can manipulate at will. What remains below is the former option.

* This deletion removes them from "Books I'm Reading" (the auto-download list) but not "Books I've Purchased" (the complete list). Note that using "delete" on the Kobo website is NOT the same thing; that takes the books off of BOTH lists, which you do NOT want to do.

Step one, if all your books are either in the Kobo cloud ("Reading") or on your computer, is just to factory-reset your device and blow away your old database. This will destroy any shelving data for sideloaded books (2 and 3 above), but that's going to happen anyway unless you use dedicated software like Calibre; that's part of the tradeoff here. Once you set up your Kobo and Adobe authorizations and your wi-fi network, it's a question of reloading the books.

The first category is easy to deal with - just sync with the Kobo servers. If the initial mass download is interrupted, the "missing" books will show up as "archived" with an arrow-in-circle icon on their covers, giving you the option to download them one at a time. (There's also a mass download option under the wrench icon in Library view.) Anyway, you don't have to worry about moving these; you'll get them from the cloud, complete with shelving info.

The second category is almost as easy. Assuming all of your DRM-locked books are all in your Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) library, just connect your reader, let ADE detect it, and transfer them to the new reader through ADE. You may also be able to just copy the encrypted books onto the card, relying on the common Adobe key (the device's has to match the computer) to handle the decryption...but that means finding your ADE library folder so you can get at the files directly. Not hard, just a minor hassle. Still, if ADE won't let you copy to the card, it's worth the trouble. On Win7, I believe ADE has its own folder inside Documents.

The third category is profoundly easy, since there's no automated anything. Odds are that you downloaded the unprotected files with your computer and kept them on your hard drive anyway; all you have to do now is copy them to the card. Windows Explorer does that just fine. Just put the card in the reader, connect it to the computer, and two drive letters will appear. One is the card, the other the reader. Drag, drop, eject, and enjoy.

That's the basic "how." See my next message for tips and tricks...

[Rev. Bob]

As promised, tips and tricks for managing libraries of unprotected books...

(Note: Personally speaking, I have no ethical problem with removing DRM for strictly personal use. In fact, doing so makes things much simpler, because you don't have to deal with maintaining the DRM connection across multiple devices; they become unprotected books that you can use the following tips on. It also lets you do things like edit titles, such as to change "The Two Towers" to "LOTR 2: The Two Towers" to make series order more obvious. However, this practice is illegal, therefore I can neither endorse the practice nor mention software that might facilitate it.)

The great thing about EPUBs - which are what Kobos use - is that they're basically web pages in a ZIP file, just with a few extra files and a new extension. This means that, if you dislike something about an EPUB, it's probably not hard to change it. I mentioned changing titles; that's as simple as editing the *.opf file in the archive, which is a pretty straightforward XML file that you can edit as text. (I use WinRAR to open the book as an archive, and I have it set up to use Notepad++ to edit the internal files when I double-click them.)

Even if you don't do any internal tinkering, you can still organize your books reasonably well. I keep a "copied to X" folder on my hard drive for every distinct destination, devices and cards alike. This basic step creates a backup; in essence, I "check the book out" of the library by moving it to the "copied to X" folder, and then I "return" it by deleting it from the device and moving it from the "copied to X" folder back into the main library. The point is that anything not on the hard drive is deemed ephemeral and disposable. If I lose my reader, it's only a financial hassle to replace the hardware. Restoring the books is just a question of recopying the "copied to X" folders.

I buy a lot of series books, and I name them with a mnemonic for the series, the number of this volume, and the main title of the book. Hence, "LOTR2 - The Two Towers.epub" condenses a lot of information into a little space. I then file those books inside their own folder, which may go into an author folder. That, in turn, goes into a genre folder. Thus:

(prefix)\Fantasy\Tolkien\Lord of the Rings\LOTR2 - The Two Towers.epub

For standalone books, I generally put the author's name where the series code would go:

(prefix)\SF\Robert J Sawyer\Calculating God.epub

That hierarchy works for me, but use whatever works for you. Who cares if your system works for anyone else, right?

Anyway, that same basic structure carries over into all of the "copied to" folders (and thus those destinations), in addition to the core "Finished" and "Unread" folders. When I buy an unprotected book, I download it to the computer into a "Pending" folder, process it as desired, connect either the reader or the card, copy the processed book(s) to their proper places there, then move them to their proper "copied to" folder.

The big advantage of this approach is that it's easy to find a given book. It's also easy to back up the whole library. All I have to do is make a new folder ("Ebooks 7-18-2013"), copy Copied to Kobo\*.* into it, then repeat the process with every other library segment. Since the hierarchies are all the same, they'll all merge together into one complete backup. Even easier, I could maintain the separation and just back up the master folder (which contains all the segments) as a unit.

Obviously, DRM throws a big ol' monkey wrench into that whole scheme. About the best I can do there is copy all the DRM'd books into a clearly-labeled "Adobe DRM" folder (since that's the only form I use) and either (a) make a cheat sheet pairing the arcane names of those books with their actual names or (b) hope I can decipher them later. Neither option is really good, which leads me to prefer books without DRM. At least I do know that if I move books from the actual ADE folder into that backup folder, that gets them out of the way there - and I can copy them back later if I need to. Yeah, I could apply the detailed hierarchy to those files, but how useful is that really going to be?