Transferring Library from Another Computer

[Marcy]

Is there a way to transfer my calibre library from my old computer to my new computer, and still keep the dates books were added originally?

I was able to transfer everything easily but all the books now have today's date. I've been categorizing my library slowly and have gone through the library by date added. Now I don't know which books I've done and which I haven't.

-Marcy

[itimpi]

How did you transfer the library?

If you simply used an OS level facility to copy the whole Calibre library folder and all its contents, and then on the new computer loaded Calibre and switched to that library then all metadata should have been unchanged.

If you copied books using the Calibre facility for copying libraries then the metadata WOULD get changed with books being flagged with the date of the copy.

[kovidgoyal]

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....ter-to-another

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Is there a way to transfer my calibre library from my old computer to my new computer, and still keep the dates books were added originally?

I was able to transfer everything easily but all the books now have today's date. I've been categorizing my library slowly and have gone through the library by date added. Now I don't know which books I've done and which I haven't.

-Marcy

Hi Marcy
Didn't test this, but ..
What if you create a zip/rar/other file containing your old library ?
When un-zipping/rarring/etc. this file on new computer, I would expect the original date stamps of files being present.
Just an idea !
Hope it works,
Per

[PeterT]

One option if you are on Windows Vista or above on the computer would be RoboCopy.

robocopy /e /dcopy:t   "location of old library" "location of new library"

The switches mean

/E : Copy Subfolders, including Empty Subfolders.
/DCOPY:T : Copy Directory Timestamps.

[KariK]

I am new to calibre (downloaded this weekend) and have a similar problem.

I have been a Baen Webscriptions subscriber for many years. When I started, I reviewed the available readers and settled into the Microsoft Reader. I have not looked much into it since then, but have still no complaints about the Reader or its Library function.

I recently got an iPad so am looking for ways to read my books using it. I reviewed some readers and like the iBook reader best (personal preference). I downloaded some books from Baen in ePUB format and think the iBook reader is satisfactory for them.

I am now trying to get my existing library imported into calibre. My books are in .lit format and are all in a single directory. I was able to import it into calibre and was then able to convert some books into the ePUB format easily enough. That is all fine.

The Microsoft Reader can sort the library also by Date Acquired. I use that quite a bit. I think the equivalent is the Date column in calibre. But on my imported books the Date column shows today's date. I looked at the source a bit, and it looks like the Date column is only a timestamp taken during the import.

What I would like is to be able to modify the Date column in a batch mode from a directory listing of my old books so the Date column would show the date I originally acquired the book, not when it was imported into calibre. Does anyone know how I could do that? I am new to all this and am currently thinking of either using the calibredb interface or writing a recipe. Any opinions would be welcome.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by KariK

I am new to calibre (downloaded this weekend) and have a similar problem.

I have been a Baen Webscriptions subscriber for many years. When I started, I reviewed the available readers and settled into the Microsoft Reader. I have not looked much into it since then, but have still no complaints about the Reader or its Library function.

I recently got an iPad so am looking for ways to read my books using it. I reviewed some readers and like the iBook reader best (personal preference). I downloaded some books from Baen in ePUB format and think the iBook reader is satisfactory for them.

I am now trying to get my existing library imported into calibre. My books are in .lit format and are all in a single directory. I was able to import it into calibre and was then able to convert some books into the ePUB format easily enough. That is all fine.

The Microsoft Reader can sort the library also by Date Acquired. I use that quite a bit. I think the equivalent is the Date column in calibre. But on my imported books the Date column shows today's date. I looked at the source a bit, and it looks like the Date column is only a timestamp taken during the import.

What I would like is to be able to modify the Date column in a batch mode from a directory listing of my old books so the Date column would show the date I originally acquired the book, not when it was imported into calibre. Does anyone know how I could do that? I am new to all this and am currently thinking of either using the calibredb interface or writing a recipe. Any opinions would be welcome.

If you bought your webscriptions, you can download any format you need, anytime.

Go to "My Books" in Categories on the Left side bar.
Just another thing to love about Baen

[KariK]

Originally Posted by theducks

If you bought your webscriptions, you can download any format you need, anytime.

Go to "My Books" in Categories on the Left side bar.
Just another thing to love about Baen

I did buy them, and am aware of that functionality, but if I did so, would I still not get the Date field to be today's date? Also, I think I would have to do them one at a time, which would be very time consuming. I also suspect that Baen uses calibre to convert books into the ePUB format, at least the books I converted using calibre ended very similar to the books I directly downloaded from Baen. Since I have over 500 books, I would prefer to do the transfer in a batch mode and not one book at a time.

I think the only place where the original "Date Acquired" data on my old books is, is the Created date in the directory where they currently reside. So either I modify the calibre import functionality to use the import source file Created date in the Date column, or I do a directory listing of my current directory and try to transfer the Created date somehow into the Date column.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by KariK

I did buy them, and am aware of that functionality, but if I did so, would I still not get the Date field to be today's date? Also, I think I would have to do them one at a time, which would be very time consuming. I also suspect that Baen uses calibre to convert books into the ePUB format, at least the books I converted using calibre ended very similar to the books I directly downloaded from Baen. Since I have over 500 books, I would prefer to do the transfer in a batch mode and not one book at a time.

I think the only place where the original "Date Acquired" data on my old books is, is the Created date in the directory where they currently reside. So either I modify the calibre import functionality to use the import source file Created date in the Date column, or I do a directory listing of my current directory and try to transfer the Created date somehow into the Date column.

Calibre does NOT use file/folder info on import.

So (bulk) change the date (it will be the date first added to Calibre anyway )

[gweminence]

You might consider using dropbox or sugarsync, or some other cloud service. This way, you could access your up-to-date library across any number of computers without ever having to mess with it after the initial setup.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by itimpi

How did you transfer the library?

If you simply used an OS level facility to copy the whole Calibre library folder and all its contents, and then on the new computer loaded Calibre and switched to that library then all metadata should have been unchanged.

If you copied books using the Calibre facility for copying libraries then the metadata WOULD get changed with books being flagged with the date of the copy.

I copied everything to a thumb drive. On that drive all my original dates are there. However, if I copy it to my new computer everything gets changed to today's date. Is there any way to keep my old dates?

Thanks,
Marcy

Update: Even though date on the computer was today, everything had old date in calibre!! Thanks for the answers!