Calibre leaving behind garbage in the filesystem?

[tobidope]

Hello

after looking through my Calibre folder I noticed there are some folders which don't have a corresponding author. It seems that after reorganizing my library old files are left behind leading to duplicated files. Can anyone else confirm this? I cleaned my Calibre folder with the following python script

# -*- coding: utf8 -*-
import os
import shutil
import sqlite3

BASE_PATH = r'C:\Users\tobias\Documents\My Dropbox\Public\Calibre Bibliothek'
DB = 'metadata.db'
CALIBRE2OPDS_FOLDER = '_catalog'

con = sqlite3.connect(os.path.join(BASE_PATH, DB))
db_folders = set(n[0].split('/')[0] for n in con.execute('select path from books').fetchall())
con.close()
file_folders = set(d for d in os.listdir(BASE_PATH)
                   if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(BASE_PATH, d)) and
                   d != CALIBRE2OPDS_FOLDER)

for f in file_folders - db_folders:
    print("Deleting unused directory {0}".format(f))
    shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(BASE_PATH, f))

I haven't opened a bug till now. Still wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

Regards
Tobias

[kovidgoyal]

calibre will leave behind folders if they are not empty (i.e. they contain files not managed by calibre).

[tobidope]

But I can't remember adding files manually. All folders seemed to be from books which had the wrong author after adding the book. After changing the metadata of the book the old folder was left behind with all files. I keep watching it and will file a bug when I can reproduce it. By the way, great app! My donation should arrive soon!

[itimpi]

I notice that you have CALIBRE2OPDS mentioned in your script. Recent releases of calibre2opds adds a thumbnail file to the calibre book folders so if the only file left behind is a .jpg or a .png file this might be the culprit? If it is the case then mention it here and then we can see if something can be done about that for the future.