Backing everything up

[ardeur]

What is the best way to backup my ebooks + metadata? I have a USB stick I'd like to use. My first thought was to copy & paste my entire Calibre library folder onto the drive. Would that be best, or is there a better, more savvy way to do this?

How do I keep it updated after adding more ebooks?

I also don't quite understand the "Start backing up metadata of all books" option under Library Maintenance. It doesn't ask me for a folder...

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by ardeur

What is the best way to backup my ebooks + metadata? I have a USB stick I'd like to use. My first thought was to copy & paste my entire Calibre library folder onto the drive. Would that be best, or is there a better, more savvy way to do this?

That is the correct way to do it

How do I keep it updated after adding more ebooks?

The simple answer is re-copy the library. However that gets unwieldy as the library gets large. I use a tool like RichCopy for this as it can copy only changed files. If your library is not too large you can also use a service like DropBox to get files automatically backed up to the cloud.

I also don't quite understand the "Start backing up metadata of all books" option under Library Maintenance. It doesn't ask me for a folder...

This is making a backup within the calibre file system of the books metadata by creating a .opf file with each book. However one does not normally need to use this as by default calibre creates/updates the .opf file stored with each book any time you edit its metadata.

If at any point your calibre metadata.db file gets corrupted, then it can be rebuilt from the information in the .opf file stored with each book. The option to recover the database in this way is also under Library maintenance. Hopefully you will never need to use it!