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Originally Posted by Manichean
Note that playing back a metadata.db backup from an earlier date than the library currently is at can lead to inconsistencies between the database and the directory structure. A full library backup should be your preferred backup method.
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It's preferred to do a full backup, but the core of Calibre is metadata.db. That file is small, so multiple backups are tiny. It keeps a complete list of all your books, authors, titles, file locations and other data about the status of your library in the past, which I find very useful in a disaster recovery. Yes, if you restore an old metadata.db to a new library, you will get some inconsistencies, but most of them can be corrected with the library error recovery and management tools.
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Calibre also already contains a mechanism that backs up the metadata with each change so that you can recreate the metadata.db should it get corrupted, so having a manual backup as well is redundant.
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Metadata.db keeps your custom recipes and other data that does not apply to a single book. That data is not found in the opf file for individual books. The bottom line is that a metadata.db backup can be very useful and yesterday's metadata.db is a backup I can make in seconds and will rapidly recover 99.8% of my Calibre install if metadata.db becomes corrupted. I still keep a full backup of all books, covers, and metadata.db, but I also keep the same rolling metadata.db backup described here. It's sort of a belt and suspenders thing.