[cybmole]

OK - given that I, but no one else, has a desire to hang on to original_epub files, how do I do I get them archived from calibre without any changes being made: if I use send to device/ save to disc then I assume that calibre does what it does with real formats i.e. updates the metadata as part of the send/save process.

SO how to I select & archive/backup what is there at the moment without any changes being made. do I have to manually copy the library then extract only those file types. I'd ideally want to archive only those original.xxx files that meet certain other criteria i.e. have certain tags sets.

can I select & do a bulk copy to library for only this format operation in calibre, then take that copied library away to archive via windows backup operations?

@eschwartz -
flogging the deal horse one more time, I still see an illogic in calibre doesn't care about it, and calibre doesn't want to care about it when combined with calibre insists on re-using it for conversion to any other format.
Let me walk you thouhg a scenario: If I workflow: epub into library, epub to epub convert to apply standardized extra css, edit book as need in calibre or sigil - (so far so good ) then I proceeed with delete origianal-epub ( as you + Kovid are advocaring) , so that I can now convert (current) epub to mobi for old kindle, but then find that the mobi convert is no good after all e.g. because of some unsupported feature; I then have a need to go back to the beginning and start over - but i can't m unless I kept a copy of the true origianl