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Grant Jacobs · 07-05-2019, 06:23 AM

I am trying to clear some space on the main memory of my Kobo book reader but the book reader instead seems to be taking more space, not less. How does Kobo want users to remove side-loaded files?

Besides my books from Kobo I have a large number of PDF files (scientific research papers) and previews of books. The former are sideloaded; the latter downloaded from Kobo.

I'm trying to delete some of the sideloaded PDF files for now; I can come back to the previews later.

From within a collection (or within My Books) you can long click on a title, then click Remove. You're then offered options on what to remove: I select to remove from My Books, not from the collection. (The message Kobo gives is unclear on what these options do. Reading the manual it seems to me that the Kobo software ought not to be showing me the second option at all as these PDFs files are sideloaded and have nothing to do with Kobo. But what gives…)

I was expecting this to remove the actual PDF file and whatever the Kobo software removes from their database of books on the reader and hence free up space.

However when I check under Settings > Device Information I find that I now have less free space, not more. It's not freeing up space, it's using up more space.

I'm now loathe to try further explorations lest I run out of space entirely.

So. What is the process to actually remove a side-loaded file? There are no instructions for this in the help manual on the book reader that I can see. Similarly a quick look at Kobo.com doesn't seem offer any help.

Or am I supposed to manually delete the files by connecting the book reader to the macBook, viewing the files in Finder, then deleting them, then hope that the book reader does some sort of re-indexing process to update it's database to reflect the new situation?* If that's how Kobo wants it to work, in my humble opinion they'd be best to tell people! (*One concern is if this would leave the Kobo database entries dangling, hence I haven't tried this yet.)

I haven't yet manually inspected the files from Finder to riddle out what is going on as I suspect that'll take a fair bit of time; I'm writing here on the off-hand chance someone might know what happens in this situation.

Suggestions welcome.

(I have an older H20 Aura; I suspect the model doesn't matter for my question.)

07-05-2019, 06:23 AM	#1
Grant Jacobs Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2019 Device: Kobo Aqua	How to delete sideloaded PDFs I am trying to clear some space on the main memory of my Kobo book reader but the book reader instead seems to be taking more space, not less. How does Kobo want users to remove side-loaded files? Besides my books from Kobo I have a large number of PDF files (scientific research papers) and previews of books. The former are sideloaded; the latter downloaded from Kobo. I'm trying to delete some of the sideloaded PDF files for now; I can come back to the previews later. From within a collection (or within My Books) you can long click on a title, then click Remove. You're then offered options on what to remove: I select to remove from My Books, not from the collection. (The message Kobo gives is unclear on what these options do. Reading the manual it seems to me that the Kobo software ought not to be showing me the second option at all as these PDFs files are sideloaded and have nothing to do with Kobo. But what gives…) I was expecting this to remove the actual PDF file and whatever the Kobo software removes from their database of books on the reader and hence free up space. However when I check under Settings > Device Information I find that I now have less free space, not more. It's not freeing up space, it's using up more space. I'm now loathe to try further explorations lest I run out of space entirely. So. What is the process to actually remove a side-loaded file? There are no instructions for this in the help manual on the book reader that I can see. Similarly a quick look at Kobo.com doesn't seem offer any help. Or am I supposed to manually delete the files by connecting the book reader to the macBook, viewing the files in Finder, then deleting them, then hope that the book reader does some sort of re-indexing process to update it's database to reflect the new situation?* If that's how Kobo wants it to work, in my humble opinion they'd be best to tell people! (*One concern is if this would leave the Kobo database entries dangling, hence I haven't tried this yet.) I haven't yet manually inspected the files from Finder to riddle out what is going on as I suspect that'll take a fair bit of time; I'm writing here on the off-hand chance someone might know what happens in this situation. Suggestions welcome. (I have an older H20 Aura; I suspect the model doesn't matter for my question.)