Thread: Kobo e-books - how to manage with calibre
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Old 11-20-2021, 10:52 PM   #3
davidfor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KittyNin View Post
I'm trying to figure out what plugins I need to manage my kobo e-books (bought from the rakutan website) with calibre? I'm just looking to set custom metadata, eg, series and collections. Do I have to de-DRM them to do this? Or is there a simpler way??
You don't need anything extra to manage books in a calibre library on Kobo devices. The built-in KoboTouch driver will show you what is on the device, send books to the device and maintain collections and series info.

For other things, such as DRM protected books, you need the same set of tools that you need for other devices. Which is the deDRM tools that are available elsewhere.

After that, it really depends on what you want to do. But, as you mention purchasing books from Kobo...

The books purchased from Kobo will download directly to the device over WiFi. Personally, I read those. But, I also download the books from the store and add them to calibre. This downloads an ePub copy which may have DRM to be removed. When I have the book in calibre and connect the device, calibre will show that the book is on the device. Then I can track my reading or update the collections.

Others prefer to read the epub version and not download to the device. For them, they probably use a different Kobo account on the device than they buy books with. They download all the books from the store, add them to calibre (removing DRM as needed) and send the books to the device. After that, it is the same as for purchased books.


For your two specific mentions, @Karellen has pointed to how to configure the collection management. And series info will be updated for books the next time the device is connected. If you want other metadata updated, this just needs the option turned on in the driver configuration.

@Karellen also mentioned my Kobo Utilities plugin. This is useful if you want one of the functions it supplies. @Karellen mentions updating series, but, the plugin is not needed if you want to do that. It does supply functions such as getting the reading status from the books, a basic annotations viewing function, backing up the device database and lot of other things.
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