Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42
Recently I started adding our paper books to my copy of Calibre, so that we've got a complete record of all the books we own. I've got a couple of MP3 audio books which I'd also like to add. I've added tags for both paper and audio books, and in the case of MP3s, I've added the files to the book's folder. Ideally, I'd like to add the MP3 files to the formats list.
A quick look suggests that this can't be done with a file type plugin, would anyone care to prove me wrong? Or tell me that it can be done some other way?
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As you have discovered Calibre has no direct support for audiobooks. If it consists of a single mp3 file, you can just drag/drop this into Calibre like any other book format, it appears in the list of formats in the book details window etc.
However, an audiobook usually consists of multiple mp3 files. And Calibre does not support storing multiple files with the same format in the same directory (e.g. multiple versions of an EPUB). So the limitation that applies to ebooks applies even more so to audiobooks for which you will have multiple files of the same extension.
The workaround suggested for ebooks is to create a separate book entry in Calibre representing the alternate version of the book and storing it there. Thus the "equivalent" for audiobooks would be to create a "book" entry for each mp3 file making up the audiobook.
If Calibre were to ever support multiple "versions" within the same book record then possibly it would help you. However afaik there is no plan to do this as it would potentially be a big task.
Storing files "manually" inside the Calibre folders in general is a *bad* idea as often gets repeated in the forums. If you were to rename the book author for instance then it is possible you would lose the audio files - that file structure is for Calibre to do with as it will and it will only keep track of the files in its database - i.e. things you have imported into Calibre.
So I can't think of a direct way for a plugin to help you. I would suggest posting in the main Calibre forum and asking others if they store audiobooks in Calibre and if so how they approach it.