Reimport books from another folder to Calibre folder structure?

mendhak · 10-07-2013, 03:28 PM

Hello! I have a bit of a situation which I'm hoping you can help with.

I recently lost my Calibre folder (all folders, all ebooks), although I still have the metadata (OPF) that Calibre displays. I also have a separate folder containing the same books that Calibre used to have but not the same structure, no OPF.

So although the books appear in Calibre, I cannot 'use' them. For example double clicking it will bring up this error.

What I would like to do is to restore the files from my 'other' folders back into the Calibre folder structure so that I can restore my book collection and preserve metadata.

What would be the best way to do this? I have roughly 300 books so I am trying to avoid doing this manually. I am familiar with scripting if necessary.

theducks · 10-07-2013, 04:10 PM

The message is because you now have an empty Library, but calibre does not know it (says you have a Mobi file for that book)

First Make a BACKUP of the current (mostly empty) Library folder, just in case thing go belly up.

->Not tested<- be sure to have a backup

Preferences Adding Books: Auto Merge Books:Overwrite Existing Duplicate formats (We know they don't really exist)
APPLY

Now Add your books using the Add Books Icon: <Pick the appropriate choice> You can do this in small steps.
IMHO do a few, and see if the results for those please you

mendhak · 10-11-2013, 01:18 AM

Thanks for the suggest, I tried this out and it managed to pick up about 35 books unfortunately. At this point I've decided to bite the bullet and simply redo everything. I think certain things are just difficult to recover from. I've got a backup of the 'bad' folder in case I want to try other ways of restoring to it.

10-07-2013, 03:28 PM	#1
mendhak Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Reimport books from another folder to Calibre folder structure? Hello! I have a bit of a situation which I'm hoping you can help with. I recently lost my Calibre folder (all folders, all ebooks), although I still have the metadata (OPF) that Calibre displays. I also have a separate folder containing the same books that Calibre used to have but not the same structure, no OPF. So although the books appear in Calibre, I cannot 'use' them. For example double clicking it will bring up this error. What I would like to do is to restore the files from my 'other' folders back into the Calibre folder structure so that I can restore my book collection and preserve metadata. What would be the best way to do this? I have roughly 300 books so I am trying to avoid doing this manually. I am familiar with scripting if necessary.

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10-07-2013, 04:10 PM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,249 Karma: 61360164 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	The message is because you now have an empty Library, but calibre does not know it (says you have a Mobi file for that book) First Make a BACKUP of the current (mostly empty) Library folder, just in case thing go belly up. ->Not tested<- be sure to have a backup Preferences Adding Books: Auto Merge Books:Overwrite Existing Duplicate formats (We know they don't really exist) APPLY Now Add your books using the Add Books Icon: <Pick the appropriate choice> You can do this in small steps. IMHO do a few, and see if the results for those please you

10-11-2013, 01:18 AM	#3
mendhak Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Thanks for the suggest, I tried this out and it managed to pick up about 35 books unfortunately. At this point I've decided to bite the bullet and simply redo everything. I think certain things are just difficult to recover from. I've got a backup of the 'bad' folder in case I want to try other ways of restoring to it.

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