Calibre on Two Computers

[TonyCalandrillo]

Hi Folks,

I made the mistake of thinking if I took two separate calibre libraries and combined them, then the program would recognize everything together. Instead it only recognizes the original library from my one computer. Is there anything I can do about this?

[Sirtel]

How exactly did you combine them?

[TonyCalandrillo]

Hey,

I just did it the old fashioned way by combining folders. I didn't do it with Calibre, which is causing the problems I think.

[ownedbycats]

Yeah that wasn't a good idea. The Calibre folders should be considered a black box. Don't touch them, let Calibre handle them.

The proper way to merge libraries is to open the second library with Calibre and use the "copy to library" option to copy the books to your main library.

If you have backups, restore to them. If not...well you've got a bit of a mess to sort out.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by TonyCalandrillo

Hey,

I just did it the old fashioned way by combining folders. I didn't do it with Calibre, which is causing the problems I think.

Yes, exactly. Calibre doesn't recognize anything done outside its GUI.

The way to do it in Calibre would have been to select all the books in one library, right-click and choose "copy to library" to copy them to the second library. After which you could have deleted the first library.

What you should do now is to create a new, empty library. Go to your messed up first library (in Calibre, not in the file explorer), select all the books, right-click and copy them over to the new library (select "delete after copying" from the options). Now the first library should look empty in Calibre.

Go to your first library folder in the file explorer. You should see the files Calibre didn't recognize still there. Those you'll have to add to your new library manually from Calibre (using the Add Books icon). DO NOT copy/paste any files between library folders yourself, Calibre won't recognize such operations.

[chaley]

If the two libraries had the same custom columns then a library restore might finish the job. I would do this as a last resort because it won't deal well with new duplicates.

[TonyCalandrillo]

Ok thanks. That really is a bug I wish they could fix. A library is a library. I am recreating it from scratch by adding the books from directories or sub directories. It's rteading PDFs however and I don't want it to do that. Is there a tweak for that?

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by TonyCalandrillo

Ok thanks. That really is a bug I wish they could fix. A library is a library.

It's not a bug. Calibre keeps its actual library in the database file, while the folders are just the book files. If you copy the files outside of the program, it has no way to tell that they're actually there because they're not referenced in the database.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by TonyCalandrillo

Ok thanks. That really is a bug I wish they could fix. A library is a library. I am recreating it from scratch by adding the books from directories or sub directories. It's rteading PDFs however and I don't want it to do that. Is there a tweak for that?

It will never be fixed, because the way Calibre deals with files is intentional. The only way to do anything in Calibre is to do it via the GUI.

You want to open your PDFs with something else, not the Calibre viewer? In Preferences, Behavior there is a list of formats on the right. Uncheck the one for PDF and any others you don't want the calibre viewer to open.

[TonyCalandrillo]

Ok I am working on doing it all manually. I am a grad student and I have way too many PDFs to clog up calibre. I keep those separate because I don't have to modify them at all.