Does OneDrive Play well with Calibre

[Bluesnowan]

Looking to use my library across multiple computers and was wondering how well microsoft onedrive plays with calibre

And is the info for custom columns saved in the epub file or somewhere else? Looking to restore calibre from files I had saved to dropbox on a fresh install

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bluesnowan

Looking to use my library across multiple computers and was wondering how well microsoft onedrive plays with calibre

And is the info for custom columns saved in the epub file or somewhere else? Looking to restore calibre from files I had saved to dropbox on a fresh install

No cloud service plays well with Calibre. You risk screwing up your library.

[theducks]

Network drives of any kind mess up the timing of internal sequences done by Calibre. They must stay in lockstep.

Then there are cloud systems that ALSO version control, that can mes things even further.
Then there is the issue of multiple (simultaneous, oops!) access (even if it was accidental).

Calibre was not designed to survive any of the above. It was designed for good performance on a wide variety of OS and equipment.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Bluesnowan

Looking to use my library across multiple computers and was wondering how well microsoft onedrive plays with calibre

And is the info for custom columns saved in the epub file or somewhere else? Looking to restore calibre from files I had saved to dropbox on a fresh install

Also see my other post

Consider using the included Content server for (library integrity) safe access.

You can BACKUP (mirror) to many cloud drives (but not Google), but do not do a 2 way sync.
A Restore from a backup should only be a FULL (the entire Library folder into an empty folder).
If you need to merge. Use Calibre's Copy To Library (rather than Add) aws that uses the Library metadata as source and you will combine the Libraries intact (exception, is some metadata is not merged if there was an empty book that matches. still 90% is lots better than a redo)

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by theducks

Then there are cloud systems that ALSO version control, that can mes things even further.

Most notably, Google Drive will remove the (####) book IDs from the folder names because it uses those for version control.

[anoukaimee]

I use OneDrive, and find that it works fine, with the following caveats:

1. I make sure that it is not running when I am in Calibre. This is just a best practice I've seen mentioned by those more knowledgable than I.
2. If you use the Full Text plugin and have a large library, be prepared for frequent large uploads to the cloud. I haven't gotten around to asking here if there's somewhere else I can put it rather than in the library itself (default, I guess), but I have 10+ GB uploads at least every week. This is irritating, and I should check in with the plugin developer--just time has gotten in the way.
3. Also, I make sure that the book is "always available" on my hard drive rather than "on the cloud."

And it goes w/o saying that making frequent backups of your library to a local external HD or the like is a really, really good idea.

[Bluesnowan]

Okay thanks for info my laptop is borked so just need to download a copy of my library from Dropbox and start again. How does running a calibre portable from a thumb drive play out?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Bluesnowan

Okay thanks for info my laptop is borked so just need to download a copy of my library from Dropbox and start again. How does running a calibre portable from a thumb drive play out?

Runs solid, just a bit slow because thumbs are not speedy. Do keep backups as thumbs can fail with little warning.