Checkmark for On Device/Library

[Kumabjorn]

I have copied some books from my Kindle to the Calibre library using the Calibre GUI. When I do that the checkmark in the column On Device turns up. If I switch to view Device the checkmark for In Library is there. Hence, they seem synchronized and dandy. However, the next time I connect my Kindle to Calibre the checkmark is gone. Has this anything to do with the fact that I am using two different Kindles (K3 and K4)? Does it go through the Kindle to compare books when I connect the Kindle, or does it rely on some cached list?

[eschwartz]

It depends. calibre will search through the device on connecting and compile a list of books, extracting the title, author, size, and publisher.

This info gets cached as %KindleDrive%:\metadata.calibre and the cached data gets read first. Any books already cached can be ignored, and only the new stuff gets scanned. This is done for the sake of speed.

Whenever you send a book from calibre, it sets the metadata from calibre's records, and gains a cover, comments, & series info. This is almost always different than the ebook-metadata, if you are using plugboards. I don't know how matches are performed when the book is imported from the device, very possibly it remembers for that session that the two are the same.

Whenever calibre connects, it first reads data from the cache, then indexes any other books on the device, writes THAT to the cache, and then tries to match books. This is the important part:

Matches are made when the title and author are the same. If you have changed the metadata in calibre, the match will fail. The next device will also fail, perhaps because the file knows it's title is ****: A Novel or some such garbage, perhaps because some other change you made.

You can right-click to "Match Book" and tell calibre two books are the same, and it will update the metadata cache with the calibre metadata. Or send the book from calibre. Then you get the new metadata on the reader, too. You will probably have to delete the old copy first, unless you do as I do and use the old filename as the save path, in which case the old file AND metadata gets overwritten. (This is so the .sdr folders match up. I do a bunch of extra configurations. )

[Kumabjorn]

Hmm, this was more complicated than I expected. My books almost always arrive to my Kindle first. Then after a while I connect with Calibre and copy them to my library. After that I take the new books and download Metadata and book cover. If I understand you correctly I need to then match that data with what I have on the Kindle? Obviously I prefer the newly downloaded Metadata (it contains tags and descriptions). Are you trying to tell me I can move that new Metadata over to the books on the Kindle? Or do I have to delete them from the Kindle and then copy back from the library? Don't know how comfortable I am with that, considering how it reports back to Amazon on a regular basis.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Hmm, this was more complicated than I expected. My books almost always arrive to my Kindle first. Then after a while I connect with Calibre and copy them to my library. After that I take the new books and download Metadata and book cover. If I understand you correctly I need to then match that data with what I have on the Kindle? Obviously I prefer the newly downloaded Metadata (it contains tags and descriptions). Are you trying to tell me I can move that new Metadata over to the books on the Kindle? Or do I have to delete them from the Kindle and then copy back from the library? Don't know how comfortable I am with that, considering how it reports back to Amazon on a regular basis.

Yes, the metadata must be matched. You have two choices. You can tell calibre they are the same by using "Match Books" and update the cached metadata so calibre always knows they are the same, or send the book from calibre to the device.

The metadata cannot be copied over to the book, though. You will have to delete and copy from calibre. Amazon won't know a thing about it, though.

What I do to make this much easier is use a custom column called "Original Filename" which saves the value for all Amazon books, and my save path uses this to overwrite the old book, instead of deleting. It makes it very easy to update metadata on the book, and also lets me keep the Amazon pagenumbers, highlights, and other stuff they store in the .sdr folders.