How to delete non-existent ebooks from database?

[excaliber]

Hi all,

I have deleted many files in the calibre library directory (not the directories and the metadata.opf files), not within calibre itself. Before someone asks why I did this way, the reason in the library were file formats which I didn't want like .txt or .zip files or small size .pdf files and it was easy for me to mark and delete all these kind of files with a file manager.

Now there are inconsistencies in the database since the actual files are missing.
When I go to Library - Library Maintenance - Check Library I can see in the "Missing book formats" the problematic entries. I want to delete all these entries but there are no check boxes next to them. I could delete all these entries manually by using the id and searching for each entry but this is time consuming. I wonder why there is are no check boxes beside the "Missing book formats" (there is only "fixable") and why the files can be marked by check boxes in the first place. This is OK for some entries but if someone like me has some hundreds of entries clicking one by one is not easily manageable.

So, is there any easy way to delete non-existent ebooks from database? What will happen if I just delete the directories together with the including metadata.opf files? Will the database get corrupted?

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[theducks]

1 Stop doing that

Calibre (GUI) can remove any format. See the arrow on the Delete icon

Run Library Maintainence: Phase 2 will give you a option to fix most of those errors

metadata.OPF is your metadata backup Delete it only if you like to struggle recovering your library

[kacir]

Originally Posted by excaliber

I have deleted many files in the calibre library directory (not the directories and the metadata.opf files), not within calibre itself. Before someone asks why I did this way, the reason in the library were file formats which I didn't want like .txt or .zip files or small size .pdf files and it was easy for me to mark and delete all these kind of files with a file manager.

It would have been just as easy to delete them from within Calibre.
You can do various complicated filtering, based on file formats, sizes, and many other criteria ...
Calibre is a powerful database.
All you needed to do was ask here ;-).

When you perform library maintenance, check library, you have to select Fix errors.
Calibre then corrects the list of file formats associated with each record.
Then you can delete books that have no file format associated.

The easiest way would be adding your own column, selecting "quick add formats" and then sort by the column "Formats".
The first will be books without any file format associated.
See, you still have to use Calibre interface, even after deleting files manually ;-)

[excaliber]

I did run the Library Maintenance and clicked to fix them and then all records with "Missing book formats" disappeared. I thought calibre would automagically detect and also delete all non existent ebooks and the relevant directories but it didn't. Then I saw in the "Formats" column that the entries with non existent ebooks were empty so I could easily delete them.

Thank you both for the quick replies. You saved me hours of work...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by excaliber

I thought calibre would automagically detect and also delete all non existent ebooks and the relevant directories but it didn't. Then I saw in the "Formats" column that the entries with non existent ebooks were empty so I could easily delete them.

A book record can exist even if it has no file format associated with it (at the moment).
You might want to delete a book file and later add a better one, for example. Or create a few records in advance and then populate them with actual files.
The fact that you want to delete a *.txt or other format doesn't automatically mean that you also want to have metadata erased.

If you want to learn more about querying Calibre database just open tag browser on the left and select authors, series, formats ... and observe the result in the search bar.
Also read the documentation
formats:"=DOC" means that Calibre will list all files with *.DOC extension but not *.DOCX
formats:"doc" (without the equal sign) will look for all extensions with 'doc' substring, including 'docx', for example.
There is also possibility to use [python] regular expressions, with syntax
authors:"~RegularExpression", so you can look for records with two commas in author field or other very powerful things.
You can, of course, combine search statements with AND, OR, NOT and ().
There is, I think also query for a number of formats but I can't find it at this moment.

You see, this is much more powerful than a search for files from within file manager.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kacir

A book record can exist even if it has no file format associated with it (at the moment).
You might want to delete a book file and later add a better one, for example. Or create a few records in advance and then populate them with actual files.
...

- and some people maintain a catalogue of their physical books in a calibre library, in my case those books will never have an ebook format file.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

- and some people maintain a catalogue of their physical books in a calibre library, in my case those books will never have an ebook format file.

BR

Me 900 Paperbacks

[Divingduck]

Originally Posted by theducks

Me 900 Paperbacks

Me too (1200+)

[excaliber]

@kacir: thanks again for the extra information!

Thank you all for your replies. They have been very helpful!