[MacOS] Adding multiple books

[beachin]

I have been using Calibre for years and never had a problem until recently.
A few months ago I purchased a new computer and had to freshly download the software.
I have over 1500 digital books that I need to put into Calibre and for the life of me I can not figure out how to do more than one book file at a time.
Is there a new setting that I need to change?
add books - from folders & subfolders is what I always did before. Now, I get a pop up (assume all e-book files in a singe folder are the same book in different formats yes or no) (which is really irritating btw). I click yes. and then I am able to only select one folder at a time.
I have my folders separated by author, then a folder inside for each separate book.
What am I doing wrong?

[theducks]

Hopefully you have a Backup
OR
The Hard Drive from the old system
Then it is Easy-Peasy

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...ter-to-another
And the total time is just a Tad above the time to copy from Backup/Old To New.

If the OLD computer is dead and it was not the Hard Drive: Remove the old drive and put it in a USB Drive case (or use a Clone drive cable ) to allow the New PC to see it for the copy process.

[beachin]

Thank you.
I am looking to add the files, not the library to the program. The old library is not available. I am on a desktop if that matters

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by beachin

Thank you.
I am looking to add the files, not the library to the program. The old library is not available. I am on a desktop if that matters

The usual drag and drop. Select the book files and drag them onto the calibre window. I wouldn't do all 1500 at once but select a hundred or so each time. On windows you'll have to get creative and figure out how to get the book files only without the directories. Maybe copy them all to a single directory and then from there drag and drop.

[JSWolf]

What happened to your previous configuration directory and your libraries?

[beachin]

Originally Posted by hobnail

The usual drag and drop. Select the book files and drag them onto the calibre window. I wouldn't do all 1500 at once but select a hundred or so each time. On windows you'll have to get creative and figure out how to get the book files only without the directories. Maybe copy them all to a single directory and then from there drag and drop.

That is what I thought also, but it doesn't work when there are multiple files. I have mine set up by author and then the books that the author wrote in separate files within the author file.

The only way it can be a drag & drop is for a single files

[theducks]

Originally Posted by beachin

That is what I thought also, but it doesn't work when there are multiple files. I have mine set up by author and then the books that the author wrote in separate files within the author file.

The only way it can be a drag & drop is for a single files

Did you Multi-select before you dragged, because I do this method all the time.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by beachin

That is what I thought also, but it doesn't work when there are multiple files. I have mine set up by author and then the books that the author wrote in separate files within the author file.

The only way it can be a drag & drop is for a single files

Add the parent of your Author folders, make sure that folder only has has Author folders. So, for the following set of Author folders I would go up a level and add the D:\Calibre\Libraries\Covid directory:



BR

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by beachin

That is what I thought also, but it doesn't work when there are multiple files. I have mine set up by author and then the books that the author wrote in separate files within the author file.

The only way it can be a drag & drop is for a single files

Correct. What I'm saying is that you need to find a way to copy all of the book files from the folder tree that you now have and put the copies all into one folder, at which point you can drag and drop multiple books since they would then be all together in one folder. If you're on windows have a look at robocopy; seems to be new with windows 10 and has many options.

[beachin]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Correct. What I'm saying is that you need to find a way to copy all of the book files from the folder tree that you now have and put the copies all into one folder, at which point you can drag and drop multiple books since they would then be all together in one folder. If you're on windows have a look at robocopy; seems to be new with windows 10 and has many options.

I have an IOS. I will have to do some research to see if there is any easy way to do this. Thank you.

[beachin]

Originally Posted by theducks

Did you Multi-select before you dragged, because I do this method all the time.

yes. multi select doesn't work.

[beachin]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Add the parent of your Author folders, make sure that folder only has has Author folders. So, for the following set of Author folders I would go up a level and add the D:\Calibre\Libraries\Covid directory:

Attachment 188775

BR

This is how mine looks also. Within the author folder are separate folders with each book & their files inside.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by beachin

This is how mine looks also. Within the author folder are separate folders with each book & their files inside.

So, click the little up arrow ('↑') at the left end of the address line and select the folder where your author folders are located (i.e. the parent folder)_

Following on from my previous post that would take me to:



When I select the "Covid" folder and click Select Folder Calibre will traverse the "Covid" folder and add all the books for all authors you saw before.

BR

[BetterRed]

@beachin - I just noticed you're using IOS - Cmd+↑ in Finder will take you to the parent folder.

BR

[beachin]

I think that this program just no longer works well with IOS. It is very disappointing because I never had any problems before this new install. Now, the program is not allowing me to add files that are clearly there. This has happened multiple times this week.