iPad Backup of iPad books

[januaryman]

Originally Posted by kjk

I'm not sure why it doesn't work for you, but for me every book (iBook or otherwise, both ePub and PDF) transferred without problems from my iPad 1 to iPad 2, which tells me that Apple's "backup" (if you mean iPad backup) definitely backs up more than iBookstore purchases.

But, I have iTunes manage my content, which means anything I add to the iPad automatically sends a copy of that to the iTunes library (and, gets backed up properly).

Also, I'm only talking about books *in* the iBooks app. The other reading apps have their own storage systems.

The OP stated that it was his issue over NON iBook files that prompted his question.

See message #9 in this thread.

--paste--

"I am used to a PC where all these things are in identifiable folders and backup just consists of copying the folder.
Apple seems to be different.
Apparently when I do an Apple "backup" it only backs up iBookstore purchases.
This does not help me.

Can anyone help with the Apple file structure for iBooks and Kindle.
The books are on the iPade so there must be some sort of file structure that I can identify on the iPad and backup."

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

First, let me preface this by saying that iTunes is a continual bafflement to me. Every time that I plug in, I cringe. It seems like every synch is different.

This is how I back up my books. I do not have it set to auto synch ever. So I plug in, drag the books from my ipad to itunes, instead of the other way around, and hope it works.

Hopefully an expert will swing by and tell us the correct way to do it.

"Sync" in iTunes does NOT (normally) go two ways. If you have manual sync set up then your iPod/iPhone will be modified to match your iTunes library. I expect this is how it works with the iPad also.

However, it looks from reading the docs that this works a bit differently with iBooks.. from the Apple iBooks FAQ:

Yes, any books you've downloaded from the iBookstore will be automatically added to your iTunes library the next time you sync your device with your computer. To do this, your computer must be authorized with the same account that was used to download the books from the iBookstore.

Also... they say:

Yes, you can redownload any book from the iBookstore, as many times as you need, free of charge. To redownload a book, tap Store, then tap Purchases. Find the book you wish to download again and tap Redownload.

...which from what I understand isn't the case for music, movies and TV shows, a policy I think is nuts.

BOb

[kjk]

Originally Posted by januaryman

The OP stated that it was his issue over NON iBook files that prompted his question.

See message #9 in this thread.

--paste--

"I am used to a PC where all these things are in identifiable folders and backup just consists of copying the folder.
Apple seems to be different.
Apparently when I do an Apple "backup" it only backs up iBookstore purchases.
This does not help me.

Can anyone help with the Apple file structure for iBooks and Kindle.
The books are on the iPade so there must be some sort of file structure that I can identify on the iPad and backup."

Yes, and I was responding to his message # 9, which you just requoted:

Apparently when I do an Apple "backup" it only backs up iBookstore purchases.

An Apple "backup" (by which I'm assuming he means "iPad backup" in iTunes) backs up everything, not just iBookstore purchases. The problem is that individual files within the iPad backup are not easily accessible without a 3rd party program. However, they do transfer fine when moving from one iPad to another (which the OP also stated was his issue)

If he means "does Apple automatically place a copy of everything I add to my iPad into my iTunes Media Folder", which is not a "backup", but an organization issue, then that depends.

If Preferences are set up in iTunes with "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" selected, then any media dragged into iTunes will be copied into the iTunes Media folder. This way, you have a copy of every thing easily accessible from outside of the actual iTunes app.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by john fun

@sapphiresilver
I have just located that software as well. Here are my preliminary results.
I have downloaded a (Windows) program which gives me some access to my iPad1 files.

{some parts deleted to focus on one comment}

It is called iPhone Explorer v 2.101 http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/ and is supposed to work with iPad as well as iPhone.
This is what I see.

*open Media and I see 12 subdirectories and 3 files.
*open the Books subdirectory
*I see a number of directories with the file description ".epub"
*To take an random example, the 2nd file is ABCZ.epub
*It has 2 subdirectories and 2 files.
*The directories are "590" and "META-INF".
*I open 590 and see a number of files, the important ones being 3 htm files referring to Gutenberg.org: e.g www.gutenberg.org@files@590@590-h@590-h-0.htm On the face of it, this is a htm file.

*My deductions are that some epub books loaded into iBooks (not purchased from Apple) are located in the file structure of iPad. The OS seems to create folders at random with 4 letter capitals file names. Inside the folders the books seem to have been converted to html. Nothing indicates the name of the book.

It is not being converted to html. The epub document is being expanded. If you check our wiki article on ePUB you will find that an epub file is really a zip file containing multiple xhtml documents and a few metadata support files. It would seem that the reading tool cannot handle an epub directly and is unzipping it. These files are all duplicates of the files contained inside the epub file. You could actually recreate the epub by zipping them back up and renaming the extension to .epub. Thus if you have the epub as well you need not worry about backing up the individual directories and files.

The folder names are not random. They are the names that were given to the folders when they were originally created for the ePUB. It can be educational to take an epub file on your computer and rename the extension to .zip and then unzip it to see how it is put together.

Dale

[tracyeo]

I have not tried this, but it is free until April 2nd.

[john fun]

@DaleDe
No doubt you are correct about the contents of the epub file.
The problem is when you have a couple of thousand epub books and apple names them something else then when you back up you have to manually rename them. To do this you have to explore inside the epub file to get a clue to its correct name.
One of the purposes in naming a epub file with the actual name of the book (e.g Winnie the Pooh instead of QRTY.epub) is that users want to know the name of the book.
That is why we name books.
As the name of the book is somewhere in the epub file, why is it that apple cannot use that as its folder name to make it easy and accessible.
After using a number of other readers I now read all my books on the iPad.
It is a great device but the OS is extremely unfriendly, unnecessarily obscure and difficult. In a word, it stinks.

[mjhudston]

the next thing of course is to backup your entire iTunes library, incase your PC dies.

[john fun]

@mjhudston
I totally agree - we should all backup all the time.
I have just bought and installed a WD Sharespace Network Storage System which plugs in to my modem router and has 5TB of space.
I was running Windows 7 backup but it did not work
I am now using Acronis.
None of this is perfect but it is better than nothing.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by john fun

@DaleDe
No doubt you are correct about the contents of the epub file.
The problem is when you have a couple of thousand epub books and apple names them something else then when you back up you have to manually rename them. To do this you have to explore inside the epub file to get a clue to its correct name.
One of the purposes in naming a epub file with the actual name of the book (e.g Winnie the Pooh instead of QRTY.epub) is that users want to know the name of the book.
That is why we name books.
As the name of the book is somewhere in the epub file, why is it that apple cannot use that as its folder name to make it easy and accessible.
After using a number of other readers I now read all my books on the iPad.
It is a great device but the OS is extremely unfriendly, unnecessarily obscure and difficult. In a word, it stinks.

It is not as easy as you might suggest. The expanded version should not even exist and it only a temporary reference caused by the fact that the application using it can't deal with the raw epub file. If you rename the folders the internal links inside the files will no longer work and you will break the book. The book author could have used meaningful names inside the folder but did not. They never intended for this internal information to be exposed to the file system.

Dale

[john fun]

I am not suggesting it is easy.
I am saying that apple would make life easier if it had an accessible file system which used the correct file names - in this case, the name of the book.

[john fun]

BACKUP OF KINDLE BOOKS
Seems to be easy. I have 74 Kindle books on my iPad. Some are from the Kindle Store but most are sideloaded.

To backup:
Make a folder somewhere
Attach iPad
ITunes starts
iTunes syncs
When sync completed, click on "My Ipad" (or whatever) link
Go to apps
Go to apps box at bottom of page
Select Kindle
Select all books (Ctrl/A)
Click save to
Navigate to the folder
Double click and it saves all files incl .mobi and .mbp

NOTE: Calibre keeps a library. If you try to download everything through Calibre you will have another backup

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by john fun

BACKUP OF KINDLE BOOKS
Seems to be easy. I have 74 Kindle books on my iPad. Some are from the Kindle Store but most are sideloaded.

If you bought them from the Kindle store... then they are already "backed up" on Amazons servers.

If you side loaded them then you have them on your PC already which I am sure you back up at least weekly, right?

That said, thanks for the steps.

BOb

[john fun]

@pilotbob
Agreed
What I should have done (and am now doing) is to keep a folder of containing copies of everything I load onto my iPad . This includes books, documents, music, photos etc etc.
The purpose of the post is to explain how I eventually solved the problem caused by the fact that I did not carefully keep copies.
This was because of years of bad habits with Windows where backingup is easy.
I made a mistake when I thought that apple backups would also be easy and was surprised to find that there is no effective single backup.
Anyways, if others have got into this pickle maybe my steps will help.
I am not sure, but I think this will be an issue when new iPad 2 owners try to backup from their existing iPad 1.
Maybe they should look at the backup issue first.

[gingerpop]

A. itunes does indeed have a backup copy of all the epub books that you dump into it. to find them use the search function in finder and key in 'epub' in the search field. sort by file type and you will have a list of all the epub books on your mac. restrict the search to the itunes folder and.. voila.. you have a list of all the epub books in itunes.

B. to backup all my books i use timemachine which makes a copy of my entire mac which in turn can easily be restored should i ever require that.

C. i also use kindle, stanza, and goodreader, in addition to ibooks. hence i do have some other epub books spread all over my mac, in addition to the ones in the itunes folder for ibooks. furthermore, i download new books on a regular basis. these quickly add clutter. the best way to organize ebooks in one place, is to download the free program 'calibre'. dump all your books there. it allows you to sift out duplicates, edit and download both covers and metadata, and generally sortify and prettify all your books. you can then choose to download the whole lot to itunes, or stanza, or reformat it for whichever other ebook reader you choose.

QED!

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by john fun

I have an iPad 1 and a PC.
I want to back up all the books that are on my iPad.

ITunes tells me I have 1736 items under the book heading yet when I go to My Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Books there are only about 150 books backed up.
The other 1600 odd books do not apear to be on my computer as iTunes backups.

When I go to the Books heading in iPhone and tick the box to sync all books I get a frightening warning about all other files will be deleted.

Calibre tells me it has 410 books in its Library.

My books are mostly not purchased from iStore.
Most of them are epubs and pdfs. Some are Kindle which have purchased from Amazon or sideloaded. Many are work PDFs.

My question: is there a simple and certain way in which to backup to my computer all my iPad books?

UPDATE
See my solution at #13 below

My experience and advice.

I hate iTunes! with all my heart. I taught my wife to use Linux in order to sync her iPod classic. And for my iPad 2, I use Calibre website and download that via wireless, pointing the browser to the Calibre's URL. My Calibre is also pointing or using a external hard drive which contains all my books and I backed up regularly. So, if I loss my iPad or it crashed, I don't really care, because my books are somewhere else. It's just a matter of re download again via Calibre's URL.

I can't help with Apple books, I get my books from Amazon, B&N or O'Reilly.