[GUI Plugin] Find Duplicates

[kiwidude]

Release Notes
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...icates-1.10.10

[Steven Karp]

I hope I haven't missed a discussion already...

I'm trying to find non-duplicates between two libraries.

Specifically, I have one library for myself and one for my spouse. I add books to my library, clean up the metadata, and then use the "copy to another library" function to add them to the other.

However, right now my library shows 6,761 books. My spouse's library has 6,733. (FWIW, Duplicate Finder shows 6,713 dupes, which probably means I need to do some metadata cleanup as well as copying the missing titles. Kudos to the plugin and its developer for finding more work for me! )

Is there a way to use this plugin (or some other technique--I'm not fussy!) to identify those 28 books that are in my library, but not in my spouse's?

[theducks]

Does right clicking the search bar (Marked...) Invert results work?
Also, From which Library it is run FROM. might make a difference.

[Steven Karp]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Right-clicking the "Manage..." button doesn't do anything for me, all I can do is left-click it to close the virtual library.

If it matters, I'm running Calibre 9.4, plugin version 1.10.10 on a Mac running Tahoe 26.3.1.

And no, switching which library I run it from doesn't seem to make a difference.

[theducks]

Where did Manage come from?
The found books: will now have a searched of: Marked duplicates...
IMHO inverting that should give Unmarked

[Steven Karp]

Sorry, brain fart. It *is* a "Marked duplicates" button.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

I right-click "Find Duplicates" and choose "Find Library Duplicates". Choose the other library, leave everything else on the defaults*, and click OK. That gives me a popup with the list of results. I hit OK on that, and now I'm in a virtual library of the dupes. There's a button labeled "marked:library_dup..." at the left side of the search bar. That has no right-click functionality and the left click just closes the library.

* (Defaults are Title/Author, Soundex 6 for title, Soundex 8 for author, and Display duplicate books... checked)

[theducks]

?? I right click IN the search term area (no icons...)
Right click is the CONTEXT MENU for the area. It works as described in both Windows and Linux (My main machine is now Linux Mint as a SATA port took out my SSD boot block)
Contexts menuS are all over Calibre (and most other programs).
Right click various places and see what pops up
Maybe my tendency to context use comes from when I started using PC's (1979-80)

[Steven Karp]

Ah, gotcha. No, the "Invert current search" is greyed out, probably because the duplicate finder doesn't populate the search field. Does it on your system?

And, hey, I too survived the days when "PC compatible" was more a wish than a reality. I just misinterpreted your suggestion about "Marked".

[Steven Karp]

For anyone following this in hopes of a solution to finding the non-dupes between two libraries: I gave up on doing it with this plugin.

Instead, I exported both libraries as csv files (author and title only), sorted them, and then ran them through a diff checker (kdiff3, for what it's worth). Found and fixed several metadata glitches in both libraries, then repeated the process and identified all of the missing books.

Kudos to Find Duplicates, though: it did find a half-dozen actual duplicates in the individual collections, so I was able to clean those up.

[kiwidude]

@Steven Karp - glad you found a solution. As you found, this is a duplicate checker plugin not a difference checker. I would have suggested an export as you ended up doing.

[sgmoore]

Originally Posted by Steven Karp

For anyone following this in hopes of a solution to finding the non-dupes between two libraries: I gave up on doing it with this plugin.

Too late for you, and your method is probably better and faster, but I think the following should work without leaving calibre.

1. Find the duplicates using this plugin.
2. Select all the duplicates
3. Use 'Edit Metadata in bulk' to add a tag that has not currently used (e.g duplicates)
4. Clear the virtual library and then select books without this tag (either from the UI or by typing something like `not tags:"=duplicate"` in the search bar. )

This will find books in your current library that are not in the other library.

You would then need to swap to the other library and repeat the process.

Note, If you have a lot of books, it may be slow as it will perform lots of disk writes and may update the books.