Content Create a book catalog

[Oskar]

I need a book catalog for all the books on my Kindle. That's over 1,000 books. Since newer Kindle devices no longer allow access to the metadata file, I tried Calibre. That doesn't work either, because creating a catalog in Calibre is only possible with books from the Calibre library. Books in the Amazon KFX format, however, cannot be imported into Calibre.

Is there any other way to create a catalog of the books on my Kindle?

[Sirtel]

Use one of the other methods for deDRMing your Kindle books. There are ways that still work.

[JSWolf]

It is incorrect to say that calibre cannot store KFX. It certainly can.

Also, there is no such thing as the calibre library. As long as your eBooks are without DRM, calibre is the best choice for storing your eBooks.

But if you just want to store your eBooks on your Kindle, download them via WiFi from Amazon. But since you have over 1,000 books, I don't think you'll be able to store all of them on your Kindle. I could be wrong here. So if you want to try it, go right ahead.

However, the best solution is to search the forum to find where to get information on removing the DRM from Kindle eBooks. You will need calibre, DeDRM 10.0.18, K4PC (some 2.8 version), and Windows.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Oskar

I need a book catalog for all the books on my Kindle. That's over 1,000 books. Since newer Kindle devices no longer allow access to the metadata file, I tried Calibre. That doesn't work either, because creating a catalog in Calibre is only possible with books from the Calibre library. Books in the Amazon KFX format, however, cannot be imported into Calibre.

Is there any other way to create a catalog of the books on my Kindle?

With the macOS app, there is a table ("ZBOOK") in SQLite database that contains a record for every book and personal document in your Kindle library:

/Users/[username]/Library/Containers/com.amazon.Lassen/Data/Library/Protected/BookData.sqlite

There are free database tools that can open it and let you dump it to CSV or JSON file, such as Beekeeper Studio.

This is one such record:

{"Z_PK":7011,"Z_ENT":2,"Z_OPT":1,"ZISHIDDENBYUSER":0,"ZRAWAUTOSHELVE":null,"ZRAWBOOKSTATE":0,"ZRAWBOOKTYPE":17,"ZRAWBOOKUPGRADESNEEDED":null,"ZRAWCURRENTPOSITION":null,"ZRAWERL":0,"ZRAWFILESIZE":0,"ZRAWHASCOMPANION":null,"ZRAWHASFIXEDMOPHIGHLIGHTS":null,"ZRAWINBOOKCOVERCHECKED":0,"ZRAWISARCHIVABLE":1,"ZRAWISDICTIONARY":null,"ZRAWISENCRYPTED":0,"ZRAWISHIDDEN":0,"ZRAWISKEPT":null,"ZRAWISMULTIMEDIA":0,"ZRAWISPENDINGVERIFICATION":0,"ZRAWISSMDCREATEDDICTIONARY":null,"ZRAWISTRANSLATIONDICTIONARY":null,"ZRAWISUNREAD":1,"ZRAWLASTACCESSTIME":0,"ZRAWLASTOPENSUCCEEDED":1,"ZRAWLASTVIEW":0,"ZRAWMAXLOCATION":0,"ZRAWMAXPOSITION":0,"ZRAWNCXINFOSTORED":0,"ZRAWPROGRESSDOTCATEGORY":-1,"ZRAWPUBLICATIONDATE":0,"ZRAWREADSTATE":0,"ZRAWREADSTATEORIGIN":0,"ZRAWREADINGMODE":0,"ZRAWUSERVISIBLELABELING":0,"ZCOMPANION":null,"ZALTERNATESORTTITLE":"OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN (SWORD OF HONOR TRILOGY BOOK 2","ZBOOKID":"A:B00AIA1PDI-0","ZBUNDLEPATH":null,"ZCONTENTTAGS":null,"ZDICTIONARYLOCALEID":null,"ZDICTIONARYSHORTTITLE":null,"ZDICTIONARYSOURCELANG":null,"ZDISPLAYTITLE":"Officers and Gentlemen (Sword of Honor Trilogy Book 2)","ZGROUPID":null,"ZLANGUAGE":"Unknown","ZLONGCURRENTPOSITION":null,"ZLONGMAXPOSITION":null,"ZMIMETYPE":"audio/audible","ZPARENTASIN":null,"ZPATH":"Library/eBooks/B00AIA1PDI/1AAA3ADE-5EA3-4F96-85DC-674D585DCD55","ZPERASINGUID":"1","ZRAWPUBLISHER":null,"ZSHELF":null,"ZSORTTITLE":"OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN (SWORD OF HONOR TRILOGY BOOK 2","ZWATERMARK":null,"ZALTERNATESORTAUTHOR":{"type":"Buffer","data":[138,132,213,252,186,102,100,103,247,121,82,145,144,187,167,4]},"ZDISPLAYAUTHOR":{"type":"Buffer","data":[195,86,66,141,60,191,72,107,34,24,231,45,16,211,244,190]},"ZEXTENDEDMETADATA":{"type":"Buffer","data":[98,112,108,105,115,116,48,48,212,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,88,36,118,101,114,115,105,111,110,89,36,97,114,99,104,105,118,101,114,84,36,116,111,112,88,36,111,98,106,101,99,116,115,18,0,1,134,160,95,16,15,78,83,75,101,121,101,100,65,114,99,104,105,118,101,114,209,8,9,84,114,111,111,116,128,1,171,11,12,21,22,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,85,36,110,117,108,108,211,13,14,15,16,18,20,87,78,83,46,107,101,121,115,90,78,83,46,111,98,106,101,99,116,115,86,36,99,108,97,115,115,161,17,128,2,161,19,128,3,128,10,95,16,25,99,111,109,46,97,117,100,105,98,108,101,46,65,117,100,105,98,108,101,80,108,117,103,105,110,211,13,14,15,23,27,20,163,24,25,26,128,4,128,5,128,6,163,28,29,30,128,7,128,8,128,9,128,10,85,112,102,109,73,68,90,97,109,97,122,111,110,65,115,105,110,95,16,16,112,97,114,116,105,97,108,67,111,109,112,97,110,105,111,110,93,65,84,86,80,68,75,73,75,88,48,68,69,82,90,66,48,48,65,77,51,53,69,66,75,94,65,58,66,48,48,56,55,52,68,86,90,50,45,48,210,39,40,41,42,90,36,99,108,97,115,115,110,97,109,101,88,36,99,108,97,115,115,101,115,95,16,19,78,83,77,117,116,97,98,108,101,68,105,99,116,105,111,110,97,114,121,163,41,43,44,92,78,83,68,105,99,116,105,111,110,97,114,121,88,78,83,79,98,106,101,99,116,0,8,0,17,0,26,0,36,0,41,0,50,0,55,0,73,0,76,0,81,0,83,0,95,0,101,0,108,0,116,0,127,0,134,0,136,0,138,0,140,0,142,0,144,0,172,0,179,0,183,0,185,0,187,0,189,0,193,0,195,0,197,0,199,0,201,0,207,0,218,0,237,0,251,1,6,1,21,1,26,1,37,1,46,1,68,1,72,1,85,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,45,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,94]},"ZORIGINS":null,"ZSORTAUTHOR":{"type":"Buffer","data":[138,132,213,252,186,102,100,103,247,121,82,145,144,187,167,4]},"ZSYNCMETADATAATTRIBUTES":null,"ZRAWTITLEDETAILSJSON":null,"ZRAWTIMEDURATIONRESTRICTIONENDDATE":null,"ZMANIFESTGUID":null,"ZRAWADS":null},

Pulling out a few of the properties:

  "ZDISPLAYTITLE": "East of Eden",
  "ZBOOKID": "A:B00546SXO0-0",
"ZRAWPUBLISHER":"Penguin Classics",
"ZRAWPUBLICATIONDATE":1417478400,
"ZRAWREADSTATE":0,
"ZCOMPANION":5495,  <-indicates it has Audible companion?
  "ZDISPLAYAUTHOR": {
    "type": "Buffer",
    "data": [
      253,
      123,
      222,
      173,
      1,
      227,
      68,
      145,
      209,
      171,
      2,
      156,
      13,
      194,
      61,
      194
    ]

Author display string in the Library list would be "STEINBECK, JOHN" in this case - length of this string is almost same as number of values in 'data' so I assume there's some discoverable algorithm to decode the data values (including Unicode generally).

At any rate there's a lot of detail in there that can be extracted, even if some of the values are not meaningful to us. There are 13 tables in there but this one seems most relevant.

ZCOLLECTIONV2 has Collection names, ZCOLLECTIONITEM maps items to collections. ZCONTENTTAGS identifies Manga and/or Comics. ZGROUP seems to have Series names that are associated with items in your Library. There's probably some way to identify library/kindle unlimited/comixology borrows as well.

I think there is some similar database with the PC app but I don't remember those details, and I don't know how to re-discover where it is or the data format.