Help-copy from ipad to computer

[Beerman]

I mistakenly nuked my Calibre library on my computer and the only backup I have is months old (I know better).
How do I copy my books from my ipad 2 to my computer so that Calibre is back the way it was. Itunes doesn't seem to be helping much.
Thanks for the help.

[itimpi]

You have a problem then I am afraid as there is no supported way to copy books back off the iPad.

What software are you using on the iPad? You may find that the "iPhone Backup Extractor" software can get your books out of an iTunes backup, but whether it will succeed probably depends on the app storing the books. The free edition can be used to test if this will work for you, although if you have a lot of books to recover it might be worth forking out the registration fee.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by itimpi

You have a problem then I am afraid as there is no supported way to copy books back off the iPad.

I beg to differ - at least for free ebooks, and using iBooks.

I have copied some ebooks from the iPad to my computer, then added them to calibre and sent them to my Sony. What I did was:
- Connected the iPad to my computer with its cable
- When iTunes opened clicked on books, which displayed all the ebooks on my iPad
- Dragged the books I wanted to the desktop
- Closed iTunes and removed the iPad
- Added the books to calibre, and installed them on my Sony.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I beg to differ - at least for free ebooks, and using iBooks.

I have copied some ebooks from the iPad to my computer, then added them to calibre and sent them to my Sony. What I did was:
- Connected the iPad to my computer with its cable
- When iTunes opened clicked on books, which displayed all the ebooks on my iPad
- Dragged the books I wanted to the desktop
- Closed iTunes and removed the iPad
- Added the books to calibre, and installed them on my Sony.

My experience is that this only tends to work reliably for books that are already in iTunes (and thus already on ones PC). However there is never any harm in trying. I had assumed that since this question was being asked that the solution was not going to be that easy, but it is always easy to miss the obvious.

My suggestion of using iPhone backup Extractor can be useful for getting files out of iTunes backups that are otherwise not easily accessible. It has saved me a number of times when I have done a restore on my iPad and forgotten to first back up some important data outside iTunes.