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Old 11-07-2017, 01:59 PM   #1
Shaggydog
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Calibre Folder Names in a Library

When adding a new book to a Calibre library, the author is used as the name of the folder. When adding new books by the same author, the name sometimes get transposed and ends up creating a new folder with the transposed name. For example, books that I have added by Lee Child have ended up with two folders in the Calibre library – “Child, Lee” and “Lee Child”. Short of editing the ebook html and making sure the author reference is the same for all the books, is there an easy way to merge two folders in a Calibre library? I would like all of “Child, Lee” merged with the “Lee Child” folder.

I have edited the metadata author, copied the book to a temporary folder, removed the book and then added it back into Calibre. It still uses the author name I am trying to eliminate.
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Old 11-07-2017, 03:00 PM   #2
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Calibre will always place a book in a folder using the name that it wants to use, period. The trick is to influence calibre in such a way that it wants to use the name style you prefer.

Likely the best/easiest way to influence calibre is to edit the metadata using calibre's Edit Metadata dialog after the book is added to the library. By changing the Author field and the Author Sort field to match the fields in the other book that calibre has placed in the folder you prefer (e.g. Lee Child).

In general, you should not be concerned with the folders calibre creates, but it is generally a good idea that a particular author is always listed the same in each of that author's books. I prefer to use the Tag Browser panel to look for authors that are listed multiple times. When I find one, I right-click on one of the author listing and select Manage Authors. There I can edit the Author and Author_Sort fields so that each author is listed consistently.

Last edited by dwig; 11-07-2017 at 03:19 PM.
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Old 11-08-2017, 12:13 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggydog View Post
“Child, Lee” and “Lee Child”. Short of editing the ebook html and making sure the author reference is the same for all the books, is there an easy way to merge two folders in a Calibre library? I would like all of “Child, Lee” merged with the “Lee Child” folder.

I have edited the metadata author, copied the book to a temporary folder, removed the book and then added it back into Calibre. It still uses the author name I am trying to eliminate.
The folders always use the Author metadata field. If after you ensure you have corrected the author metadata field you still have an aberrant folder check to see if the book is listed in both folders. Some times if you have the book or cover open the files will be copied to the new location but the old folder won't be deleted due to the OS preventing the deletion because it is in use.

Run library maintenance and see what it reports.
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Old 11-10-2017, 04:18 PM   #4
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Thank you DWIG and DoctorOhh. You both are right, but I was not looking at the folder to see if there was a change after matching the Author and Author Sort fields. I had one folder with one book of the SD Tanner author and a bunch of books in a folder Tanner, SD. I changed the SD Tanner author fields to the Tanner, SD and exited Calibre. I then looked at the folders in the library. Calibre moved the one book to the other folder and deleted the SD Tanner folder. I probably was accomplishing what I wanted but wasn't checking the folder contents to see if the book had been moved. Seeing the folder I assumed it was still there, but it probably had a second book with mismatched author fields.

Once again, thank you for the tips.
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Old 11-10-2017, 05:14 PM   #5
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It’s as well to regard the Calibre library as a “black box”. If you want to get at your books, use the “Save to Disk” or “Send to Device” options in Calibre, rather than looking at the library folders.
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Old 11-17-2017, 11:02 AM   #6
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Being a computer science major, I am aware of the database concept that Calibre uses and let Calibre completely manage its folders.

I get books from a variety of places. The Amazon purchases are in “My Kindle Books” and all others go in “My ebooks” folders. The Caliber library is in its own folder. The books are then added to the Calibre library, using Calibre, from the other folders. The problem occurs when the ebook sources for a given author are different and the author name is reversed from the other ebooks by the same author.
Calibre then uses that to create a separate folder. An example would be “Pendleton, Don” versus “Don Pendleton”. When I update my ereader, I use a MS Surface 3, I use Calibre to write the ebooks to a network disk and then update the Calibre library on the MS Surface 3 with those epub books exported by Calibre.

I had tried the solutions mentioned above, but they didn’t seem to work. My problem was basically me. I would make a change and then check to see if the folder issues were resolved. Seeing the folders still there I assumed the changes didn’t work. Dumb mistake on my part. I should have checked the contents of the folder. I would have seen the one I wanted to go away was empty and the changes did work.

I haven’t found a way to have Calibre clean up empty folders.

Bottomline, you are right HarryT, don’t mess with the database unless you know what you are doing and have the software to do so.
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Old 11-17-2017, 02:36 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggydog View Post
Being a computer science major, I am aware of the database concept that Calibre uses and let Calibre completely manage its folders.

I get books from a variety of places. The Amazon purchases are in “My Kindle Books” and all others go in “My ebooks” folders. The Caliber library is in its own folder. The books are then added to the Calibre library, using Calibre, from the other folders. The problem occurs when the ebook sources for a given author are different and the author name is reversed from the other ebooks by the same author.
Calibre then uses that to create a separate folder. An example would be “Pendleton, Don” versus “Don Pendleton”. When I update my ereader, I use a MS Surface 3, I use Calibre to write the ebooks to a network disk and then update the Calibre library on the MS Surface 3 with those epub books exported by Calibre.

I had tried the solutions mentioned above, but they didn’t seem to work. My problem was basically me. I would make a change and then check to see if the folder issues were resolved. Seeing the folders still there I assumed the changes didn’t work. Dumb mistake on my part. I should have checked the contents of the folder. I would have seen the one I wanted to go away was empty and the changes did work.

I haven’t found a way to have Calibre clean up empty folders.

Bottomline, you are right HarryT, don’t mess with the database unless you know what you are doing and have the software to do so.
If a folder is left behind, then something (Explorer?) still had a hook on it.
Selecting all books, then Copy to Library (a new, empty library) Delete after copy
is the way with a possible downside. last_modified gets set to now()
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Old 11-17-2017, 08:21 PM   #8
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Quote:
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I haven’t found a way to have Calibre clean up empty folders.
Again, run library maintenance and see what it reports. It allows you to check the folder structure and files against what is in the database. I tested this with an empty folder and it found it and allowed me to delete it.
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Old 11-24-2017, 11:37 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks View Post
If a folder is left behind, then something (Explorer?) still had a hook on it.
Selecting all books, then Copy to Library (a new, empty library) Delete after copy
is the way with a possible downside. last_modified gets set to now()
Yes. You are correct. I have encountered that issue. It usually comes about due to Windows Explorer being open and its focus is the folder in question.
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Old 11-24-2017, 12:03 PM   #10
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Again, run library maintenance and see what it reports. It allows you to check the folder structure and files against what is in the database. I tested this with an empty folder and it found it and allowed me to delete it.
I have been playing around with this issue relative to Calibre fixing it automatically. I find usually, not all the time, that the Author name is different (usually reversed) when Calibre creates a second folder for the same author. As mentioned previously, by changing the Author name and then exiting Calibre, the files are moved to the proper folder. But that does not work 100% of the time.

I find by selecting all books for an Author, “Editing Metadata in Bulk” and then changing the Author name to the format I want, Calibre will always transfer all books to the correct folder.

Let’s say you have two folders, “Doe, John and John Doe.” Five books are in “Doe, John” and three books are in “John Doe.” Select all, edit metadata in bulk, type “Doe, John” in the author field and apply. The three books in “John Doe” will have been moved to “Doe, John” and the “John Doe” folder deleted unless it was locked by another program.

A nice side benefit to this is the elimination of duplicates. Calibre will not move duplicates to the new folder. They will remain in the old folder. I tried this process on an author with 207 books in two folders. The “John Doe” folder had 15 books in it. After editing metadata in bulk it had 7 books left. I checked each one and found out it was a duplicate. I have tried other Authors and it works every time.
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Old 11-24-2017, 12:43 PM   #11
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In Preferences under Import/Export - Adding Books, I have the following unchecked: Read metadata from file contents rather than file name. Before I add books, I make sure the filenames are the way I want them (using a simple structure like this: title - first name last name.epub), so Calibre will add books using the filenames.
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Old 02-05-2018, 09:14 PM   #12
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I have searched but can't find a solution to the problem I am experiencing.
The library is missing certain option tabs. Once I click on the library tab, the drop down is missing quick switch, rename library and remove library.
I have Calibre for windows 64 bit version 3.16.0 installed.
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Old 02-05-2018, 09:44 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wakabe View Post
I have searched but can't find a solution to the problem I am experiencing.
The library is missing certain option tabs. Once I click on the library tab, the drop down is missing quick switch, rename library and remove library.
I have Calibre for windows 64 bit version 3.16.0 installed.
They are not there because you only have ONE library (registered).
Use Create/Switch: use existing to register additional Libraries
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Old 02-05-2018, 11:02 PM   #14
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Thank you, this has been driving me crazy. I had various virtual libraries set up but only one registered library. All sorted thanks again..
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