How to completely hide preloaded ebooks from Kobo?

[shyhermit]

The new Kobo Clara and Libra (like the older models) comes with a bunch of preloaded ebooks.

In the main menu, I can restrict to see only my books to easily filter those books out under the Books tab. However, is there a way to filter those preloaded ebooks from the Authors and Series tabs as well?

I thought about permanently deleting those books. But the hack previously described in this forum involves tricky bits of sqlite db editing.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

That’s exactly what I did, I deleted these books from the DB with a query.

[shyhermit]

Trying to see if there is a less drastic solution. Perhaps there is switch in the preference config or a command function to run inside NickelMenu that can just "hide" them without actually deleting them. This way it is easily reversible.

Originally Posted by DJUNGELSKOG

That’s exactly what I did, I deleted these books from the DB with a query.

[Aleron Ives]

What books did you get? My Libra 2 didn't come with any preloaded books. I've yet to figure out why some devices come with built-in books and others don't.

[shyhermit]

There were a few dozens. Some were commercial previews, some were public domain full text. They were also multilingual. Different subjects. No idea why these were chosen. The problem is that these preloaded books pollute the Authors and Series tabs and can't be easily separated. Therefore, I am looking for a simple way to "hide" them but do not want to resort to use the nuclear option of directly editing the sql db just to delete them.

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

What books did you get? My Libra 2 didn't come with any preloaded books. I've yet to figure out why some devices come with built-in books and others don't.

[JSWolf]

Connect the Kobo to the computer with calibre running. Then you should be able to delete the books/previews you don't want.

[shamanNS]

IIRC for Calibre to list those previews and stuff you fist need to change a setting somewhere in Kobo driver settings.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

IIRC for Calibre to list those previews and stuff you fist need to change a setting somewhere in Kobo driver settings.

In the KoboTouchExtended driver, it's in the Metadata, on device & advanced tab. Under Show as on device you want to check Show archived books and Show previews.

That's my guess if settings need to be changed.

[shyhermit]

I don't use Calibre. Any non-Calibre solution? Also, is there a "reversible" solution so that in case I want those books back that they are not permanently deleted? That was why I was asking a way to just "hide" them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shyhermit

I don't use Calibre. Any non-Calibre solution? Also, is there a "reversible" solution so that in case I want those books back that they are not permanently deleted? That was why I was asking a way to just "hide" them.

I don't think you can hide them. I think the best you can do is to move them off of your Kobo to your computer.

[PeterT]

Maybe try Kobo Desktop? It has the ability to show books on the device.

[Aleron Ives]

Where are the books stored? Presumably you could connect over USB and move them to your PC.

[shyhermit]

I thought about that too. The problem is that once they are moved I still need to edit the sql database to remove their references otherwise there will be errors on the menu screen as Kobo thinks that the books still exist. This creates more problems than it solves. I have always sideloaded quite a number of my own books to the Libra. So editing the database will be risky as I do not want to corrupt my own collection.

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Where are the books stored? Presumably you could connect over USB and move them to your PC.

[Aleron Ives]

You don't have the option to delete the preloaded books from the My Books menu? You could copy them to the PC and then delete them locally on the device, rather than moving them.

[shyhermit]

Though I can't be certain, I presume all of the preloaded books are DRM protected using Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) platform.

Merely copying them to the PC will not back them up due to DRM. Deleting them from My Books menu will mean permanent deletion, with no way to recover them which is not what I want.

I read from some very old threads that some users have successfully backed up their SQL database and the directories with the books to save them. However, this technique is based on very old firmware running on old devices. I am not confident enough to try them out on my device, especially when I have already sideloaded a lot of my own books. The database may get corrupted during the modification.

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

You don't have the option to delete the preloaded books from the My Books menu? You could copy them to the PC and then delete them locally on the device, rather than moving them.