KindleUnpack (MobiUnpack): Extracts text, images and metadata from Kindle/Mobi files

[GalacticHull]

This may have been covered, but I cannot find in a search.

When I unpack an azw to epub, I get wildly different file sizes with the same settings. At this moment, a 2mb azw will become a 30mb to 50mb epub. Excluding HD images has no effect. Also, files I ran through both yesterday and today seem to have size differences of 2mb - 15mb with the very same settings.

What am I missing? (If this has already been addressed, please do point me to the post!)

Thank you kindly.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by GalacticHull

This may have been covered, but I cannot find in a search.

When I unpack an azw to epub, I get wildly different file sizes with the same settings. At this moment, a 2mb azw will become a 30mb to 50mb epub. Excluding HD images has no effect. Also, files I ran through both yesterday and today seem to have size differences of 2mb - 15mb with the very same settings.

What am I missing? (If this has already been addressed, please do point me to the post!)

Thank you kindly.

No idea. But you can unzip the epub and see which are the big files. It's not like ePub is some proprietary closed format that has to be reverse engineered.

[GalacticHull]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No idea. But you can unzip the epub and see which are the big files. It's not like ePub is some proprietary closed format that has to be reverse engineered.

The obvious thing to do. Thank you

It seems as though that kindle unpack ads to the container images from the previous title unpacked. Hence, each title is larger than the previous.

I must delete the mobi7 folder with the images before unpacking a new title, or use a different folder for each title. But yes, one title was carrying the previous 30 titles images. Making in 90mb compared to the azw 737k.

Can be worked around, so great.

[DiapDealer]

You always want to unpack to an empty folder. KindleUnpack won't clean up a previous unpack for you.

[Arvee]

Ok so I'm having issues. It's taken a while but I've gotten it open - essentially I'm looking to split any possible KF8/MOBI hybrids to sort the metadata out on my Fire. However when running I get an error. This is the output in the conversion log (with ... substituted for the folder strings):

Input Path = "D:...\Sharpe's Honour - Bernard Cornwell.mobi"
Output Path = "D:...\Unpack"
Split Combo KF8 Kindle eBooks = True
Epub Output Type Set To: Auto-detect
Please Wait ...
Error: Unpacking Failed

I'm pretty sure this will be an issue on my part, but please can you help? [Epub output set to auto-detect, in case that makes a difference].

[DiapDealer]

It's going to pretty hard to help if that's the only error message. If that's truly the only message, then I suspect there's a Python problem on your system.

Have you been able to unpack any kindlebooks successfully with KindleUnpack before?

1) make sure you're using the very latest version on Kindleunpack (first post in this thread)
2) check the "Dump Mode" box to enable as much output as possible.
3) make sure the mobi in question hasn't had its metadata altered by other scripts. There are some out there that can damage a kindlebook under the guise of "extra cleaning."

[Arvee]

That's truly my only error message. I've tried with five or so of my MOBI files so far, but haven't had success with any of them - if I'm honest it took me ages to work out how to install/run KindleUnpack but now I'm using the ActiveState Python on Windows 10 and it opens up just fine. I tried with Dump Mode and got no extra info/errors.

I don't know if this helps but I have been able to unpack the files through the Calibre plugin, but having tried unsuccessfully for nearly and hour to split the MOBI/KF8 decided to try the Python version?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Arvee

That's truly my only error message. I've tried with five or so of my MOBI files so far, but haven't had success with any of them - if I'm honest it took me ages to work out how to install/run KindleUnpack but now I'm using the ActiveState Python on Windows 10 and it opens up just fine. I tried with Dump Mode and got no extra info/errors.

That definitely sounds like a Python issue of some kind to me. The gui front-end is a separate program that calls the main kindleunpack code as a subprocess. So it doesn't surprise me that the gui would launch. The times I've gotten that very unhelpful (and immediate) error message is when the gui is unsuccessful in launching the subprocess.

Originally Posted by Arvee

I don't know if this helps but I have been able to unpack the files through the Calibre plugin, but having tried unsuccessfully for nearly and hour to split the MOBI/KF8 decided to try the Python version?

Do you get errors when trying to split with the calibre plugin version? Are you certain the book IS a dual-format mobi in the first place? You only get dual-format mobis from using Kindlegen or KindlePreviewer to create a Kindlebook.

[Arvee]

EDIT: I have no idea what I've done, but it's just split them using the Python version

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Do you get errors when trying to split with the calibre plugin version?

I don't even seem to have the option. I thought at first that it was a pure MOBI and not combined KF8/MOBI - hence not getting the option to split it - but I was having issues with the metadata on Calibre not transferring onto the Kindle which seems only to be attributable to the MOBI being combined... Sorry to be a pain!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Arvee

[B]Sorry to be a pain!

Not at all. All's well that ends well.

[Julius Caesar]

Does KindleUnpack basically convert Kindle format to ePub format? Once unpacked, can it be read by any ePub reader including Apple iBooks app?

[KevinH]

In general, yes, I do this all the time. It works for .mobi and .azw3 kindle ebooks without DRM. It will not work for DRM'd ebooks, or KFX ebooks. If kindlegen was passed an epub to create the kindle ebook, then you get a nice epub out of KindleUnpack. But if Kindlegen was passed a horrible ebook format to create the kindle format, the kindleunpack version may need some slight edits to make a fully compliant epub

[DiapDealer]

Note that the standalone KindleUnpack tool does not create an epub from the older MOBI7 format. For those, it simply produces an html file and an opf file. Only the KF8 format (or the Kindlegen dual format mobis) will result in epubs being created when unpacked.

The KindleImport Sigil plugin will do its best to massage a coherent epub (using KindleUnpack) from these older mobi7 files if you need that kind of functionality. Otherwise you'll have to do it manually.

[jhowell]

I have encountered a bug in kindleunpack 0.80 in the handling of SVG images. This is not really a problem for me. I just noticed something wrong and thought I should report it.

An SVG image linked from HTML seems to round-trip properly.
EPUB original:
<p><img src="squares.svg" alt="check.svg"/></p>
Converted to MOBI using kindlegen and back to EPUB using kindleunpack:
<p><img src="../Images/svgimg0001.svg" alt="check.svg"/></p>

However the round trip fails for the SVG referenced as a URL from a CSS stylesheet.
EPUB original:
background-image: url("squares.svg");
Converted to MOBI using kindlegen and back to EPUB using kindleunpack:
background-image: url(kindle:flow:0001?mime=image/svg+xml);

Using a GIF image instead of SVG works properly in both cases.

The original EPUB, the MOBI created by kindlegen, and the recreated EPUB from kindleunpack are attached.

[KevinH]

Thanks for the bug report and test case.