How long have you been using Calibre?

[Dopedangel]

My current calibre library oldest added books are from 2nd Aug 2009. I might have deleted and created a few calibre libraries before that but this is what I settled with.

[capink]

I first installed calibre to use the command line interface to convert some books, maybe back in 2013. Would use is once every few months to convert a book for the following 3-4 years.

Once my book collection grew and it became difficult to manage. I started playing with calibre GUI. Wasn't sure I could let go of my folder structure and replace it with calibre.

It did not take long to start asking myself how the heck did I overlook calibre for managing my book collection. And before long, I started using calibre as generic collection manager for everything, not just books.

Never gets old thanking Kovid, chaley and the rest of calibre and plugins devs for an awesome piece of software.

[pdurrant]

I long wanted a MacOS ebook manager

This message from August 2008 shows I was aware of calibre at the time, but hadn't adopted it.

I was clearly trying it out in early 2009

And by March 2009, I must have been using it myself, as I was recommending it to others.

So I probably started using calibre in January 2009.

I can't use the date column in calibre to tell, because I use it for the date I bought a book. First one there is Jan 2002, so I'd been buying books for seven years before I started using calibre. (So my initial calibre library was around 1500 books!)

Sixteen years on I've added about another 3500.


Oh - any anyone who likes and uses calibre and can afford to should subscribe to Kovid's Patreon account.

https://www.patreon.com/c/kovidgoyal/

[Poppaea]

It was actually the reason why I joined. I was trying to figure out the DRM thingy 😉, which lead me to mobileread. It took me a lot of years until I learned enough about it, to be able to have it setting up my collections. I think until I got my Aura One in 2016.

I still would file each book into a collection manually on my reader, if Jon the wolf, who looks like a pug and DavidFor hadn't been nice and patient enough to walk me through it.

So thank you, Kovid, for Calibre. And thank you to all, who take the time to answer questions. 🤗

[Daniel Jackson]

For the first time on January 26, 2018. I can pinpoint that exact date because I needed the software for a single one-time purpose and I just followed a tutorial. I had purchased an eBook with a lot of pictures (custom Lego instructions) and wanted to convert it to a DRM-free PDF for better viewing on my iPad. So the tutorial had me install Calibre and DeDRM plugin. I was following the tutorial without really knowing what any of it meant. But it worked. After that, I didn't need or use Calibre for years.
Only when I got my first reader for Christmas 2021 and going through tutorials and recommendations, I discovered what Calibre really was and what it could do. And now I love it, it's awesome software.

[chaley]

I started using calibre in Jan 2010 after I bought a Sony PRS 300. I started doing calibre development in April 2010.

[toomuchreading]

I started using Calibre late in 2009 when I bought my first ereader which was a Sony PRS505. I remember I didn't even install the Sony software. After everything that I had read about the Sony software and Calibre for loading books onto my reader, I just installed Calibre and have been using it ever since.
For anyone with an ereader, I always recommend Calibre instead of the software that came with it. My Mom who is slowly loosing her eyesight, and is pretty much computer illiterate uses Calibre to load books onto her ereader without issues. It's that easy to use.
Calibre is just that rock solid in terms of reliability and that user friendly that anyone can use it successfully 'right out of the box' with minimal setup.
I have to say a big THANK YOU KOVID for taking the time to develop Calibre and listening to your users. There a not a lot of programmers out there who actually listen to what their users are saying.

[nqk]

I started using Calibre in 2013 or 2014, can't say for sure, by accident, when a friend of mine wanted help to convert some of his mobi files to epub. I started my ebook reading then with Kindle and Kobo devices.

Since the Content Server viewer was developed and improved, I've been using it more and more for reading. I once thought Calibre Companion would become a reader, but it never happened and was sold and was uninstalled on my devices.

So far, I use Fully Kiosk Browser (Water Fox) + Calibre Content Server to read books but still looking forward to a dedicated app for the Content Server (for better cache management and offline reading).

Thank you Kovid for everything.


Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk

[Capricorn]

I started using Calibre sometime in the 2011-2012 timeframe. At first, the whole interface and the logic behind it threw me completely, and I nearly gave up on it. On the day I was going to try for the last time to understand Calibre, it all came together for me, and it just clicked. Lucky me. Since then, I have used it regularly, with a huge learning curve over the years with epub, hmtl, formatting, and of course those pesky regexes. But very happy I have spent the time learning it all. And still learning....

Thanks for a brilliant piece of software, that is a permanent companion to my love of books.

[LMx7ng10]

I started using Calibre in 2010, shortly after Sony switched from the BBeB/LRX format to EPUB. I used it to back up Sony PRS-500 files and keep track of them. Having books that you could not see on a shelf was a new experience, and Calibre filled an important need.

Let me add to the many thanks to Kovid Goyal for all the work he has done and made public for everyone to benefit from!

[Desertway]

Must have been 2010, just when I got my Kindle Keyboard. My only goal was to get a "ragged right" before it became an option on a later model. Little did I know how central it would become to library management over the next 15 years.

[DNSB]

My reason for using calibre before owning an ereader was that my original ebook collection was stored in directories. I wasted so much time in trying to create a directory structure that made finding books by multiple authors, in a series, etc. possible. Even the early version of calibre just made life so much easier so I could read instead of trying to find a book to read.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My reason for using calibre before owning an ereader was that my original ebook collection was stored in directories. I wasted so much time in trying to create a directory structure that made finding books by multiple authors, in a series, etc. possible. Even the early version of calibre just made life so much easier so I could read instead of trying to find a book to read.

I remember storing downloaded fanfics in a directory structure. Ugh.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I remember storing downloaded fanfics in a directory structure. Ugh.

For a couple of years I just dumped all my ebooks in one huge folder, without bothering to sort them. Suddenly I discovered I had more than a thousand and finding anything was next to impossible...

[JSWolf]

I used to do the directory structure. It was by main genre and then by main author.