need option to remove iTunesMetadata.plist from epub files

[jchrist]

Hi there,

I got a collection of free ebooks from a friend, which they had already put into iTunes, and thus iTunes has added an iTunesMetadata.plist file into the epub.

However, the metadata in that file is wrong, or at least not what I would choose.

For instance, I have a book where I've edited the title in calibre to be "On Basilisk Station", (the actual title) instead of what's in the iTunesMetadata.plist file "On Basilisk Station: The First Honor Harrington Novel", and I've set the series and book number appropriately as well.

I have about 35 books which I've edited the metadata in a similar fashion. Everything shows up perfectly in calibre.

However, when I connect to iTunes and add those books to my iTunes library, the iTunes driver uses the pre-existing iTunesMetadata.plist file instead of creating a new one with the current metadata, so the books show up in iTunes with the old, incorrect metadata.

Basically, if an epub already has that .plist file, it can not be used to edit iTunes' metadata as the original file rules.

As I use calibre primarily as an organizational/management tool for iTunes this is somewhat of a problem.

Is there a feature which will remove a pre-existing iTunesMetadata.plist file from epub files? If not, can such a feature be created?

I could manually unzip each file, remove the .plist and then re-zip them, but that's a laborious and error-prone process, and I don't imagine I'm the only one who has or will have this problem.

Thanks,
Jon

[Manichean]

I'd look into writing a shellscript/ batch file using a command-line zip utility. For example, on Windows using 7zip, the following should achieve what you want:

for %1 in (*.epub) do 7z d "%1" iTunesMetadata.plist

That, saved as .bat, should cycle through every .epub in the current directory and remove the iTunes metadata file. Though, as a word of warning: This isn't tested, so there might be errors before it works, but the principle should be right.

[GRiker]

Originally Posted by jchrist

Hi there,
Is there a feature which will remove a pre-existing iTunesMetadata.plist file from epub files? If not, can such a feature be created?

The Apple driver is designed to delete the existing iTunesMetadata.plist file before sending the ePub to iTunes. In looking at the code, it's possible that there are some scenarios in which the delete would not happen, based on your iTunes settings. Please create a debug trace as described in the first post of this thread, and create a ticket so I can look at the execution path.

G

[Coleccionista]

What Manichean said is probably the best way to quickly delete the plist file from all of the epubs.
You might also want to delete the iTunesArtWork file that may be present.

A word of warning though, through my extensive experience with manipulation of iTunesMetadata files and epubs I'd recommend zip.exe instead of 7zip (zip -d)

Over a couple of thousand books 7z complained in a high percentage of files of being unable to "open/write/update/etc" the epub while zip worked perfectly fine.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Coleccionista

What Manichean said is probably the best way to quickly delete the plist file from all of the epubs.
You might also want to delete the iTunesArtWork file that may be present.

A word of warning though, through my extensive experience with manipulation of iTunesMetadata files and epubs I'd recommend zip.exe instead of 7zip (zip -d)

Over a couple of thousand books 7z complained in a high percentage of files of being unable to "open/write/update/etc" the epub while zip worked perfectly fine.

The reason I picked 7zip is because I have no other compression programs installed. I've only actually tried to open ePubs once or twice.
You should probably add which program zip.exe is part of, though. I'm guessing Winzip.

[Coleccionista]

For zip.exe see this very forum

Where do I find zip.exe?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69965

JSWolf post provide a direct download link for zip & unzip.