iPad calibre + iPad = books duplicate to iTunes

[Ivy]

Hello,

I am using calibre with my Sony Reader and I have had no problems with it. However, I recently loaded some books on my father's iPad and I found that all of those books have been copied to my iTunes book folder. The result is me having the same books saved at 2 different places on my computer, one in the calibre library and one in the iTunes library.

Is there any way to stop this from happening? If I load a book on the iPad via calibre, I'd like it to stay there and not get copied to iTunes.

[GRiker]

Read this post in the calibre forum, it explains how to configure iTunes so that it doesn't copy the book files.

G

[Ivy]

Thank you so much!

I had already given up hope

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Edit:
I'm guessing you mean this step:

In iTunes Preferences|Advanced, uncheck Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. This tells iTunes to use calibre's copies of your books.

But if I do that, my music will not get copied into the iTunes once I play it, which is what I like it to do.

I guess I can't have it both ways, can I? Either it copies stuff or it doesn't. No way to teach it to handle different file extensions differently?

[NightBird]

But if I do that, my music will not get copied into the iTunes once I play it, which is what I like it to do.

I guess I can't have it both ways, can I? Either it copies stuff or it doesn't. No way to teach it to handle different file extensions differently?

Yes, you can. Music is separate from books. Where do you buy your music from? I would imagine if from Apple it would automatically import it to iTunes. If from Amazon, there is setting in the Amazon downloader that lets you tell it what program to import it to (include iTunes).

[Ivy]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Yes, you can. Music is separate from books. Where do you buy your music from? I would imagine if from Apple it would automatically import it to iTunes. If from Amazon, there is setting in the Amazon downloader that lets you tell it what program to import it to (include iTunes).

Yes, it's no problem when I get it from iTunes.

From Croatian stores or some indie artists I get the link to the music, download it and (at the moment) just open it with iTunes, it gets automatically copied in the right folder, the file names even get renamed to follow [Song number] [Song title].mp3 structure.

I am afraid that if I unclick "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" that will stop happening.


If you could tell me how to tell iTunes to yes, go ahead and copy files to the Media folder when adding music, but no, don't do the same with books... I'd be very grateful.

[NightBird]

Hi Ivy:

I understand what you are saying, but once you uncheck that item you can control individual types of items being imported into iTunes by controlling from the source of the items rather than from iTunes. When you are downloading from the Indie sites and have the "Copy to iTunes" checked, even though it seems like you are just opening the song into iTunes it is actually being copied from somewhere else also, just like the books. In other words, your song is being downloaded to another folder on your computer and being copied from there into iTunes, even though this process seems seamless from your point of view, and you actually have 2 copies of each song on your computer also. So the thing is to find out where this folder is that the songs are being copied to and just dragging that into the iTunes folder. If there is a program that is downloading these songs, similar to the Amazon Downloader, you can just change it from there. I'm really not clear how that works since I have never done that, so you will have to check that on your end.

From the Help file in iTunes under Add music,video and more - ways to add items:

To export files from other applications directly to your iTunes library:
In the exporting application, set the destination folder as Computer\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\”Automatically Add to iTunes.”

So just look at or set up the folder where you are storing your Indie music like that. Try one song and see how it goes.

Just try it by unchecking it, because it won't hurt anything. If it doesn't work for you, you can just recheck it again.