Calibre Library Management Basics & Kindle Troubleshooting

Sunshine82 · 03-31-2022, 09:15 PM

Hi, all.

I'm a new Kindle and Calibre user. I have a few miscellaneous questions that I'll group together because I don't know otherwise how to title and distinguish them.

I recently tried manually backing up my Kindle and Calibre library to my external hard drive. After doing so, I noticed that there appears to be empty folders without any corresponding files. In some cases, it appears that my manual backup failed to capture some of the ebooks.

1) Is it possible for a manual backup to fail to capture all of the related ebooks and metadata (i.e., copying files from within the Calibre backup folder in order to paste them into a folder elsewhere)? If so why and how can I avoid this in the future?

2) Is there a best practice for managing one's Calibre library? Although I'm assuming there are various ways to do so, I'd prefer to keep things as simple, safe and efficient as possible. Does Calibre interact differently when linking to a library stored in an external hard drive than within its own internal Calibre library system? (Other than converted ebooks being stored by default within the internal Calibre library, is there any change?)

3) How is the storage of ebook metadata stored within Calibre? Is metadata changed or lost if the library is moved? (I'm trying to find a stable file management system for the long-term.) I noticed that after my manual backup, when I re-imported ebooks into my Kindle, all of the metadata (notes and highlights) were lost. Does that mean the metadata is linked only temporarily and locally within the reader itself? Is there a best practice for handling metadata backups/transfers?

4) Lastly, the wild-card question, for Kindle users, is the Clippings folder supposed to be stored visibly within one's Kindle library? When I open my Kindle and inspect my downloaded ebooks, I see my Clippings folder displayed visibly besides my ebooks. I don't recall if it appeared there before my manual library backup; is this correct?

Thanks for the help!

ownedbycats · 03-31-2022, 11:31 PM

2: Far as I'm aware, regular external drives should work fine; I believe there's a few members here who use them. But you don't want to put the library on an NAS as there's filesystem quirks that will result in eventual data loss.

3: In the library folder, there's metadata.db. This is a very important file as it stores all the information. But if it gets lost/damaged, Calibre does have a backup system with the metadata.opf files stored in the book folders. Treat your library folder as a black box. If you need to move it, move the entire thing.

I'm not a Kindle user, so I can't respond to those questions.

03-31-2022, 09:15 PM	#1
Sunshine82 Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2022 Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Calibre Library Management Basics & Kindle Troubleshooting Hi, all. I'm a new Kindle and Calibre user. I have a few miscellaneous questions that I'll group together because I don't know otherwise how to title and distinguish them. I recently tried manually backing up my Kindle and Calibre library to my external hard drive. After doing so, I noticed that there appears to be empty folders without any corresponding files. In some cases, it appears that my manual backup failed to capture some of the ebooks. 1) Is it possible for a manual backup to fail to capture all of the related ebooks and metadata (i.e., copying files from within the Calibre backup folder in order to paste them into a folder elsewhere)? If so why and how can I avoid this in the future? 2) Is there a best practice for managing one's Calibre library? Although I'm assuming there are various ways to do so, I'd prefer to keep things as simple, safe and efficient as possible. Does Calibre interact differently when linking to a library stored in an external hard drive than within its own internal Calibre library system? (Other than converted ebooks being stored by default within the internal Calibre library, is there any change?) 3) How is the storage of ebook metadata stored within Calibre? Is metadata changed or lost if the library is moved? (I'm trying to find a stable file management system for the long-term.) I noticed that after my manual backup, when I re-imported ebooks into my Kindle, all of the metadata (notes and highlights) were lost. Does that mean the metadata is linked only temporarily and locally within the reader itself? Is there a best practice for handling metadata backups/transfers? 4) Lastly, the wild-card question, for Kindle users, is the Clippings folder supposed to be stored visibly within one's Kindle library? When I open my Kindle and inspect my downloaded ebooks, I see my Clippings folder displayed visibly besides my ebooks. I don't recall if it appeared there before my manual library backup; is this correct? Thanks for the help!

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03-31-2022, 11:31 PM	#2
ownedbycats Custom User Title Posts: 10,974 Karma: 75337983 Join Date: Oct 2018 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H2O, formerly Aura HD	2: Far as I'm aware, regular external drives should work fine; I believe there's a few members here who use them. But you don't want to put the library on an NAS as there's filesystem quirks that will result in eventual data loss. 3: In the library folder, there's metadata.db. This is a very important file as it stores all the information. But if it gets lost/damaged, Calibre does have a backup system with the metadata.opf files stored in the book folders. Treat your library folder as a black box. If you need to move it, move the entire thing. I'm not a Kindle user, so I can't respond to those questions.

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