StoneSoup

Q: How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

Apple listens if enough people complain.  If you hate the current implementation of iBooks, send Apple feedback here:

 

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks.html

 

 

I'm starting this thread as a central place to collect ways of either:

 

A. Preventing a conversion from iTunes to iBooks

 

B. Reverting back to iTunes after a conversion

 

Here's what I've seen in the community so far:

 

Kevin Edgecomb's solution for reverting back:

 

Re: Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

 

Andy Epprecht's solution for reverting back, building on Kevin's:

 

Re: Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

 

Any other solutions for prevention or reversion?

Posted on Oct 26, 2013 8:06 PM

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Q: How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

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  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Apr 18, 2015 7:08 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 18, 2015 7:08 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    checked them out and the EPUBs were in the Container Folder, but all my PDF's were located in the iTunes Media folder, which was a bit weird.

    So I deleted the ones from the Container Folder and re-imported from another source and lo and behold they are stored now in the iTunes folder!

    Can I safely delete this folder now? ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books? If so, what do I delete? /iBooks/Books or more than that? Do I delete all the way back to com.apple.BKAgentService? I'm not sure if it is still needed.

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 8:13 AM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 8:13 AM in response to craigriches

    If you're sure everything is in the other location then you can do:

     

       sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

       sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 8:26 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 8:26 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    So it's basically:

     

    1. osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'
    2. pkill com.apple.BKAgentService
    3. rm /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
    4. [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]
    5. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
    6. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
    7. [empty the trash]
    8. [reopen iTunes]

     

    (Steps 1,2,3,5 & 6 can be done in the terminal, steps 4,7 & 8 are manual)

     

    As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Apr 18, 2015 8:59 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 18, 2015 8:59 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    If you're sure everything is in the other location then you can do:

     

       sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

       sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

     

    I tried these commands in Terminal only to be told "is a directory" after typing in my admin password???

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 9:08 AM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 9:08 AM in response to craigriches

    oops.

     

    sorry, missed out a rather important '-r'

     

    should just need:

     

    rm -r ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService


    DOH!

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 9:21 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 9:21 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    So it's basically:

     

    1. osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'
    2. pkill com.apple.BKAgentService
    3. rm /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
    4. [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]
    5. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
    6. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
    7. sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
    8. open /Applications/iTunes.app

     

    (Step 4 is manual, the rest can be done from the terminal, not sure if there is a good way to fully remove an app from the CLI, you could just delete it but AppZapper is better and finds a few other items that are worth removing. There is probably some CLI version of one of them somewhere. When I find one I can make all the steps scriptable :-) )

     

    As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Apr 18, 2015 9:58 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 18, 2015 9:58 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    Sounds a bit scary!! I have read too many nightmare scenarios about  running the command rm -r

    If I do what you suggest, I will also delete the contents of the Data folder, which includes

    Desktop (alias folder)

    Documents/iBooks/Books

    Documents/iBooks/Downloads

    Documents/iBooks/Temporary

    Documents/iBooks/Updates

    iChats (alias file)

    Downloads (alias folder)

    Library (Folder containing multiple sub folders - too many to write here)

    Movies (alias folder)

    Music (alias folder with iTunes subfolder)

    Pictures (alias folder with subfolders)


    Is this a safe thing to initiate?


    Sorry, I am a bit of a newbie in regard to this


  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 10:12 AM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 10:12 AM in response to craigriches

    The container is just for that service - which you are no longer running so you can remove it safely.

     

    The easiest way if you are worried (and don't have a backup), is to open a finder window then press CMD+SHIFT+G, in the 'Go to the folder' field enter ~/Library/Containers/ then press GO. Now find the folder com.apple.BKAgentService and click it (single click only, just to select it), now right click to get the context menu. Firstly choose 'Compress "com.apple.BKAgentService"', after a short while you will have a file called com.apple.BKAgentService.zip, if you want to restore the folder just double-click it (not now). Again select the folder com.apple.BKAgentService right-click and this time choose 'Move to Trash'. The folder com.apple.BKAgentService will disappear, if you open your trashcan (far right in the dock - just click it) then you will see it's in there.

     

    Make sure everything is okay. Try iTunes. Make sure nothing vanished from your desktop ;-), when you're happy you can empty the trash. At some point in the future you can delete the zip file you created too as it isn't needed.

     

    If for some reason you need to undo it, then either double-click the zip file in the ~/Library/Containers/ folder, or select the folder in the trash, right-click and choose 'Put Back'.

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Apr 18, 2015 10:16 AM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 18, 2015 10:16 AM in response to craigriches

    I would also recommend two apps.

     

    http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

    or

    https://www.bombich.com

     

    I use both, they are excellent. You can do a one-off backup of a disk, or you can schedule them, mine run every night on the system disk. Then if anything bad happens you can open the image and grab back anything that has vanished, or in a hardware failure situation you can restore the entire image to another drive.

    (Obviously the backup you make needs to be stored somewhere else!).

     

    Well worth a look. You can just use DiskUtility if you want, select the system disk in there and do a 'new image from disk' etc. But these two utilities are much easier.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Apr 18, 2015 11:03 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 18, 2015 11:03 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    Lifesaver!!

  • by StoneSoup,

    StoneSoup StoneSoup Jun 30, 2015 10:57 PM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jun 30, 2015 10:57 PM in response to Mark Armitage

    This procedure worked with the latest Yosemite 10.10.4 upgrade and iTunes 12.2.0.145.

  • by DavidK44,

    DavidK44 DavidK44 Jul 1, 2015 9:24 PM in response to StoneSoup
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Jul 1, 2015 9:24 PM in response to StoneSoup

    Hmm, almost worked perfectly for me.  I usually use the 'Authors' view when in My Books in iTunes, as I like seeing all of the covers lined up, which the Book List view doesn't give you.  However, in Authors I'm getting the list of authors down the left column, but nothing in the main field when I highlight any of the authors, or in the default All Authors view.  The other two options, Books and Book List, still work as before.  Not sure what's being problematic here....

     

    10.10.4 and iTunes 12.2.0.145

  • by StoneSoup,

    StoneSoup StoneSoup Jul 2, 2015 9:58 AM in response to DavidK44
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:58 AM in response to DavidK44

    Agreed: the Authors view appears now to be broken. 

     

    My theory:  It might be related to iTunes assuming that everything remaining in iTunes is an audiobook now (since ePubs are moved to iBooks).  If so, iTunes may be only reading the audiobook metadata when in the Authors tab.  Since there's no audiobook-related metadata for ePubs, the main screen is blank.

  • by RolandGosebruch,

    RolandGosebruch RolandGosebruch Jul 3, 2015 11:54 AM in response to StoneSoup
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 11:54 AM in response to StoneSoup

    Well, it worked for the epubs, but iTunes doesn't see my PDFs anymore. All gone from iTunes.

  • by Andy Epprecht,

    Andy Epprecht Andy Epprecht Jul 3, 2015 1:26 PM in response to RolandGosebruch
    Level 1 (54 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 3, 2015 1:26 PM in response to RolandGosebruch

    Check if your PDFs still reside in the iTunes Media folder (or the exact location where they were before) then simply restore the iTunes library files from your latest backup and then the PDFs reapear.

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