Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

34 points

iBooks not syncing

I put the iBooks app on my iPhone 3gs with iOS4 today, but I cannot seem to get a book to sync between the iPad and the iPhone. I can't find a button to initiate a sync, and it doesn't appear to be doing it automatically.

Are others seeing this?

iMac i7, iPad 3G, Mac Book Pro, iPhone 3gs, Mac OS X (10.6.4), Apple TV 160GB

Posted on Jun 21, 2010 3:22 PM

28 replies

Changez

Level 1

0 points

Nov 4, 2010 3:42 PM in response to BobPenn

Hey Bob,

There is a lot of vague-ness in the answers floating around here so I will give you a clear one that really works. On your iPhone or iPad go to Settings->iBooks->Sync Bookmarks and turn this 'On' and voila, everything should sync fine now. No need for syncing with computers or red-ribbons. But, this will only work if this is a book that you have downloaded from the iBooks store, if not then the imported ePub book will need to be there on both the devices at the time of syncing. Hope this solve your problems.

Regards,

Changez.

Dec 8, 2010 12:34 AM in response to BobPenn

it is non issue, seriously. the reason you don't see your idevices sync is because you don't turn on the 'sync bookmark' in 'ibooks setting'. go to setting look for ibooks, and turn on the 'sync bookmark' for ALL YOUR IDEVICES!!

MAKE SURE ALL UR IDEVICES.

Dec 22, 2010 1:08 PM in response to Teh Junction

Taht's a nice explanation, but it does not work. The Kindle app version syncs automatically, but I can not get iBooks to do send the farthest page read information between my iPhone and iPad. Do you need to manually bookmark your farthest page in order for the other device to detect it? I have the bookmark sync set ON in both devices. All help would be appreciated.

Dec 24, 2010 7:13 PM in response to Teh Junction

This did not work. I have tried it and still can not get iBooks to sync between iPad and iPhone like Kindle does.

Apr 9, 2011 3:23 AM in response to Mr. Hal 731

I think quit ibooks make the sync for me on the other device. Thanks for everyones input to this thread. It was very helpful.

On another note, is there a way I can extract all the text I have highlighted at once, or a way of exporting this into text file? It will be very ideal as I collect quotations, as well as new words I didn't know the meaning of until now.

Thanks

HiRez

Level 1

9 points

Feb 26, 2012 7:45 PM in response to BobPenn

It's strangely random for me. Sometimes books will sync (iPad1 <--> iPhone4S), sometimes they will not. I always quit the iBooks app first, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. The thing is, for a long time sync did work flawlessly, every time, then sometime in the last 6 months it started getting erratic. Maybe sometime around the iOS 5 rollout, and changeover to iCloud, I'm not sure. But it's definitely flakey now and frustrating because I switch off between devices a lot.

Mar 3, 2012 6:04 PM in response to HiRez

What worked for me was syncing with USB after downloading a free book from the iphone app itself. Once I'd then connected to the computer it asked if i wanted to turn on automatic syncing. After then disconnecting it had synced all my course epub files, which I have to say Calibre did a great job of converting - combined with ibooks i'm, as we say over here in the UK - totally stoked. 🙂

dcginc

Level 1

37 points

Mar 17, 2012 7:59 AM in response to BobPenn

But can I sync across devices downloaded PDF documents too? Doesn't seem that I can

tkezell

Level 1

5 points

Oct 16, 2013 12:05 PM in response to Teh Junction

Thanks Teh Junction. This resolved my issue!!!!

Feb 27, 2016 6:33 PM in response to Mr. Hal 731

It works for me, but what a hassle. Quit all instances of iBooks. Open iBooks on one device then read several pages. When you're done, quit iBooks. Pick up another device and open iBooks. It should take you to the furthest page read.

Bottom line is you always have to quit iBooks after reading. If you leave it active in the background it will not sync.

The Kindle app does a much better job of this so I buy my content on Amazon.

Mar 6, 2016 9:33 PM in response to htmanning

Okay, the more I use iBooks the more I realize the Kindle app has much better syncing. Use bookmarks in iBooks or you will lose your place. For some reason iBooks simply doesn't sync all the time. Very frustrating. Kindle never fails and you don't have to use bookmarks. It just works.