Level 1

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Audiobooks library in macOS Catalina on 128 GB Mac. Thread number two

From my previous thread:

"Hello.

My 2018 Mac mini has 128 Gb SSD. All my current iTunes library (9 Gb of music and 138 Gb of audiobooks) is stored on an external 1 Tb USB HDD.

When macOS Catalina is released in Fall, my music folder, as I understood it, will be still stored on the external HDD, while all my 138 Gb of audiobooks are going to transfer into the next folder:

Macintosh HD/Users/username/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

…along with my .epub books collection. But, of course. I just don’t have free space for those audiobooks on my Mac’s SSD.

What do I have to do to avoid this coming problem?»

So, Catalina is coming in the near future, in October, but the situation is still unclear. Users of recent beta versions of macOS 10.15, could you please tell us here, hasn’t anything really changed, and is it still actually that audiobooks go to the internal Mac’s drive? If so, what do you suggest to do with it?

Thank you.

Posted on Sep 22, 2019 12:26 PM

Top-ranking reply

mjhopkins81

Level 1

58 points

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 7:38 PM

So - the way I got around this was by converting my audiobooks into MP3s (using OpenAudible) and then, transferring (through dragging and dropping) them into the Music Mac app.

OpenAudible takes a second to figure out, and honestly, it's easier to drag and drop your audiobook files straight into it, rather than attempting to connect your Audible account. When you do this, however, it creates a duplicate of your original audiobook formatted file in the OpenAudible folder, which temporarily takes up space. You can then set OpenAudible to automatically convert your files to MP3s...which creates a THIRD file (this time, in MP3 format), which you then drag and drop into the Music app (creating a FOURTH file).

After doing this, you can, then, delete the original audiobook file (in the iBooks library), the second file in the OpenAudible library, and the third file (the MP3 conversion) in the OpenAudible MP3 folder, because Music will automatically create a copy in its library.

Is this a needlessly cumbersome process?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

But, this is, sadly, probably the most convenient way to place AUDIO files into an app (and library) that is meant to play AUDIO files.

Books was never designed to serve as a media player and, as such, lacks a lot of the functionality that was present in iTunes. By converting your audiobooks into MP3s, you've got a lot more versatility - you can organize them into playlists (which was what I have done), modify their information under the 'Get Info' right-click option (which allows you to change the volume output and EQ settings), and edit author/artist names to better organize your collection.

When I first upgraded to Catalina, of all the various changes, the shunting of my meticulously curated audiobook playlists into the virtually worthless Books app sent me into a fiery rage (from which my cats are still shaken).

I hope this helps.

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27 replies

A Renee

Level 1

4 points

Oct 9, 2019 8:47 PM in response to Geordon

Yes, please let us know what they come up with, hopefully nothing too complicated.

Thanks

m_jorge

Level 1

4 points

Jan 3, 2020 7:02 PM in response to Jp3isme

Thank you for that tidbit Jp3isme! Airdrop!!! So much easier than using a cloud drive.

Jan 28, 2020 11:45 AM in response to Jp3isme

Thank you for the address, I have located my Audiobooks having spent many fruitless hours looking, but where do I find my pdf files ‘stored’ in Books collections?

Lazlo666

Level 1

21 points

Jan 28, 2020 12:37 PM in response to M0ndayTuesday

one folder in front

/Users/ursername/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

Jan 28, 2020 12:53 PM in response to Lazlo666

Thank you but I see 1 pdf file not the 66 I have in Books. I do not show as having them in iCloud Drive 0 Books doesn't exist/show there.

Jan 29, 2020 2:50 AM in response to Lazlo666

Thank you they are in iCloud I just cannot see Books there.

Geordon

Level 1

14 points

Oct 9, 2019 5:47 PM in response to Danilkin50

I installed Catalina this afternoon and this is still an issue. When iTunes was around, I could use a file alias to point the iTunes Media/Audiobooks folder to my external drive. However, even though I was able to suss out the location of the audiobooks files in Books, I am not able to point the Audiobooks folder to the external drive.

I created an alias for the Audiobooks folder in Books to point to the external drive, similar to how I had done it with High Sierra, but when Books tries to write to the Audiobooks folder (that points to the external HD) I get a permissions error, "no permission to write" to the final target. I manually confirmed that the permissions were 777 on both the target HD folder and the Audiobooks folder itself, and Books still chokes saying that it's a permissions issue.

The only thing that I can see that could even possibly be causing a problem is that there is an @ character after all three sets of permissions fields such as this:

drwxrwxrwx@ (file information)

I've got a case open with Apple Support and it's going to the engineering team for their input. Will update as more information becomes available

Oct 17, 2019 9:10 AM in response to mjhopkins81

Unfortunately that is not really a working workaround for me. I use the faster playback speeds on audiobooks and that won’t work in the standard Music app.

So for now no upgrade to Catalina for me. I really wonder if anybody at Apple actually still uses macOS at all.

vvojtek

Level 1

23 points

Oct 19, 2019 3:49 AM in response to Geordon

Yes this is some ACL - but I cannot figure how to bypassing this.

I tried:

ln -s
copy "audiobooks" dir to external drive using terminal cp -r (with exactly the same permission I have @ on external disk) than again ln -s
I gave full access disk for "books"

All mentioned steps above Not working! When I tried add audiobook to library, "books" told me you don't have permission to save the file... and that's all...

Dec 26, 2019 10:28 AM in response to Jp3isme

All I know is I have the latest Catalina download: 10.15.2 At first, when I downloaded Catalina which replaced Mojave, I had problems with music, Audible Books, etc. Now, with the latest version of Catalina, I haven't had any problems. With Catalina, Apple went from a 32 bit processor to a 64 bit processor. So now, ITunes seems to been broken up into separate areas. Before, ITunes was music and Books, now music is in its' own file area, and Books ( from Audible) is in another area. Don't know a heck of a lot about this stuff, hope this might help.

Jp3isme

Level 1

4 points

Dec 25, 2019 9:47 PM in response to Geordon

Have you heard anything back yet? This is extremely frustrating

Lazlo666

Level 1

21 points

Dec 27, 2019 7:41 AM in response to Jp3isme

Other the Apple engineers are working on it and a resolution should be in the next Catalina update, no.

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Audiobooks library in macOS Catalina on 128 GB Mac. Thread number two