How do I create a playlist in Apple's useless Apple Books app on Mac OS Catalina?

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40 points

How do I create a playlist in Apple's useless Apple Books app on Mac OS Catalina?

Since the feckless transition of audiobooks from iTunes (in which playlists of audiobooks could be created and played in a functional media player) to the useless Apple Books app that was never designed to be used as a media player, I seem to have lost the ability to create audiobook playlists that function in any logical way.

How do I get around this Apple-created failure that even a child-aged app developer would foresee so that I can get back to listening to my audiobooks in a continuous format that plays them in sequential order?

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Oct 7, 2019 8:34 PM

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Answer 1

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mjhopkins81 Author

Level 1

40 points

Oct 7, 2019 11:44 PM in response to mjhopkins81

I've discovered an imperfect, impractical, and unnecessarily cumbersome workaround:

I've begun converting my .AAX Audible files to MP3s and importing them into the ACTUALLY functionally Music App to put them into playlists. Doing this allows users to to play the files in a functional media player with controls that make sense.

This, of course, is a time consuming process, but until Apple figures out that audiobook files aren't meant to be played in apps not designed to serve as media players, this is the best step I've found.

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Answer 2

TJMorrow

Level 1

9 points

Oct 8, 2019 2:29 PM in response to mjhopkins81

I have the same problem with Catalina, No Playlists in the Book.app. The was frustrating enough for me to restore my backup and stop using Catalina until Apple updates Catalina and makes it possible to create playlists in the Books app. I don’t know what Apple was thinking when they got rid of iTunes, which did a great job for all my media.

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Answer 3

Nov 7, 2019 6:47 PM in response to mjhopkins81

Over the past year I've gotten HEAVY into audio books and experiencing the same issue. I've had a lot of CDs with files from the 90s that I discovered were books that I didn't even know I had. Some chapertized... some are single, large, files.

I did the ol' change-from-Audiobook-to-music-in-iTunes PITA trick but the problem is - particularly with the single file books - is that that the iOS Music app seems to lose its place quite often and reverts back hours to where I left off (sometimes will even start the book over from the beginning). Not fun in a 17 hour long book.

Just yesterday I started testing the BOOK app with a single file and so far it's been fine. I would gladly switch but - unless I'm missing something - the lack of playlists or even consolidation for Multi-book series is just... dumb.

Edit: iPhone XS Max and a Windows 10 Laptop

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Answer 4

brittier8

Level 4

1,966 points

Oct 7, 2019 11:54 PM in response to mjhopkins81

Personally, I like the new changes.

apple.com/feedback

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How do I create a playlist in Apple's useless Apple Books app on Mac OS Catalina?

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