Audiobooks Podcasts and Music on an external hard drive

It's the same idea as this:

https://www.imore.com/how-move-your-itunes-library-external-hard-drive

With the audiobooks, you'll find the Books for Mac library by typing this address into the Go to Folder... bar:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks

If you want to compile your audiobooks into playlists, you'll have to convert them to MP3s, first (I use OpenAudible, as of last night), and then, drag and drop them into the Music for Mac app. Don't bother trying to use the Books app for audiobook playback, because it's not an app designed to be a media player, and the controls are worthless.

Library locations:

https://www.macobserver.com/news/catalina-media-file-locations/

Of all the feckless changes in Catalina, this one decision to move audiobook AUDIO file formats into an app that was never intended, nor designed to serve as a media player sent me into a fiery rage, the likes from which my cats are still suffering PTSD.

The process of converting all of my audiobooks into MP3s began at 2300 Eastern Standard Time on October 7th; as of 2243 EST October 8th, that process is still ongoing, and I'm about halfway through my audiobook collection (well over 300GBs of files).

I have up to 1000 audio books as I am unable to read due to an eye issue caused by another problem. So this rots beyond all levels of crap in a bucket. I cannot believe that Apple "forgot" to create a means of pointing the Books application to an external hard drive.

Currently there is no direct way to point Books in Catalina to your Audio Book collection if it is stored on an external hard drive. I suggest that if you really wish to continue accessing your audio books in iBooks or Books or whatever they call it these days, that you partition your hard drive and install Catalina on that. I would do this first instead of trusting Apple blindly. This way if you find that ol' Apple has performed another bait and switch, you can still access your content on whatever previous Apple OS you were using.

This is just one more case of Apple promising us the world and delivering a spoonful of dirt instead. If Catalina is not fully functional the way it should be, they should not have released it until it was. Apple products command a premium price therefore we should demand a premium product. Not some half thought out piece meal attempt at beating the competion - whoever that is these days.

Any Apple apologists out there that find offense to this don't bother replying.

I am of the opinion that the possible reason has something to do with copyright protection and limiting the ability to copy and share audiobooks blah blah blah. I am so **** sick of this paying for an audiobook, but really only paying for a license to listen - Friggin captialism crap.

I am so very glad I partitioned my hard drive first and installed Catalina on that instead updating and leaving Mojave behind. I would be in tears right now. I had a foretelling sneaking suspicion that Books was going to be an afterthought again by the lack of emphasis they put on it prior to the release of Catalina. I have not forgotten all the times I've upgraded to the latest and greatest OS and then something I use regularly has been left behind and/or unsupported by Apple.

I used to be such a cheerleader for Apple years ago. Now I don't see them as being any different from MicroCrap or any other massively oversized company. They all rot and behind all the glitz and slick promotional garbage and ingenious graphic design elements its all just one huge seething cess pool of money grabbing, duplicitous, and disorganized, mess. Are these companies so big now that their right hand can't keep track of what their left hand is doing? I see this with Time Warner/Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon, and too many others to list. Customer service, the techs, and lower management can barely keep up with the product changes before the Great Goobers at the top of the organizations make more changes.

Oh and Safari still barely crawls out of the starting gate, but Firefox is still blazingly fast. And no, I have no extensions or anything plugged into Safari. I have it virgin as a new born fresh out of the sack.

Gawd, I'm just so frustrated with Apple.