Books on iPad Are Gone and iPad will Not Sync with iCloud Drive across devices

Question

Books on iPad Are Gone and iPad will Not Sync with iCloud Drive across devices

After an iOS update (I’m not sure which one) any documents in Apple Books I had previously on my iPad only are all gone. The Books library on my iPad is empty.

It has been quite a while since I used Apple Books, but if Apple is going to implement an update that wipes out your entire library, perhaps they should warn users ahead of releasing the update. They might also tell you where to find your library if it isn’t missing and has instead been moved.

Since my iPad Books Library is empty now, I have some pdf documents on my iMac in Books which I would like to sync across to my iPad. The note in the empty iPad Books Library window reads, “No Books to add books to this collection, go to your library and tap edit.” Unfortunately the “Edit” option is greyed out.

Most of the solutions suggest making sure iCloud sync and iCloud Drive are turned on on each device. That is not the issue in this case. The iCloud settings are correct.

What is the solution to syncing Books with iCloud Drive in this situation?

iPad Air 3 Wi-Fi

Posted on Jan 31, 2020 7:42 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

GospelofJohn14v6 Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 1, 2020 11:32 AM in response to GospelofJohn14v6

I found a solution. I deleted the Books app from my iPad and reinstalled it. After doing that, the “Edit” option was no longer greyed out, even though there were still no books in the library. After a few seconds the items in iCloud Drive began to sync and I have regained access to my Books library.

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Answer 2

picas

Level 7

20,865 points

Jan 31, 2020 8:17 PM in response to GospelofJohn14v6

Updates aren’t meant to wipe out your Library. The edit button is greyed out because it’s empty and there is nothing to edit. To get your PDFs (and hopefully books) back, on your iPad go into Settings > Books > Syncing iCloud Drive, turn it off then on again. It might take a few goes and it might take a while for the PDFs to repopulate.

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Answer 3

Feb 1, 2020 10:13 AM in response to picas

Picas, thank you for trying to help. However, as I mentioned in my original post, turning iCloud Drive off and then on again did not work.

Unfortunately your suggestion that the “Edit” button is greyed out because there is nothing to edit also can’t be correct. Otherwise why would the instructions in the empty library window instruct one to “...tap edit” to add books, as I also mentioned in my original post.

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Books on iPad Are Gone and iPad will Not Sync with iCloud Drive across devices

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