Books not showing up after sync in iBooks (iPad and iPhone 4)

I'm having a similar problem. One epub book will sync to my iPad's iBooks but not to my iPhone 4's iBooks.

Hi - I think I'm reading the original problem correctly and discovered a fix. I have a mixture of audio books in iTunes: some I've made using Audio Book Builder, some I've purchased from Audible, etc. I noticed it was strange that one of my Audio Book Builder books synced from iTunes to my iPad (using the Book tab in iTunes for the iPad) but others didn't. Then I noticed why: back in the main iTunes library, select Books, then go the books you want to sync and make sure they are checked (the box next to the track has a "check" in it). Now, when you use the "Book tab" when you select your device, i.e. "iPad", they should sync. This worked for me and I hope it does for everyone else. It seems like a glitch because it requires a multiple select... best all, DP

Hi, I'm having this same problem with epub files not displaying in iBooks and I suspect it is a fault with the iOS software.

I am creating my own epub book on Windows 7 PC and transfering to my iPad 2 for testing. The files are fully epub compliant and work with other software, many of these files previously worked on my iPad but now they don't! When I add a new epub to iTunes and sync, iTunes says that it is tranfering the file to iBooks. Its just not viewable. I also have this problem with my iPhone 4 but some of my epubs do display!

I've just updated to the new system software for both devices but this hasn't made a difference.

I've tried sync all books in iTunes and syncing selected books but it makes no difference.

I downloaded the Stanza Desktop beta but that doesn't function or open up any files, is it Win 7 compatible?

@lara1983 you mention right-clicking on a book. How? Because this has no effect in iTunes.

Is it possible that epub support has been withdrawn by Apple?

One of the main reasons I purchased my iPad 2 was specifically so that I use it for epub usage but Im stunned that this feature has just phased out for me over the last couple of days.

If anybody has any ideas please let me know to resolve this please share! 🙂

I was also having the same problem and the wierdest thing fixed it. I tried searching for one of the books I synced (that wasn't showing up) and next thing I know, all of the books I synced were there. Not sure why it worked, but hopefully it will work for all of you too.

@jess143ct. I've tried searching with Spotlight but it hasn't worked for me. I've been reading that it may be because the epub files have to be zipped in a very particular way.

I can see this is an old conversation, but if anyone is having this problem don't forget to do the following:

in iPad iBooks library, on the top left hand side, there is a button that says "collections", click on this button and select "books". apparently the new iBooks app separates epubs and PDF's into different files and they won't show up together.

I know this fixed my problem :)

Just changed to a new iPad and none of my books would show up in iBooks, despite syncing.

I found that if I tapped on the 'Store' icon at the top of the iBooks screen, then tapped on the 'Purchased' tab at the bottom it showed me all the titles which I'd bought. At the side of each title is a little download arrow - tapping on this downloaded the title to my iPad. Sorted.

(I'm using iCloud, so perhaps it may only work with Cloud)

Hope it works for you.

New iPad II, bought March 2012.

iBooks were synching but not showing up in iBooks.

Rebooting didn't work. Downloading directly couldn't work because "already downloaded" means you can't download again.

Finally, I downloaded a book directly - one I didn't really want - then instantly all my iBooks showed up.

So, go to iBooks, go to Store, click "purchased" in the lower right, and pick a free book that you have not downloaded previously.

My iBooks immediately showed all the books that had been sync'ed into the iPad via iTunes Mac.

Goofy bug. Surprised Apple hasn't fixed this. (probably hired some Microsoft guys or something...)

In my experience, this is usually caused by iTunes not being able to find the ePub file.

Suppose, for example, that you have the ePub file on an USB stick. You drag the file into iTunes, iTunes recognizes it and adds the book to the library and all seems well with the world.

BUT: iTunes doesn't copy the file from the USB stick, it just remembers it's there. So later, if you remove the USB stick and try to sync the book from iTunes to your iWhatever, it will fail because the USB stick is no longer there.

Does iTunes tell you? No.

To find out if this (or something similar) is what is causing the problem, go to iTunes and find the book you're trying to sync. Right-click on it, and choose "Get Info". At the bottom of the screen it will say where the file is located (and if it can't find it, it will complain and ask you if you want it to go search for it).

Hope this helps!