How to sync FROM iPad to Macbook

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Level 1

4 points

How to sync FROM iPad to Macbook

I have Apple Books data (PDfs and books, some Apple, others from other sources) on my iPad (9th Gen, iOS 17.4.1) that I want to be completely synced on my Macbook Air (2018, OS Monterey). I've synced them through iCloud and via cable, but only some of the books/PDFs are synced.

The Apple Book data was recently migrated from my old iPad with Quick Start and via iCloud. I only backed up/synced the old iPad via iCloud, never with the Macbook.

Syncing is turned on for Books and collections on all devices. What am I missing? How can I get the content in Apple Books on all of my devices to be the same?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Mar 27, 2024 4:46 PM

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Answer 1

ccslantern Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 28, 2024 2:53 PM in response to ccslantern

Problem solved! This is what worked for me:

Luckily, I had an old Time Machine backup from the time of a previous Macbook where I had synced the data with my old iPad. In that backup, I was able to locate the iBooks-->Books folder which contained all of the books and PDFs that are on my old iPad.

I then copied the entire folder contents from my backup drive onto the desktop of my current Macbook. However, attempting to add them into Apple Books at this point was only partially successful--about ⅓ of the items were added, but the rest failed.

After some testing, I discovered that if I renamed one of my PDFs, I could then successfully add it to Apple Books and it synced across my devices--as expected. So, I used the batch rename feature to add "_1" to the end of all of my book/PDF files.

This time all of my ebooks and PDFs were added successfully to Apple Books and synced across my devices.

Hurray!

If you are wondering, there don't appear to be any duplicates due to my multiple attempts at adding items, even the renamed ones.

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How to sync FROM iPad to Macbook

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