How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

I have to seem uninformed, but what is Calibre? If it is an ibook reader, it is not listed in the Mac App Store. It may be in the app store for iPad, I don't know, but this doesn't solve the problem. Other than using email, how can I move a PDF from my Mac to my iPad - and from my iPad to my Mac? Obviously, as everyone else here is saying, iBooks for Mac is a train wreck that does not work. Period. There is not a single useful thing about it. So I am still looking for a useful way of syncing PDFs between my iPad and my MacBook Pro.

Thanks

Your solution was the only one that I was able to do and it truely helped me

Thank you StoneSoup, Kevin and all others who shared their solutions.

My situation was probably a little bit different, I needed to try several things before it worked out. Like StoneSoup, I needed to remove iBooks entirely (using AppCleaner) before the problem was finally fixed. I don't regret this step in the slightest.

The special thing about my situation is that I was managing my files completely manually before the unfortunate switch to iBooks. I told iTunes not to organize my iTunes Media folder and to not copy files when they were added to the library. However, my procedure might also work for people who let iTunes do the organising. The following steps worked in order to restore the old situation:

• Quit iTunes and iBooks (obviously).
• Force-quit the "bookstoreagent" process using Activity Monitor (as mentioned before) as well as the closely related com.apple.BKAgentService.
• Run "launchctl remove com.apple.bookstoreagent" from the Terminal. (This step might not be necessary).
• Delete or move /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/bookstoreage nt.
• Delete or move /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.BKAgentService.
• Restore ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl from the last backup before the iBooks catastrophe.
• Restore all book files (wherever you used to store them) from that same backup. (In my case there was a complicated directory structure where only some of the files were abducted by iBooks. I filled in the gaps using rsync.)
• Restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist from that same backup. (This step might not be necessary).
• Delete or move ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.bookstoreagent.plist. (This step might not be necessary).
• From ~/Library/Caches, delete the subfolders com.apple.bookstoreagent, com.apple.iBooksX and com.apple.iTunes.
• Delete or move the folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService (as mentioned before).
• Delete iBooks using AppCleaner (it might also work with TrashMe or similar app-deleting apps, but I didn't try).
• Restart the computer.

After this iTunes behaved exactly like before the iBooks conversion.

Thank you so much for posting this suggestion.........it worked for me🙂

To my horror iTunes 12 puts it all back.

This seems to work though:

• quit iTunes
• kill the process com.apple.BKAgentService
• delete /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
• use appzapper to remove iBooks
• restart iTunes

Books should be accessible again in iTunes!

It's pretty much the same as before. I haven't rebooted yet but all seems to be working again. I downloaded a book on the iPad and transferred my purchases, the book copied over and it's in the same place as all my old books (on my external drive). There is a 'Books' icon in iTunes 12 on the top bar and when selected it shows all my books, the 'Books' playlist that was there (and empty) has vanished. and under Library I have a 'My Books' item with them all in. So basically it is looking good. If you don't delete the file then it will restart when you re-open iTunes. I hope that any updates will not break it again.

I wish they would let me select the location to store my content (I have 20GB+ and can't fit that on the internal drive), or else give me an option to remove iBooks and let iTunes keep control - which seems to be the better option if you want to use them on iOS devices too. It really is a mess.

Mark, brilliant! This worked for me too in iTunes 12 and Yosemite.

I was very concerned that this functionality would have been removed with the iTunes 12 revamp in Yosemite, but I'm glad it's still lurking around for a while longer until the iBooks team gets their act together. Having all my books and PDFs stuffed away into ~/Library and given UUID names really irritates me.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Really appreciate you posting a simple walk through as well - it worked perfectly and all is now right with the world.

Thanks you!!!!!

Many thanks to Mark and Steven.

After being burned by iBooks when I upgraded to Mavericks, this time I never opened ITunes or iBooks before following the described steps to remove this poor excuse of an app.

Now iTunes 12 shows my books and PDFs, just like it shoud be.

Thank you so much... I have spent the last day in tears.. I have over 4,000 books and every time i tried to put them in ibooks, it just stopped adding them..

I am so happy to have them back in iTunes where they belong : ))

Thank you thank you...

Me, again. ☺️

adding to thread...downgrading iTunes 12 to 11 in Yosemite.

remove itunes 12

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc doesn't exist on my system. That might be because I haven't started iBooks to keep my file structure safe.

AppZapper removed iBooks but iTunes does not want to bring back the books tab here. Any ideas on how to proceed?

Under Mavericks, the path leads to .../com.Apple.BkAgentServuce.xpc.zip. Yes it could be that's because you haven't run iBooks on that install.

As to proceeding, make sure you've killed the BkAgent service (Activity Monitor is tool to use) and that you've shut down and restarted iTunes. You might have to add a single book in iTunes to trigger it. But first, check iTunes preferences, General, to be sure you have a check mark in Books. A system restart won't hurt.

THis thread is the place to go for resolution.

Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

Look especially st posts by StoneSoup and Kevin Edgecomb.

Hope this helps.