How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

It's back!

Not sure what happened. earlier today I quit iTunes, stopped the BKAgent service, removed iBooks, started (and restarted) iTunes... nothing. (The com.apple.bka... file is not on my system (spotlight can't find anything either), probobly since iBooks was never launched).

Now I checked activity monitor again and the BKAgent service was back. Stopped it again. Restarted iTunes again and now the books tab is there! Let's hope it stays there 🙂

You have to remove the file as well otherwise the service will be started up again. It's a nasty hack but thankfully it works!

I *really* dislike the way they have implemented iBooks on the Mac. Zero thought.

The simple idea of moving all the books from iTunes onto your boot drive is totally ridiculous. I've got gig's of books but I can't waste that space on a boot drive which is typically much smaller than the external drives we all have to use.

Look for a 'book' type process the new one ends BKAgentService the old one was bookstoreagent.

Kill it, then remove the file that starts it (making sure you quit iTunes first). Then all should be well.

If the process isn't there, then firstly try quitting and restarting iTunes, if that doesn't help then reboot.

Hopefully you can then proceed and get rid of iBooks and restore the functionality.

Works fine for me so far, running Yosemite and iTunes 12 (Yosemite did put it back hence the revised tweak).

...and thank you to everyone for all the kind comments.

Mark is absolutely right. Stopping the service is step 1. Deleting the file is step 2. Absolutely MUST delete the BkAgent file and empty your trash.

Not sure who gets the original credit, I followed StoneSoup's post from Nov 2013 but I think Kevin Edgecomb was the originator.

Whichever did the original work gets the credit but both get my thanks, you saved me (and by the look of it many, many others) from utter ****.

I merely tweaked the original when I found that the 1st Yosemite beta put it back and wreaked havoc on my setup 😉

One other thing...I don't know how your system is configured, but the BkAgentService and the older BookAgent service files are hidden by default, I think. To be sure you can see hidden files, you can use a simple terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

YOu may have to type your user password to complete the commsnd.

About Activity Monitor. Once you highlight the process in it, you can click the "I" icon to see more info. Select the item "Open Files and Ports" in center of window to see where the process is running from. You can then select the whole line in the display, switch to Finder, Go, Go to Folder, and paste your line in to go directly to it.

I use PathFinder instead of Finder, so it's easier to find these files. You can also use a free tool called Tinkertool to enable system-wide display of hidden files. That would make it easier to find and delete the service file In Finder.

No need to through away iTunes 12 and step back to iTunes 11.

iTunes 12 is better than before after you find your way around with the new layout. Most things change from time to time and one first has to get used to it and that's the same here for iTunes 12. But after a couple of days with iTunes 12 and having removed that horrific iBooks implementation from my MACs (thanks to Mark and StoneSoup) and fully tagging and handling my Books and PDF's as before in iTunes and between my various iOS devices, I find it stable, well thought trough, responsive and .... all in all better!

So as long as iTunes let's me handle my Books and PDF's and all the rest of my media files (music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, iTunes U and audiobooks) this way, in one user-defineable location and where they belong to, I don't even consider moving to a 'MS Windows UI-fossil' app like Calibre or anything else.

I appreciate your reply and thoughts on the subject...you've been at it far longer than I have.

That said, my mileage varies on the two versions, and I simply don't care for the kludgy new version.

It's ugly, it's slow, and I hate that we keep losing functionality in the name of conforming the OSX and IOS versions.

I'm not a calibre user, but I am an 8-year ago Windows convert.

I'm grateful the workaround still works. Maybe version 13 will be the final resolution.

... on the next version of Yosemite it comes back again and I haven't found a way to get rid of it.

:-(

Have you tried repeating the first removal steps?

(i.e., uninstalling iTunes/iBooks, reinstalling 11.4 with Pacifist, and dumping the BkAgent services again?)

i remember having to do that once under Mavericks.

On my Macbook Air, but not on my Mac Mini, I updated the OS to Yosemite and would like to revert back to iTunes after the conversion and the horrible iBooks program installation. I plan on copying my book collection onto the MacBook Air from the books collected in iTunes on my desktop. My problem is that I am not an advanced user and am having trouble finding step by step instruction to do so. I am confused by the addition of refinements with a repeat of the prior step by step instructions. Would someone kindly cut and paste or otherwise give me a complete idiot proof set of such instructions integrating the refinements, etc. I would like to thank all in advance for helping out of this dilemma.