How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

If you're sure everything is in the other location then you can do:

sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

So it's basically:

1. osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'
2. pkill com.apple.BKAgentService
3. rm /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
4. [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]
5. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
6. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
7. [empty the trash]
8. [reopen iTunes]

(Steps 1,2,3,5 & 6 can be done in the terminal, steps 4,7 & 8 are manual)

As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

If you're sure everything is in the other location then you can do:

sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

sudo rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

I tried these commands in Terminal only to be told "is a directory" after typing in my admin password???

oops.

sorry, missed out a rather important '-r'

should just need:

rm -r ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

DOH!

So it's basically:

1. osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'
2. pkill com.apple.BKAgentService
3. rm /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
4. [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]
5. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
6. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
7. sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
8. open /Applications/iTunes.app

(Step 4 is manual, the rest can be done from the terminal, not sure if there is a good way to fully remove an app from the CLI, you could just delete it but AppZapper is better and finds a few other items that are worth removing. There is probably some CLI version of one of them somewhere. When I find one I can make all the steps scriptable :-) )

As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

Sounds a bit scary!! I have read too many nightmare scenarios about running the command rm -r 😮

If I do what you suggest, I will also delete the contents of the Data folder, which includes

Desktop (alias folder)

Documents/iBooks/Books

Documents/iBooks/Downloads

Documents/iBooks/Temporary

Documents/iBooks/Updates

iChats (alias file)

Downloads (alias folder)

Library (Folder containing multiple sub folders - too many to write here)

Movies (alias folder)

Music (alias folder with iTunes subfolder)

Pictures (alias folder with subfolders)

Is this a safe thing to initiate?

Sorry, I am a bit of a newbie in regard to this 🙂

The container is just for that service - which you are no longer running so you can remove it safely.

The easiest way if you are worried (and don't have a backup), is to open a finder window then press CMD+SHIFT+G, in the 'Go to the folder' field enter ~/Library/Containers/ then press GO. Now find the folder com.apple.BKAgentService and click it (single click only, just to select it), now right click to get the context menu. Firstly choose 'Compress "com.apple.BKAgentService"', after a short while you will have a file called com.apple.BKAgentService.zip, if you want to restore the folder just double-click it (not now). Again select the folder com.apple.BKAgentService right-click and this time choose 'Move to Trash'. The folder com.apple.BKAgentService will disappear, if you open your trashcan (far right in the dock - just click it) then you will see it's in there.

Make sure everything is okay. Try iTunes. Make sure nothing vanished from your desktop ;-), when you're happy you can empty the trash. At some point in the future you can delete the zip file you created too as it isn't needed.

If for some reason you need to undo it, then either double-click the zip file in the ~/Library/Containers/ folder, or select the folder in the trash, right-click and choose 'Put Back'.

I would also recommend two apps.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

or

https://www.bombich.com

I use both, they are excellent. You can do a one-off backup of a disk, or you can schedule them, mine run every night on the system disk. Then if anything bad happens you can open the image and grab back anything that has vanished, or in a hardware failure situation you can restore the entire image to another drive.

(Obviously the backup you make needs to be stored somewhere else!).

Well worth a look. You can just use DiskUtility if you want, select the system disk in there and do a 'new image from disk' etc. But these two utilities are much easier.

Lifesaver!! 🙂

Hmm, almost worked perfectly for me. I usually use the 'Authors' view when in My Books in iTunes, as I like seeing all of the covers lined up, which the Book List view doesn't give you. However, in Authors I'm getting the list of authors down the left column, but nothing in the main field when I highlight any of the authors, or in the default All Authors view. The other two options, Books and Book List, still work as before. Not sure what's being problematic here....

10.10.4 and iTunes 12.2.0.145

Well, it worked for the epubs, but iTunes doesn't see my PDFs anymore. All gone from iTunes.

Check if your PDFs still reside in the iTunes Media folder (or the exact location where they were before) then simply restore the iTunes library files from your latest backup and then the PDFs reapear.

No luck importing PDFs via Cmd-O or Drag and Drop into the "My PDFs" section. iTunes simply refuses to recognize any PDFs. It sees, however, the PDFs on my iPad in the "Books" section of the "On My Device" sidebar area.