how to edit book metadata in iBooks

Question

how to edit book metadata in iBooks

I like iBooks - as a reader it's much better than Kindle, and nearly as good as som of the Android readers i've used.

The problem I have is that the Bookshelf is nearly unusable. It has metadata for "Collections", "Author" and "Category", but it looks like the only one I can make chages to is "Collections".

I have books where the author's name is misspelled or in the wrong order, eg. "A. Smith" vs. "Smith, A.", where the Category is just wrong - even within a series of related books.

I thought had the problem solved by exporting the books to Calibre, changing the information there, and importing them back into iBooks, but nothing changes.

I've tried editing the iTunesMetadata.plist file that lives in the folder with the rest of the pdfs and jpegs thet comprise each book, but that seems to have no effect either.

The list view in iBooks contains all of the data I would like to change, but there does not seem to be any editing capability in it.

Does anybody have ideas how I can fix up my book collection?

Walt

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Feb 13, 2014 4:50 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Michael Allbritton

Level 6

16,951 points

Feb 14, 2014 7:04 AM in response to walt_scrivens

It is not presently possible to edit metadata in iBooks.

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Answer 2

Feb 15, 2014 5:30 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

That's not the answer I wanted to hear, but it will save me a lot of futile searching. Thanks.

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Answer 3

Feb 15, 2014 8:52 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Upon further thought - the information I want to change is in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/

in a folder that seems to be a hash or other encoding of the book title, in a file called iTunesMetadata.plist. Changing that file does not change anything in iBooks or iTunes.

To further complicate issues, I am not clear about the connection among iTunes iBooks (Mac) and iBooks (iPad). There seems to be no correlation between what iBooks on the Mac says and what shows up in the iPad after syncing - and the syncing seems to be controlled by iTunes, not iBooks.

Any help is welcome!

Walt

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Answer 4

Jan 12, 2015 4:11 PM in response to walt_scrivens

iBooks is a good on-screen reader and is also great on iPad, but the inability to edit metadata is a serious shortcoming. 11 months has elapsed since Michael's response to Walt; has anything changed since then?

Warwick

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Answer 5

Jan 12, 2015 5:11 PM in response to warwickfromvermont south

But now see the postings on 'Change titles on iBooks?'. It can be done, with Yosemite, just like on iTunes

Warwick

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Answer 6

Jun 23, 2015 11:36 PM in response to walt_scrivens

Don't use iBooks. If you're serious about your book collection, use Marvin. Fully editable metadata. I edit my books (metadata, covers et.) in Calibre, then drag and drop in the file sharing window in iTunes. So worth the price. You can also edit any metadata and covers from within the app itself. Trust me, you'll never go back...

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Answer 7

smien

Level 1

10 points

Jul 12, 2015 4:55 AM in response to walt_scrivens

Within the iBooks app in OSX, select "List" view. Within this view you can edit metadata. On the top there is a columns bar. Right-click and you can choose different columns. Double-clicking the names (title, author etc.) in the columns allows you to edit the information. That's what did it for me.

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Answer 8

Sep 1, 2015 3:49 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

Horse hockey. As smien points out, selecting List view allows editing. This response is NOT a correct solution to the OP's question.

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Answer 9

jaimegoo

Level 1

0 points

Dec 20, 2015 4:50 PM in response to walt_scrivens

I just came across information here http://www.epubor.com/how-to-edit-ibooks-meta-data-under-mac-os-x-mavericks.html where it states that after you make the metadata changes in Calibre, you have to re-convert the file to epub even though it is already epub. I just tried it with my ~250 books of which about 50 required changes, e.g. new cover, series, title, etc. This created 2 files under the title: booktitle.epub and booktitle.original_epub. I then re-added to ibooks and all except 1 book took the correct changes. You may want to delete the books from ibooks before you re-add them.

I'd say that the re-conversion will somehow write some data to the epub file as the two files are different file sizes, about 4kb.

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Answer 10

Mar 19, 2016 6:48 PM in response to walt_scrivens

I have this issue too, it's very frustrating. In iTunes there isn't a series name or series number. The new version of iBooks shows the series info in the list view, but again it appears to be blocked from editing. And the blocking doesn't seem to mater if the epub was purchased from iTunes store or other source. Major fail on Apple's part when I have almost 400 books in my library. Has anyone here found another solution/option? I tried using both the programs mentioned, Marvin didn't have the series info fields and Calibre had all the fields I wanted but when I imported books back to iTunes all changes where lost even after recreating the file and deleting the original.

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Answer 11

Mar 23, 2016 3:44 PM in response to walt_scrivens

You can do this in Calibre but you have to make sure to Convert the book after to save the changes and then use the save to disk command. Book covers can be dragged and dropped.

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Answer 12

Mar 23, 2016 3:55 PM in response to CarolynnP

When I edit the title of the book I had the series and book number to the title i.e. Magic Bleeds [Kate Daniels 4]. Unfortunately I still can't sort by Series and book number but at least I know where it falls in the series.

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Answer 13

Mar 24, 2016 9:56 AM in response to tlsKeller

That's how I currently do mine too. Wishful thinking that Apple would update this issue. 🙂 Thanks!

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Answer 14

Mar 24, 2016 10:07 AM in response to tlsKeller

I tried Calibre, but unless I'm doing something wrong or missing a step I couldn't get it to work.

This is what I did....

1) imported book -- edit metadata -- export the book -- in the caliber output folder I deleted the original file and only kept the newly created file

2) in iTunes -- deleted original file -- imported new file -- iTunes not showing changes other than title/name

I tried this with 15 different books by 3 different authors to see if it would make a difference and it didn't. I read something about Calibre not working with DRM files and wondered if that could be the problem.

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