Move the iBooks library to external/different hard drive?

Question

Level 1

25 points

Move the iBooks library to external/different hard drive?

Hi! Is it possible to move the iBooks library from its default location on the boot drive (where the iBooks-application also resides) to a different hard drive?

Currently all my ebooks and PDF’s are kept in the default „Books“-folder in the home-library on the SSD-boot-drive of my Mac where the iBooks application is also kept by default (path: Users/„username“/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBo oks/Books). Space is getting narrow on my SSD-boot-drive so that I would like to free up approximately 20 GB by moving the entire iBooks library to a second internal HDD-drive of my Mac or to an external USB-drive.

I have not been able to find any instructions on the internet on how to move the iBooks library nor have I been successful in any of my experiments to move the „Books“-folder. What I have tried is the following:

1. I moved the original PDF-files away out of the „Books“-folder to a different drive and placed aliases from these files in the „Books“-folder. The result is that the iBooks-application will simply re-create a full size copy of the original PDF file in the „Books“-folder. I.e. no saving of disk space!

2. I copied the „Books“-folder from its default location in the user library on my internal SSD-boot-drive to a second internal HDD-drive, erased the „Books“-folder at the original location and instead placed a hard link at the original location. I verified that the hard link is working and pointing to the right location on the second drive. The result is that the iBooks-application will not recognize/show any of the PDF-files at the new location. Trying to re-import the missing PDF-files into iBooks results in the message „This book is already in your library. Do you want to replace it with the one you’re adding?“. By clicking on „Yes“ the same message returns infinitely often. I.e. no successes!

3. I repeated the same procedure as described above under 2. using the „iBooks“-folder which encloses the „Books“-folder (along with three other folders) with the same results as before. I.e. no successes!

(path: Users/„username“/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks)

Does anyone know how to successfully move the iBooks library to external/different hard drive?

Does anyone have links to internet discussions about this problem?

Regards BJB

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), Dual drive setup

Posted on Apr 24, 2014 9:19 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Stregara

Level 1

9 points

Oct 10, 2017 11:06 AM in response to rutlab

You can't. The way iBooks is handled by Apple is shameful. I moved my libraries to Calibre (you can put them on another HD). I don't buy books from the Apple store anymore. I buy them from Amazon or other sellers and convert them. I add my books on my iPad with Airdrop and use other reader apps as Marvin to open them. I use also the Calibre Companion app to synchronise directly from Calibre.

I will go back to iBooks only if they change the whole concept, which I doubt.

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Answer 2

Aug 21, 2017 9:58 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

This is Microsoft historical behavior... is sad.... or Sony trying to manage markets formats...

Apple got almost 95% market share of the music on line in a different way!!!

What Apple is doing with iBooks is a shame...

The ones that have memory know that what made Apple number one was flexibility, honesty and to be on the customer side.

To really own the books that you buy in the apple store, you have to go to unbelievable steps... to put your own is to loose them in some hidden folder in your computer... So you even loose your own staff...

And is not that this is an accident...

When we have them in iTunes everything was transparent...

Difficult to believe Apple is having this type of behavior...

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Answer 3

Apr 24, 2014 8:45 PM in response to rutlab

At this time it is not possible to do what you want to do.

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Answer 4

rutlab Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 25, 2014 1:37 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Michael Allbritton states: „At this time it is not possible to do what you want to do.“

My question is: Michael, on what information or expertise is your assumption founded?

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Answer 5

Apr 25, 2014 1:45 AM in response to rutlab

Based on my experience using iBooks. It is an extremely limited application and cannot reference ebooks stored on an external HDD like iTunes can with its media. iBooks copies any ebooks added to the library to the internal HDD/SSD of the computer and that is where the ebooks must be for iBooks to find them and be able to sync them to an iOS device.

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Answer 6

rutlab Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 25, 2014 2:10 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

I have successfully moved the „Backup“ folder, where the iOS device backups are stored, to my second internal HDD-drive from its default location on the SSD-boot-drive (using hard link). Therefore I see no reason why the same should not be possible with the content of the „Books“ folder of iBooks.

I would very much like to see a comment on this matter from someone with real expertise knowledge of the OS X system.

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Answer 7

Apr 25, 2014 3:54 AM in response to rutlab

I was in on the Mavericks beta, when iBooks was introduced. You can not believe me if you want but it isn't currently possible to store the iBooks library on external storage at this time. The ebooks must be on the path ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books for iBooks to function properly. Any other method you may find to accomplish what you want will be unapproved and could break at any time.

You may submit your polite feedback to Apple here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks_ios.html

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Answer 8

rutlab Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 25, 2014 10:07 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Thank you for your information. I will submit a feedback to Apple.

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Answer 9

rutlab Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 27, 2014 9:54 AM in response to rutlab

Correction:

In my original description of the procedure I used the term „hard links“. The correct term I should have used is „symbolic link“ or „symlink“.

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Answer 10

Gony_77

Level 1

0 points

Jul 25, 2014 12:27 PM in response to rutlab

Hello,

I have a backup of my user lib with all the ibooks files and need to restore this lib of iBooks. Can anyone help please? I need all the meta data of the pdfs from the old iBooks lib after system reinstall.

Thanks a lot.

Gony

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Answer 11

Apr 17, 2017 5:41 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

That feedback spot is for iOS, not for MacOS (in my case Sierra), and that is where most of us are having the problem

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