How do I restore iBooks from time machine backup?

Question

How do I restore iBooks from time machine backup?

through the Genius Bar I had to erase my iMacs harddrive. So far I have reinstalled iTunes, which is over a TB in size, and Safari, mail and calendars restored automatically from iCloud.

MY trouble is I can't find iBooks on the disc I used as a time machine backup. I had over a thousand items in iBooks and really need it back! I was surprised it didnt back up when I plugged my iPad into iTunes and put everything from my iPad back to the computer.

THanks!

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10), May, 2013

Posted on Nov 1, 2014 1:44 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 1, 2014 3:06 PM in response to thesjkexperience

Back up all data before proceeding.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

Right-click or control-click the line and select

Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item selected. Quit the application if it's running. Enter Time Machine and restore the selected item from a snapshot.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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Answer 2

Nov 1, 2014 3:36 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you. The trouble is it takes me to the folder on my internal hard drive which only has a few books purchased through the iBooks store. My computer does not recognize my old Time Machine data on the external disk.

I searched for iBooks on the external Time Machine disk and it finds nothing! I also try and manually go through the file chain and there is no Library folder in my Users folder on the external Time Machine backup.

Is there any way to manually pull out the data from the Time Machine external disk?

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 1, 2014 4:07 PM in response to thesjkexperience

You have made this harder for yourself by not following Apple's recommended procedure for restoring from Time Machine to a new startup volume. Is there some reason why you only want to restore some of your files, rather than all of them?

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Answer 4

Nov 1, 2014 6:59 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yes, I have been transferring data from iMac to iMack since the late 1990s and there was so much crap going back to system 8 I didn't want to put back on this machine. This iMac has been the first apple product in 25 years of loyalty that has not met my minimum expectations for speed and stability. A third party repair shop did tests showing the logic board is not functioning 10%, but Apple can't seem to replicate the problem.

Moving forward I only want to keep data on my machine that is needed for updating iPads and iPhones. I want to use Garageband without getting a beachball in the middle of a recording and have iTunes update two devices in a row without having to close it and restart the whole computer. This is the first time I didn't buy Apple Care and what a mess!!

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 1, 2014 9:17 PM in response to thesjkexperience

Select the icon of your home folder (a house) in the sidebar of a Finder window. From the View menu, select

Show View Options

In the dialog that opens, check the box marked

Show Library Folder

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the folder indicated in my earlier comment.

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Answer 6

p00l3y

Level 1

9 points

May 25, 2015 5:29 AM in response to thesjkexperience

For Yosemite... (10.10.4)

I found and restored my books by looking in a correctly dated backup of:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

Select all of the books and then Open With > iBooks and this will restore them all to your current iBooks library

Hope that helps

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Answer 7

Aug 27, 2015 3:44 PM in response to p00l3y

That worked great.

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Answer 8

HDNIK

Level 1

5 points

Dec 2, 2016 2:06 AM in response to thesjkexperience

TThis works in OS X 10 sierra

I had identical problem. Could not find the iBooks files in the time machine backup folder in finder. That's because the library directory is hidden. It's there you just can't see it. Using the go and go to while holding option reveals hidden library files but only in the home directory. This would be easier if apple just had a show hidden files option, but no such luck so....

Open finder and navigate to your drive or storage device that has the old time machine directories in it. Use the most current date of backup you have that would still have those books and pdfs.

Now...

Launch a terminal window.

Execute the following pair of commands: Cut and paste these 2 lines in terminal

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

This tells the finder to show hidden files, so that they’re displayed.

Now go back to finder and you can see to navigate to the directory ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books where the backed up version of the iBooks are. You can copy those to your desktop and then add then back into iTunes and sync back iPad iBooks

Once you have them safely on your desktop go back to terminal and do these reversal commands. Again just cut an paste lines below...

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

This puts finder back the way it originally was.

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