where are the iBooks files stored in el capitan

iljajj wrote:

The ebooks are still on your hard drive (or ssd), but they're hidden inside the iCloud drive (e.g., iCloud Drive > iBooks > xxxxxx.epub). However, any good search utility (including Spotlight) will trace them. Just do a file name search in that folder using ".epub".

A larger problem, and one that I hadn't anticipated, was that although iBooks does not change the file extension .epub, it does re-format the ebook itself. Therefore, going back to Calibre or somesuch utility using the same epub files, will not be possible – it's a one-way process.

I don't think this is correct, have you actually seen an iBooks folder in your iCloud Drive folder?

The files are stored in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

christopherfromemsworth wrote:

If iBooks synchronises between my Apple devices, including the iMac, why isn't there an iBooks folder on iCloud drive?

I think one problem with this whole thing is they should've just called it iCloud for iBooks and not "iCloud Drive" as people are associating that with the iOS app and folder within OS X where you can see folders of data used by different apps. iBooks actually stores its local data in a "hidden" directory within your Library that you're not actually meant to access directly, kind of like you shouldn't be digging around in your iTunes or Photos Libraries directly as those are managed by their respective apps. Nobody should be looking for an iBooks folder in iCloud Drive to open/delete/organize books, you're supposed to do that from within the app itself only.

I'm blaming marketing for this one...

I'm sure you are right. Once upon a time filing systems on a computer were open and transparent to the average user; you stored the files where you wanted to store them. Apple clearly didnt want that to be the case with iOS, and this principle seems to have seeped into OSX as well. So we have a sort of hybrid.

Do you trust Apple or any cloud-based system to look after all your files in perpetuity? Not me!

I Was SUGGESTING that they should be "shown" on icloud drive.

I Can't find my books, they're not listed in iBooks with iCloud sign beside them.. They don't show at all

ive backed my phone 2 months ago or so and since then I've added new files to iBooks which I hadn't backed up

IBooks library on my iTunes show only some of the books I downloaded from iTunes store

it's not about trust.. I just want to access my files and have them deleted without my knowledge that's all... these restrictions theI've made may have made it harder for hackers and viruses to attack Apple's devices and software but it also made it extremely hard to transfer files or handle them however I want..

There is, in fact an iBooks folder in the iCloud Drive folder, but it is hidden. You can see its contents in terminal:

ls ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/

And also, as he mentioned by searching for the title using spotlight.

Basically, when you turn on iCloud for iBooks, apparently it copies all your locally stored books from ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books to the iCloud drive and then deletes them from the previous location.

Now, I'm not sure why some are not deleted and stay local. Maybe because space runs out? Out of a few hundred books, 21 of mine remained local.

RIght mouse button on file and choose parent directory.

iljajj wrote:

"The ebooks are still on your hard drive (or ssd), but they're hidden inside the iCloud drive (e.g., iCloud Drive > iBooks > xxxxxx.epub). However, any good search utility (including Spotlight) will trace them. Just do a file name search in that folder using ".epub"."

Rename a pdf in test12345.pdf, add it to iBooks, search this file in Finder, choose the file in iCloud Drive/iBooks, right mouse button and choose parent directore, a new window is opened in Finder with all your iBooks-files stored in iCloud (and on your harddisk or ssd).

Note: I am running OS X 10.11.6 and iOS 9.3.3 for the below discussion.

There are two locations for iBooks under newer Mac OS X and iOS when using iCloud drive to have your content available and synchronized between OS X and iOS.

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

  This is the location for any items you have "purchased" through iBooks. This includes FREE books as well, such as the Apple User Guides.

• ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents
  • This is where any items that you add to iBooks (pdf and ePub) get moved to.
  • Note that ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ is your iCloud drive local copy -- though the directories you see in the Finder are prefixed with "com~apple~"
• ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/

  This is where any files or folders you create in iCloud are stored under OS X.

I found the actual ebook files here:

/Users/<username>/Library/Mobile Documents/iBooks/iBooks

The .../Library/Containers... folder does contain a plist capturing the ebook catalog with relevant data (including location).

Hi, Might or might not apply now however I've just had this issue.

Just updated to Sierra and also had to migrate my profile as old one was corrupted.

I had an alias setup on my desktop which pointed to the correct folder they were kept in. (the one you have to cmd+shift+G and paste /Users/'USERNAME'/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBo oks to see).

Mines empty. so logged back into old (corrupt profile) and theres only 3 books there.

So I'm asking wheres the books and searched and found this thread.

So after being angry that apple has hidden my books, searching for them (*.epub) and so on. (I had a lot of books not bought - all legit mind from my current uni course material and PDF's which i need for uni and unable to manually backup.)

By chance I was looking through my 'All My Files' folder and low and behold sort by kind and scroll down and I can see all the .epubs and .pdf's and so on that I've uploaded via iBooks.

The bought ones are somewhere else - defiantly not in the iBooks folder and it appears apple is storing all our books in a hidden folder in the cloud.

You can't search for them as you can't seem to search the iCloud folder. But they are easy to find.

If you do not see any books in iBooks then they may be lost but you can search for your iBooks files locally. In finder search for any ePub files on your Mac and choose files that contain ePub in the file name. You should see list of all available files on your mac and they may point to iCloud-ibooks ( a hidden directory) as in the example below. The files that you find you should be able to import into iBooks by dragging them to the app.

You can create a link to this hidden folder by opening terminal and copying the following and running the command: ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/icloud\~com\~apple\~ibooks/ ~/Desktop/iCloud\ iBooks. This will create a shortcut on your desktop called "iCloud iBooks". Once the link is created, you can easily view and copy these files for backup or manually adding to older iDevices that are stuck on older versions of iBooks etc.