Stop books going to the cloud

I had this issue as well, but found a fix. I would download books over wifi, but the next time I opened iBooks the books would need to be re-downloaded. I saw this while on and off of wifi, but it was of course more of an issue when only cellular data was available.

The fix: My iPhone was almost completely out of storage (this issue would probably affect iPads as well). After freeing up some space, downloaded books stay downloaded. I freed up 20%, but I imagine 10% would be sufficient.

My guess is that on devices with very little storage space available, iCloud tries to free some up by removing content you're not using at the moment, content that exists in iCloud storage. This is pretty smart on Apple's part, and is much better than hitting a hard limit in most cases. It's definitely inconvenient when a book you're reading is no longer available and you only have cellular data, but keeping some free space available should avoid this.

I had the same problem too. This fix worked for me.

1 on your iphone or ipad go to settings> apple id > icloud > disable ibooks ----> this will make all your books disappear so make sure you have them in your computuer

2 in your computer go to itunes > file > add file ---- add all of your books

3 still itunes go to your device > books > check the books you want to sync

4 sync!

in my iphone i left the ibooks > sync bookmarks and notes & sync collections enabled

This stopped my books from going to the cloud and now I don't have to download them again and again.

Go to the top item in settings - your Apple ID etc. Then click on iCloud. My sister's default setting was to send iBooks to the cloud.

I wrote down the names of all her books, had her turn off iCloud for iBooks then I had to redownload all her books but they stayed on the iPad when we went camping last week.

Sorry you're still having trouble. How much free space do you have available on your device? Is it at least 10% of the storage total? You can find out by going to the iPhone/iPad Storage preferences section. That post includes some tips on freeing up additional space.

One thing you should know is that books purchased through Apple aren't "sent" to iCloud. They reside there by default and will always be available there (should you lose/damage your device, for instance). What's happening is that the local version of your book is being deleted, most likely to maximize the space available as described above.

see above it works for me; Go to the top item in settings - your Apple ID etc. Then click on iCloud. My sister's default setting was to send iBooks to the cloud.

FYI, We are not Apple employees.

All suggestion are given and since I don't have this issue with iBooks, you can make a genius bar appointment for an evaluation.

Settings > iBooks >Sync Collection: ON?

Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > iBooks: OFF?

Hi Babiba,

You may have to deactivate that option by going into your device to your iCloud account, scroll down until you find iBooks and make sure the feature is OFF.

Regards,

I have this problem too! I ask Apple when today, then she told me: "You can uninstall iBooks install it again! And upgrade your system to the newest! ". I do it, and successful! You can try out it!

Hi,

I am not 100%, but looks like you can stop it if in Photos settings (I know sounds ridiculous) disable “Optimize iPhone storage” and enables “Download and keep originals”

Seems if “Optimize iPhone storage” is enabled, iOS push to cloud ALL files, not only photos, but books, Numbers, etc.

Looks like a bug, but meanwhile try, hopefully it will help

Best regards

Artem

Hey, this problem still hasn't been solved. I again got stuck without cellular (or wi-fi) coverage and Apple iBooks for whatever reason decided that the book I was reading should be put into the cloud. What's the point of having my books on my phone if I can't access then when needed? The world isn't nearly the technical utopia Apple seems to think it is... :-(

Hi Keith,

Have you managed to sort this one out? I'm still getting this. I want my book to be available on icloud, but not to be deleted from ibooks.

I get all my books from my dropbox directly into the phone/tablet, but after a while they appear with the cloud icon next to them, and if I want to open them I need WiFi which I don't always have on my tablet, and it is annoying.

Has anyone fixed this?

I also have this problem.

It seems to me that the wording of the question is unclear, as I don't think the issue is that the books are "uploaded" to the cloud.

In my case, I loaded an ebook on my laptop, and chose to sync it with my iCloud account. That made the book available on my phone and ipad.

In order to read the book, I had to click the little cloud icon in the top left corner of the book, which downloaded it to each device. However, after some indeterminate amount of time, the book will no longer be on the device and will have to be downloaded again.

The problem is that iBooks is deleting the local copy from the mobile devices, and what we need is a way to disable this behavior.

Freeing up space + going to pictures in iDrive and switch from ‘optimize iPhone storage’ to ‘keep originals’ (as other people have suggested) did the trick for me on my iPhone 5S. As for freeing up space: You can look up a trick with renting a large movie file (eg War and Peace) which gives you an error message saying ‘not enough space’ (so you don’t pay) but then somehow automatically cleans up ‘fluff’ from your phone. It’s earned me 20-30% space a few times now....

The response and solution was given two pages ago in the thread. Going back to the issue will confuse visitors.

This can be solved by disabling "optimize storage" in ios -> settings -> pictures (change to "keep originals")

Ok macos this is done in system preferences -> icloud -> icloud drive -> options -> uncheck "optimise max storage"

I have this same problem and am still waiting on a good response from Apple. I've played around with the various settings on the iPhone and within iTunes but nothing helps. I have 256 gb iPad Pro and want all of my books (only a few gigs worth) permanently on my iPad. But they keep going to the cloud. I want them in the cloud and on my iPad. It’s obviously a way to save space but there should be a way to switch that off without switching off iCloud complete which I feel would probably do the trick. But that’ll ruin everythin else I need iCloud for. I hate having to constantly keep redownloading books when I get ready to read them.