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iBooks not syncing between iPad and iPhone

I have PDFs in iBooks on my iPad that don't show up on iPhone; I have audiobooks on iPhone that don't show up on iPad. Both sets are downloaded by me, not purchased. iCloud is on and working; iBook settings seem fine. What am I missing?

Posted on Apr 7, 2017 7:12 AM

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Posted on Nov 3, 2017 8:35 AM

I too have the same issue. I turned on and off iCloud on both devices a number of times. Turned off and on iBooks under iCloud on both devices a number of times. Turned off and on iBooks sync properties a number of times, again on both devices. Signed on and off from iBooks a number of times, again on both device. Even uninstalled and reinstalled iBooks a number of times, but nothing helped and now I am going to move my PDFs to Amazon or Adobe as they are far far better and easy to use. They have been designed better and have been tested enough that end users do face such issues which eats away hours together with no results. I mean, this should have been fai simple, but it seems Apple cares about only the books which users buy from iBooks and not the personal PDFs as they bring zero monetary value for Apple. This feature has been broken for years now and I know it’s not gonna fix. Good luck to us...

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Question marked as Best reply

Nov 3, 2017 8:35 AM in response to Innerworth

I too have the same issue. I turned on and off iCloud on both devices a number of times. Turned off and on iBooks under iCloud on both devices a number of times. Turned off and on iBooks sync properties a number of times, again on both devices. Signed on and off from iBooks a number of times, again on both device. Even uninstalled and reinstalled iBooks a number of times, but nothing helped and now I am going to move my PDFs to Amazon or Adobe as they are far far better and easy to use. They have been designed better and have been tested enough that end users do face such issues which eats away hours together with no results. I mean, this should have been fai simple, but it seems Apple cares about only the books which users buy from iBooks and not the personal PDFs as they bring zero monetary value for Apple. This feature has been broken for years now and I know it’s not gonna fix. Good luck to us...

Sep 26, 2017 5:07 AM in response to Jim Douglas1

I had this problem too and was puzzled by it but managed to find the solution:


What you need to do is go to the device where files are not being syncronized and go to Settings>iCloud and then switch off iCloud, wait a moment, then switch it on again. If this doesn't work then do the same for the iBook switch under the iCould settings. Once you switch both back on again, it will refresh and all your saved files will be restored. Hope that helps!

Apr 7, 2017 8:09 AM in response to Jim Douglas1

Unless you are using iCloud Drive for the iBooks app the PDFs won't copy via the cloud between your devices - the 'sync collections' setting doesn't copy items between devices, all it does is if you have the same PDF or book on both devices and you move it into a collection on one of the devices, it will be moved into the same collection on the other device.


If you want to use iCloud Drive to make your PDFs available in the cloud (I don't use it so I don't know if there are downsides of it) : Use iCloud Drive or iBooks to access your PDF files, ePub files, and books - Apple Support


For your audiobooks (those not bought from iTunes) you will have to sync them onto each device that you want them on.

Feb 22, 2018 8:03 PM in response to Jim Douglas1

Same thing happened to me when I copied PDF from Microsoft OneNote to iBooks on my iPad. I turned on and off iCloud. Turned on and off iBooks under iCloud Drive a number of times. Turned off and on iBooks sync properties a number of times. Signed on and off from iBooks a number of times. Even uninstalled and reinstalled iBooks. Nothing worked. Conclusion, iBooks doesn't sync PDF when you copy them from OneNote, you'll have to copy them from somewhere else.

iBooks not syncing between iPad and iPhone

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