PDFs saved in iBooks keep disappearing

I have iPhone 7 Plus, iPad Mini, and iMac (2007), all connected to 50GB iCloud storage and with latest applicable OS updates. My iMac is only used a few times a year since 2014 and has just not backed up anything to iCloud since then. (I checked everywhere, but am not sure if any iMac backup setting is off.)

In May, 2018 several new things below happened sequentially days or weeks apart:

1) Previously a trivial memory user, I started making many iPhone videos, taking up about 15GB of my 128GB.

2) I got iPad iPhoto message that reduced resolution would be used, due to 64GB device storage limitations.

3) My iPad developed (unrelated) common documented age problem with dull white-ish screen after ~15min use.

4) Due to iPad screen problem, I began using my iMac (2007) again and updated to OS X 10.10.5.

5) On iPad, I noticed that iBook Collections and downloaded pdfs that I added within a month or so were MISSING! I recreated the Collection categories and painstakingly redownloaded the pdfs into iBooks from various websites. They also appeared on iPhone soon afterwards.

6) On June 7, 2018, the same recent iBook Collections and pdfs were MISSING AGAIN FROM BOTH DEVICES! I found this Apple support info and tried various reboot, iBook delete, turnoff, and backup tricks to no avail.

7) I updated iPhone and iPad to iOS 11.4. No change.

I have given up trying tricks for fear of pemmanently deleting important pdfs (taxes, etc...). My only hope is that Apple will fix this (apparently years ongoing) iBooks bug, and that my recent missing files will reappear from iCloud.

I was talking today the German Apple helpline. He had no clue as he was referring to iCloud drive in combination to iBooks. It did not even help to show him this link.

Can you describe what they did to recover your pdf's?

I had to reset the iPad to factory settings, then restart it, going into the iBooks and somehow made a local copy of my pdf. I spoke to the help desk in Portuga (from the UK) I spoke to a senior adviser, he was Hungarian, a very helpful chap.

Thankyou so much for your post! I had the exact same issue with my iBooks PDFs disappearing. I did what you said and turned off the two toggles, and waited a minute. I reset my phone just to be sure, then turned the toggles back on. I have all of my PDFs back! Thankyou for the very helpful post!!!!

I guess I just discovered this has been happing to me to—how abhorrent! If there is 1 thing that's most important to me is that when I save personal documents/.pdfs in notes, pages and iBooks, that they don't disappear for no reason! That's almost the whole point of an iCloud—piece of mind that your personal documents will not be lost, even if your device is...

Now, absolutely, thank you to whomever found the whole on/off syncs thing to recover—In terms of iBooks, I 'selected all' before I did it and then after..9% of my books were missing that suddenly reappeared! That's 17 files—not to mention, in retrospect, I've thought many times, "wait—I could have sworn I downloaded a certain .pdf, then redownloaded it, assuming I was mistaken."

This time though—I KNEW I downloaded a particular .pdf, because I've been referencing it these past couple days. I then google THIS thrad.

I, really, should have never needed to do that—considering the OP's post dates back to Dec. 17, 3/4 of a year later. Apple should have given me a 'urgent' email or 'prompt' when I opened up the APP—at the very least offering this basic solution until they fix the glitch.

Maybe this was on the news or something (I rarely watch those "news" channels, as I consider them news-entertainment), but regardless it was up to APPLE to put it front and center, but instead it seems they took a 'sweep-under-the-rug' mentality until they fixed it.

I mean, I've seen a lot of complaints to new iOS updates—and generally know to wait a bit to go ahead and update (waiting for hot-fixes on community feedback, case-in-point), but I've never seen one as bad as this, IMO—Thank god the fix was simple, but I can't believe it was even in the realm of possibility and the lack of notification.

In fact, the last couple years I've definitely come to appreciate Apple and even advocate their stuff for people like my mother, where simplicity is key, maintenence is minimal and I can just adjust her settings to optimize her phone/tablet's privacy, data usage, background app refresh, notifications, etc....but man—I really was a PC guy for most of my life (I still advocate PC to kids want who want to get into hardware or programming—basiclly do more than word processing, web browsing, app playing, adobe suite, etc...), but this makes me really not want to trust Apple even my word-processing stuff.

Anyways.....maybe I took that a little bit to '11', but I'm just surprised....now I'm off to try that sync with pages/notes and see if it also decimated those collections.

I welcome feedback—or corrections to my viewpoint...but ATM that's how I feel.

I too had this problem, only on my iPad. Other Apple devices were fine. Finally thought to Google it and found I was not alone. All of the suggested fixes were helpful, but he one that’s finally worked for me was simply signing out of iCloud in the affected device and signing in again. After a couple of minutes all of the missing books and PDFs in iBooks started to magically appear. Thanks to the Apple community for their help!

I spoke to the helpline here in Australia a few months ago about this issue for several hours. The guy was lovely but had no clue about the problem or how to fix it. My books magics reappeared by themselves a few weeks later. They have once again gone!!! I have hundreds of dollars worth of purchased ebook PDF’s which are gone yet again. Have tried all the fixes suggested in this post and nothing works. APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!!

Same issue here. I have to say that Apple has no clue on basic data governance when it comes to devices. Data should always be separate from the app. All my pdf's are gone as well. Support always goes to the backup as a solution, but you can't selectively restore. The whole business model is to drive cloud and recurring revenue.

Thanks, yes. Apple does so many things well and beautifully; it is absolutely maddening that they have allowed this dang important issue to go un-fixed. It affects people everywhere who use the AppleBooks app to store PDF docs that pertain to their livelihoods, education, etc.

Also sometimes they’ll randomly ALL pop back in. I save one per week for my work and it is hilarious how they’re often not there if you want hem, but then all the old ones will surprisingly randomly pop back in! Infuriating.

Have you tried signing out of the iOS device and sign back in?

indead I have the same, a list of pdf icons with a stop button next to a it, without being able to download it, horrible

I have been having this problem for sometime. I now use my kindle app so I will not lose anymore files.

I just updated my ipad to 11.4 and lost the pdfs I was viewing in ibooks earlier this morning. Fix noted above did not work.

I had that trouble I have a brand new IPad 6. With iOS 11.4 and all my pdf disappeared overnight. Really annoying.