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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iOS Apps > My iBooks Are Gone

My iBooks Are Gone
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ghporter
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Join Date: Apr 2001
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Jan 3, 2016, 09:15 PM
 
Well crap. At some point, possibly when I upgraded to the latest iOS version, most of my non-iBook Store books disappeared. Since iBooks aren't automatically included in iPad/iPhone backups (WTF Apple!?!), am I likely to be able to recover this stuff by restoring the backup I did before the update?

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Demonhood
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Jan 3, 2016, 11:08 PM
 
Do you do iTunes or iCloud backups?
Sure they're not hidden in some obscure section of iBooks?
     
Atheist
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Jan 4, 2016, 09:58 AM
 
iBooks is useless unless you buy the books through iTunes. You have to manually install your personal e-books onto each device you have, and as pointed out, they don't get backed up to the cloud.

iBooks relies on your iTunes library for e-books you may have acquired from outside the iBooks store.

If they aren't in your iTunes library, they're gone.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Jan 4, 2016, 04:24 PM
 
I didn't specifically back up my books (mostly PDFs) onto my desktop before I updated the iOS, so I guess they are just gone.

I wonder why iTunes will bug you about "untransferred purchases on you iPad", but not even hint that your iBooks might need attention. This is really frustrating. If they expect ALL of what you'll use iBooks for to come from the iBooks store, why let you import just about everything else into iBooks? And why not make backing up those books as automatic as the iTunes library?

Fortunately, most of what I lost was (laboriously) replaceable. I didn't have an inventory of the books/PDFs I had, so maybe they aren't all as important as all that, but still it'll be a pain to correct.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
P
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Jan 5, 2016, 10:47 AM
 
The way I have handled ebooks on the iPad is to drop them all into a folder on my personal Dropbox from the Mac. The Dropbox app even lets you open the books there directly, and if you like you can move them to iBooks or another reader app (I like Marvin, though I haven't read on the iPad in a while).
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Jan 6, 2016, 09:15 AM
 
I'll have to start doing something like that. As I re-collect the PDFs I like to keep on my iPad, that is.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
   
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