I have an extensive audiobook library (mostly DRM-free) in iTunes, which I actively curate (that is, I break books into chapters, combine chapters into sections, edit the metadata, etc). With Catalina, I understand this content will be moved to the Books app.
If you have played with the Catalina beta, do you know whether I will able to edit audiobooks in Books in the same manner that now is possible in iTunes? If no, any suggestions on non-Apple apps to use for this purpose, not only to edit the content, but then to play it on both Mac and iOS devices?
Thx.
—–
PJ
Note: See How To Manage an Audiobook Collection In macOS Catalina.
Yes, you access your audiobooks in the Books app.
But I'm not sure if you'll be able to do the same things you could do in iTunes. I don't have any audiobooks (actually, I have tons of them, but all in the Audible ecosystem).
I did download some free audiobooks in the Books app on Catalina. You can listen to them as I'd expect, but I'm not sure what you are doing with chapters that is different.
And I'm not sure what happens if the audiobook files are just audio files. Perhaps then they are just in the Music app. Or maybe you can choose. You may just have to wait until you get Catalina and then see.
You can't edit audiobook metadata in the new Apple Books app in macOS Catalina. iTunes was better for this. Also, raw Audiobook files are moved by the system to a hidden location and there is no "Show in Finder" feature available for them. The book files do not sync in icloud either. Make sure you backup your books before upgrading to Catalina.
Actually the path in the finder is: /Users/"username"/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books
This has become a bit of a pain for me as well.
iBooks wants to transfer my extremely large audiobook library to my very small internal hard drive.
I don't have enough space for the transfer, so now all my audiobooks are in limbo. I can't play them in iBooks or iTunes.
I am having the same problem as above - large audiobook library but small hard drive. How can I direct Books to my external hard drive with my audiobooks?
DJ: It sounds like Apple didn't expect people to have that many audiobooks. I'd call the and see what they say.
I've got nearly 540 audiobooks at 195GB. I use metadata to sort by genre and use smart playlists to organize. A major headache for me to upgrade. For now, I keep my main machine on Mojave (10.14.6).
anybody knows how I could copy my audiobooks from my iMac to my iPhone? The Books App doesn't see my iPhone and the Music App doesn't see my audiobooks
Pieter: Have you set up syncing in the Finder? Look for your iPhone in the left sidebar of the Finder and choose it to view the syncing options (you used to do this in iTunes).
Thank you Apple, i have 946 Audio Books, all an a 3 TB external hard drive, just installed Catalina, all going well until my available disk space is 0, for the love of god i cannot find a way to get the books app to look at the hard drive where i store an extensive collection, i bought a mac mini which has a small hard drive in December last year, wish i now had not bothered i havent even dared to launch the apple TV app as i know i have 1.5 TB of films and TV shows sitting there, ideas anyone
Justin: The TV app, like the Music app, and iTunes from before, has TV, Preferences, Files, where you can set the media folder location or simply turn off "Copy files to Media folder..." I wonder if Books obeys the setting in the Music app for this? Probably not, but worth a look.
I have 640GB of Audiobooks (so far, it's always growing), all DRM-free. I keep my iTunes Library (1.4TB in total, not including videos) on an external 2TB SSD drive, since it would never fit on my MacMini. Some audiobooks are .m4b, but most are just mp3's. Files are managed and sorted manually. Anytime I get a new one it always requires extensive metadata editing to fix their year of print, add cover art, etc. It sounds like Apple is finally telling me that they no longer want me as a customer
James: I wouldn't go that far. It is just one feature in the iTunes-to-Books transition that is missing. I would take your audiobooks out of iTunes before upgrading and leave them as files on your external drive. Maybe there is another app that you can use to access them for a while?
The Audiobook/ books app in Catalina is a nightmare. I cant delete ANY book, about 1/5 of my books moved over, the rest stayed in my itunes folder. To syncing you have to go through the WHOLE list of Audiobooks in the finder window , find the book you want to select, then sync. No more syncing by collection. I have hundreds of audiobooks, like looking for a needle in a haystack to choose each title. apart from that, my Mac barely even operates now.
Gary Rosenzweig, thanks for the info mate, your right with music and TV shows and films it behaves as before apart from the TV and films artwork but easy to sort, I cannot fathom out a fix for my audiobook collection think it will have to be different player doing some research, if can fix will post back, when find a good audiobook player that works for putting on an iPhone will let forum know.
Same thing guys- all library I have was located on external drive. I have no idea how to mange it right now. All these updates piss me off
same issue.
Most of my audiobook collection comes directly from Audible. I download it to my Mac and then frequently to my iPhone to listen on the go. Three quarters of my collection although on my Mac won’t download to my iPhone. It says that I don’t have permission for that file to be on my Mac. ???
If you have Audiobooks, wait or never upgrade to Catalina.
I have the same issue - several hundred GB worth of audiobooks all sitting on my external hard drive and I can't find any way to point iBooks to it. I don't think Apple thought about audiobook users very much, if at all, when they implemented this change.
RJ: If you are using Audible, get the Audible app! It is a much better way to listen and manage your books. You only need to download the one you are currently listening to, but you can access all of your books online when you want to switch.
I had the same issue with the permissions. Just open the drive that contains your books, make sure your permissions are set correctly, apply the correct permissions to the entire content of the drive and then follow this procedure: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538
There is no way to point Catalina's Books application to an external HD unlike iTunes and Podcast. I don't believe it's a mistake. I have almost 1000 audiobooks. I cannot read more than a page because of a disability that affects my sight. So this is a major problem. Audible doesn't have a desktop app either. I lost the use of 2 major apps when I upgraded to Mojave. Apple is not the same company anymore. Sorry, Apple apologists but Apple is not the cozy cuddly company u think it is.
I need help! I got over 1000 audiobooks that I can't access! what should I do? If I need to download an app, which one should it be?
LG: I don't know of another app. Can you just store the 1000 audiobooks in a folder as files and only load the one you are listening to into the Books app?
I have around 350 audiobooks and growing, a mix of DRM and open source. the breakup of iTunes has devastated me, I cannot manage my library I cannot modify metadata or sort. the loss of support for OverDrive Media Console has locked me out of public libraries. I do not want to use multiple different applications. I need to upgrade to take advantage of the new security features within the new macOS. I am scared and totally stressed out.
I'm so glad to realise I'm not a complete idiot and missed something obvious in Books. I can understand Apple thinking that with ebooks the location hardly matters because the files are small, but either they forgot about, or want to discourage, people trying to manage large libraries of audiobooks from other sources.
You _can_ use Calibre to manage audiobooks just as you can use it for ebooks, but it's not 100% at importing audio metadata. But it's the best alternative I've found.
Ted: Note that OverDrive Media Console (which I just looked up) has been discontinued by the developer. So it isn't a problem on the macOS end, it is a decision by the developer.
Can it handle DRM's and transferring to iPhones
This is a nightmare. All my audiobooks are gone, dissapeared. Mostly those, which I converted from audiobook CDs. When I try to import it again, this is even worse, every single file is added as single book. Go to hell, Apple.
Hey guys,
I stored all my audiobooks in iTunes on a NAS drive. Funny thing is, Books finds all the audiobooks in the old iTunes Media/Audiobooks folder and doesn't store/copy the audiobook files on my local MacBook drive. But as by now I realized how to make different folders on the NAS for "TV"- and "Audio"-App content I just wanted to add a folder "Audiobooks" to my NAS share. But I do not have a clue how to point Books-App to that folder or other way round, move files and change library...
Short update: I copied my iTunes Audiobooks-folder to the root of my NAS and cleared the Books library. Then I added the new folder on my NAS in hope to get Books to re-import my audiobooks to the library and still keep the data stored on the NAS - guess that was a stupid idea....now I also reduced my local hdd to 0 MB. Apple what did you do?
Here's my plan: I am loading my books into a folder on an eternal drive (I've got about 500 GB of audiobooks), divided into subfolders by author, all tagged correctly within iTunes. Then, I point Plex (the media server app, free of charge) to that folder as a Library. Then, I am using an app called Prologue on my iPhone, which can browse the Plex library wirelessly and download books as needed to my iPhone. Will be happy to share more details if needed.
What I find annoying is when you google help in transferring audio books to iPhone or iPod with the Catalina update the same mantra of using Finder to sync your device is repeated over and over.....”It does not work” Fix it please apple.
I have exactly the same problem. I can not access my 1.000+ audiobook external library. I hope that Apple is planning an update to fix this problem very very soon.
Alias to external audiobooks folder does not seem to work.
I tried to create an alias of the audiobooks folder on my NAS and pasted this alias into the above iBook/Books folder. However, I could not import books into this alias folder or recreate the plist file based on the audiobooks inside this alias folder.
I was prepared for the audiobooks moving over to the Books app, but I don't like the fact that all my collections for audiobooks are gone. And my 628 audiobooks take up almost 250GB on my 1TB drive. The way I buy audiobooks, I'm going to fill my drive up quickly. Apple needs to make an easy way to fix this. I love the idea of moving the files over to an external drive... if they will let us. For now, though... I'll listen to them on my iPad. Even though the speakers SUCK.
Couldn't find a way to do that.
Probably it's better to leave the original audiobooks folder intact in its original place. Manually add only those needed to the new Books app for listening and sync'ing. And, manually replace them with new titles when finished.
Otherwise, streaming directly from the online library, such as Audible cloud, could be a short term alternative.
But honestly the purpose of breaking different types of media apart should be more better management.
Tried to update my audiobooks on my iPhone. It failed when some audiobooks weren't authorized on the Mac(!) and only one audiobook was downloaded. I went to the library on the Mac and was able to listen to the books so the Mac is authorized. After repeated fails and a long useless chats with Apple "Help" I found this thread. Thanks for the note about the Audible app. I'll use that for now and hope for a better resolution later.
iTunes was perfectly adequate. We were promised a much better media experience with Catalina. I'm now looking at replacing my Apple machines with Microsoft products. Ones that JUST WORK. Catalina has destroyed my audiobook collection. 'Get Info' would help to reorganise, Tune Span to store and transfers to mobile devices by 'drag and drop', but they are no longer available for audiobooks. The player in Books is ridiculously small and useless. Catalina is just for Apple Music subscribers.
Ever since I downloaded Catalina I cannot figure out how to download an Audible Book to my iPod. Is it possible? And where can I find the instructions?
Joe: Is it an iPod touch? If so, skip that and just use the Audible app. If not, you use the Books app to import the book, then the Finder to sync.
When I installed Catalina, I opened up I books and it imported all of my audiobook files I had in iTunes over to Books. It took a while because I had so many, but I didn't lose anything. I have been clicking and dragging the audiobooks I have on my external hard drive into Books and I have been able to link it to my iPad or iPhone. My issue is how to change the media data like I did in iTunes?
Boris: There is no way to change the media location for Books... yet. So for now you either have to have all of your audio books stored on your local drive in the default location, or store them as files where you want and only bring in the books to the Books app that you need to listen to.
What a nightmare. On Itunes, I had all my audiobooks as playlists so eg for a series I would number the playlist name and books in a folder were in the series order. Now manually reorder in collections - after I have made them - I suppose. Categories are nonsense and apparently can't be edited. Can see that lots of my audiobooks haven't come across just by smaller list but will have to check to see which haven't. I foresee days of work for a vastly less satisfactory experience.
My Books library is over 260GB (mostly audiobooks) on my 1TB iMac. Cannot 'move' the library to my Drobo where my music and movies/tv files are. Like others here my audiobooks were removed from my iPhone and will not sync back on. I have done the 'update library' and deauthorized/reauthorized both my computer and Audible account in Books but that does not solve the syncing problem. I am currently using the iPhone apps from Audible and Big Finish Productions.
Sir, I don’t think the new audiobook application in Catalina is as good as iTunes. If I were to revert my iMac O/S back to Mojave using a Time Machine backup, do you think that my collection of audiobooks (comprising Audible downloads, home recordings, ripped cd’s and some from Apple) would return to iTunes as before? Or has Catalina scrambled the data? If so do you know of any other audiobook player apps? Appreciate your knowledge as I mainly use my iMac as a media player. Regards MT
M Tyler: reverting is a long and difficult process. One way to do it would be to just revert your whole drive via time machine. Otherwise, you’d probably have to rebuild your whole audiobook collection from the original files. I strongly recommend against reverting.
Where do you get your audiobooks? I have never had a single audiobook in iTunes. I just use the Audible service and app. Everything in the cloud too.
Sir, Thank you for your advice on not reverting to Mojave. Most of my audiobooks come from Audible and I have always downloaded them to iTunes on my iMac. I have also ripped from CD’s and have Piezo recordings of radio programmes. I have never been into streaming, and don't use iCloud. Can I trust these companies to look after my purchases in their clouds? After more delving I’m beginning to sort out where things are in Books now (I’m having to use open with). Many thank’s, have a good weekend.
M Tyler: if you use Audible, then definitely get the Audible app. I’ve been using if for 10 years. I only ever have my current book on my iPhone. The rest I can download when I want. I don’t think Audible (Amazon) or Apple are going anywhere. If there did I think you’d have plenty of warning to download and archive.
Sir, Thank you very much. Will do.
Regards. MT
I talked with apple support and they suggested that we send this in as a feedback for the books app team so they can restore this feature in the future.
https://www.apple.com/feedback/books.html
Unfortunately I did not do any research before I "upgraded" to Catalina and also did not back-up collection of my Audiobook. It took my old MacBook pro almost 2 days to transfer to iBook and they are all messed up and out of sorts. All the countless hours i spent to in preparing a single audiobook, all in disarray! Any help out there? Can you imagine how long to transfers Games of thrones to audiobook with 38 discs? i think i found my next company to boycott!
I use a freeware app called MetaZ to manage my audiobook metadata, as well as metadata for other types of media. Hopefully that app will be useful to some of you.
VLC can be a solution. Not elegant but it works. Just create a File system Library (i.e. Author/Book_title/Chapter) and add it as multimedia collection (just drag it on the VLC window).
Then you can navigate it according the the file path you created.
On iOS I see several applications are available and I guess they can import the library directly from finder. I tried one of them, and it seems to work.
It seems that the problem is more on MacOs, where I cannot find other alternatives.
It deleted all my audiobook playlists. They're gone. I put 15 years of work into those, over a thousand audiobooks cut up and organized and Catalina deleted it all. Why wouldn't they transfer to iBook's "Collections"? This is catastrophic data loss for me. How could they do this. Why not warn people before you delete their work
I HIGHLY recommend using the Prologue app.
It works with Plex - I’ve migrated my library over, and I’m not looking back!
Also recommend using Tagr for metadata editing and cleanup
Gabe - Plex/Prologue, I’ve been testing this out and agree good solution for non-DRM audiobooks. I can also organise/manage DRM but not play. I was really looking for single solution, but looks like I’m stuck with books for iTunes purchased AB’s.
I downloaded Catalina, which was a mistake. iTunes is gone and now with the Books app, I can't burn my audiobooks (Audible) to cd's. Which I do so I can listen to them in my car. I don't use a smartphone. ny way to do this?
Todd: Did you burn "audio" CDs? At 72 minutes a piece, I can't imagine you did that. So you probably created "MP3" CDs, correct? I think you can just make those in the Finder or using a CD burning tool. You just have to get the formatting right for the CD, and make sure the audio files are the right kind of MP3. Can't help you much beyond that as I haven't created a CD in years and the specifics probably depend on the equipment in your car.
I have a slightly different problem. I use Podcasts to download the programs I'm interested in. These individual mp3 files were then copied (automatically) to an external file structure on my NAS which contains all my music, plays, audiobooks etc. These are then managed / played by Roon.
So my issue is that I want to be able to have a named mp3 file that I can copy to the NAS. dragging and dropping to a folder DOES work for single files, but Podcasts crashes with multiple files.
The Music app in Catalina is not "friendly" to devotees of audiobooks. I have a 500 book collection of audiobooks but cannot load any from Audible onto my iPods. Those are not recognized, and I don't listen to books directly from the iMac. I'm so unhappy with Catalina because of losing iTunes, that I will revert back to Mojave, which is a huge pain. The Music app is fine for music subscribers and probably works well for them, but there are many book lovers that Apple should have considered.
Penn: Please let us know how you get on with reverting back to Mojave. I want to revert as well and wonder if iTunes will 'work as it used to' if I use a Time Machine back-up from just before I up- graded to Catalina. I can't transfer or sync Audible purchases to iPad or iPod either. I agree that Apple are only interested in their subscription services now and they don't offer an audiobook subscription. Best of luck.
Penn: If you are using Audible books, then why not just use the Audible app on iOS?
Gary- I think the point being made is the ability to manage and organise audiobook libraries. The audible app is good for listening but has no functionality to organise. iTunes provides these features and handles audible (aax) content as well as syncing to iOS devices. I use metadata to manipulate my library into smart playlists- this has all gone in Catalina. Fortunately, I have not upgraded my main machine so still able to use iTunes.
There is a developer who made it possible to run the old iTunes (even iTunes 12.6.5 with app support) on Catalina. Search for: "Retroactive brings Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes back in macOS Catalina"
It might be a good solution for the audiobook issue, if things can run peacefully side by side.
I'm with everyone else. 600+ audiobooks I can no longer sync to my Books. The problem I'm having, Gary, with just using my Audible app (which I do for the book I'm listening to currently) is all the OTHER audiobooks still in my library I haven't gotten around to listening to. Now I have to remember those book titles when I want to download one next. Not an issue if my MB Pro is nearby, but that's not always the case. Any way to convert the files so Books thinks it's non-Audible?
Denise: So you can view your whole library in the Audible app. You can also mark as Finished or Unfinished, and search. Is that what you need? I usually buy a book and listen to it, then wait to buy the next book until I'm ready for that one. I don't know what the advantage to buying a book well in advance would be. But what is wrong with just using the Audible app?
You can used the terminal to run this before starting the migration:
mv ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/ /Volumes/SomeDrive/Books
ln -s /Volumes/SomeDrive/Books ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/
Same here...It is unacceptable. I just can not believe that developers don't think to the obvious need for editing audiobooks, renaming chapters, adding covers, titles, etc. Editing anything in iTunes has been awful, but now it's a total chaos...
https://www.apple.com/feedback/
Give it a feedback.
I am heartened by how many others out there have been frustrated by this issue with the new Catalina update to Books. I spoke with Apple support, and they gave me this whole speech about metadata and whatnot, but essentially they said "tough luck, if you want it fixed, you have to leave feedback with Apple." Hopefully if enough people complain, it will be fixed in future updates. STAY STRONG!
I have the same issue... 2018 MacMini with SSD, and now I can't access my books :(
I am another one with over 600 audiobooks and weeks/months of painstaking organization and creating individual playlists for each one. The "music" playlists were required for iPod Classic because of the way the iPod organized audiobook chapters.
Now with Books, all my playlists are completely gone. With the Collections feature, I have no idea why Apple couldn't have just used that to maintain old playlists. So devastated, after being a lifelong Apple fanatic.
Thanks for the Prologue recommendation. Sent feedback in both places, and held off on the upgrade.
Sir, I am really hating Catalina! I have just discovered that since upgrading, my air pods no longer work properly on my iMac. They work fine on my iPad but despite performing a factory reset they are 'stuttering'. Everything just worked fine in Mojave. If I use my 'Time Machine' back up, do you think that my iMac will actually work as it used to? Will I be able to find and listen to my audiobooks on my iMac and also be able to transfer them to my iPad, or have Apple messed it up forever?
M Tyler: Have you tried removing the AirPods from your Bluetooth settings and adding them back? I've been using my old AirPods with my Catalina Mac without issues. I don't know if the problem is related to the macOS version. I wouldn't try to revert your entire Mac back to Mojave as that will take a ton of time, and could give you even more problems. Instead try to solve the issue. Maybe visit the Genius Bar if the problem persists. As for Audiobooks, it depends on the source of your books. For instance, from Audible, just get the Audible app.
What about the Audiobook Builder 2 app in the Mac App Store? Would it be useful to bypass this Catalina audiobook disaster?
Same issue here but WORSE. I have all my Audiobooks on a Synology NAS. When Catalina installed it DELETED 97% of my audiobooks. Thank GOD I had recycle bin enabled on my NAS for audiobooks. I assume it copy/Deleted them to my Mac but haven't figured it out yet.
I posted a rant and sent feedback. (Thinking of doing it daily TBH).
This was the last straw......probably going to sell MAC and get a Good'Ol nice reliable, manageable Windows 10 PC.
Further to my above post. I just realized I had cloudsync enabled to sync an audiobook folder on my MAC to an audiobook folder on my NAS. Thus, when books moved all my files......they got deleted on my NAS.
Hope this helps someone else. Cheers.
Robin: Where did you get your audiobooks from?
Excellent recommendation by Ronald Schoedel. Many thanks. Remember that the original file of Audiobooks remains in the iTunes folder after Catalina upgrade. Create a Plex library pointing to that file and include existing Metadata. Displays items perfectly in Plex and then connects to Prologue app on iOS as Ronald stated. All audiobooks remain on external drive in iTunes folder for backup. New iBooks data created by Catalina can now be safely removed from system drive.
Gary, Sorry, I thought I'd get an email to let me know you'd responded. I do use Audible currently. But I had so many in my library I'd been gifted or just hadn't listened to yet. I had to go through everything in iOS Books, compare to those in Books for Mac and then manually download into Audible all those that didn't migrate over. 94 books so far, because Apple can't play well with those consumers who buy from Audible.
Rodney and Ronald: I'd love to learn more about this! BTW, I went to my Audiobook folder in iTunes folder, but they've all disappeared into the files Jeremy mentioned above. And when you delete out of your library in Books, it no longer asks if you want to delete from the library or delete altogether (sending it to the recycle bin). It just deletes them. So now, each time I want to delete a book from Books, I'll have to move them BACK to the iTunes folder if I want to keep the file. PITA.
Denise: If you use Audible, then why download anything at all? Just get the Audible app for iOS and access your books in there. No need to mess with them on your Mac in the Books app at all.
Again, because I have many books purchased a while ago. AND I would like to keep the files for later, should I no longer have an Audible subscription and wish to listen again.
Denise: Audible "subscriptions" just get you credits for purchases. If you don't have a current subscription, they don't take your books away from you. You can always access them in your library.
Plus, if you really want to have backups of them because you think Amazon (owns Audible) may go away, then you can just download them to your Mac and store an archived file somewhere. No need to ever touch the Books app.
How do you actually transfer books onto your iPhone now? the Books App gives me no options other than to listen to the audiobooks on my macbook.
William: You sync to your iPhone via iCloud or the old-fashioned way with a cable. If you want to use a cable, then you sync in Finder now instead of iTunes. https://macmost.com/sync-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod-without-itunes-in-catalina.html
Gary: Right. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I don't think you understand my (or most others' based on your responses) concerns or frustrations. But I think I've found a workaround. Thank you for the forum and for your time.
Denise: What is your workaround? I see this as simply a problem where previous functionality is missing, so people need to find workarounds based on their needs. I have hundreds of Audible books myself, but all just in Audible's cloud and only one at a time on my iPhone in the Audible app, none on my Mac at all. That's my solution. But I realize others may want different things.