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Adding books not purchased from Apple to iPhone

I have a number of books I have downloaded (legally) on my Mac that I can open in the Mac Books app. I'm trying to add them to my iPhone and when I go to iTunes or the Finder it only shows the books I got from Apple, nothing else. I can move a book to a folder on my iPhone using iCloud and then using Files, I can open it in Books on my phone but this is incredibly inefficient and clumsy. I'm trying to sync with the phone connected via USB to my Mac. All devices have the latest software.

iPhone XR

Posted on Mar 24, 2021 6:00 PM

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Posted on Mar 24, 2021 6:05 PM

How are you synchronizing your books? Via USB cable from the Mac, or via iCloud?


See your books and audiobooks on all your devices with Books on Mac - Apple Support


https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-sync-ibooks-to-all-your-ios-devices/

8 replies

Apr 10, 2021 11:03 AM in response to stinenordo

stinenordo wrote:

I'm having the exact same problem.
All my audio- and ebooks are in the same folder, they are all recognised by the Books app on Mac, none of them are purchased from Apple, there are no problems syncing the audiobooks to iPhone.
However the ebooks (all .epub) won't show up under "Books" (or anywhere for that matter) on the sync screen in Finder.


First, some background on how this is supposed to be configured and how it’s supposed to work...


Here is how to import your books into iBooks (Books) on Mac, and to enable iCloud Books sync.

See > See your books and audiobooks on all your devices with Books on Mac - Apple Support


Or import into your Mac Books library, and use a cable:

See > Sync books between your Mac and iPhone or iPad - Apple Support


Now for one way this can go weird... I’ve managed to un-set the all-books setting a couple of times (back when it was in iTunes, and again more recently in Mac Finder), which prevents books from synchronizing, too. That’ll cause something akin to what you’re seeing.


This should be the setting, for most of us:



Otherwise, we get to add each book to the list synchronized individually.


Now, I'm really not tech savvy, so if you were able to make it work I would really like a step-by-step explanation of how you did it.


Kindly stop undercutting yourself and your abilities, as a humble suggestion.


Everybody that “knows computers” started out not knowing anything about computers. And many of us are still learning about computers. I certainly am. Same for every other topic area. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re here. You’re here, you’re asking, and you’re learning. That itself is a skill.

Mar 25, 2021 1:27 PM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks.

Syncing over iCloud worked. I would still like to sync via USB and the Finder/File applications; I'm rather unhappy that the process has to go through the cloud when the devices are connected with a data link. I'll look at this later after the next update when Apple has hopefully resolved some of the issues they created when they broke up iTunes (not that iTunes wasn't a mess and didn't need something drastic)


Mar 25, 2021 4:43 PM in response to MrHoffman

I see what's going on. I had most of my books in a sub-folder in the documents folder as opposed to in the hidden folder that Apple expects them to be hidden in.


~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks


So even though the Books app knew where the books where, it wouldn't sinc them. It seems ridiculous to hide the book folder; I suspect it having something to do with DRM but there should be ways to handle that without making things quite so clumsy. In any case thanks for your help; I now enough to work around this "feature".

Apr 10, 2021 10:18 AM in response to aleatoory

I'm having the exact same problem.

All my audio- and ebooks are in the same folder, they are all recognised by the Books app on Mac, none of them are purchased from Apple, there are no problems syncing the audiobooks to iPhone.

However the ebooks (all .epub) won't show up under "Books" (or anywhere for that matter) on the sync screen in Finder.


Now, I'm really not tech savvy, so if you were able to make it work I would really like a step-by-step explanation of how you did it.


Please and thank you!

Apr 12, 2021 8:08 AM in response to stinenordo

If you’re loading books directly into the library, the library risks corruption, or—probably more likely—will not reflect the entire contents of the library absent somehow also triggering a library rebuild. And AFAIK, there’s no means to trigger a library rebuild, short of exporting all of your books, deleting the entire library, and reloading and re-downloading your purchased books.

Adding books not purchased from Apple to iPhone

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