why cant i add books or audiobooks in itunes

As of 6/30/23, iTunes may not support the direct addition of ebooks, PDFs, EPUBs, or audiobooks into its platform due to certain limitations or changes in its functionality. This could be a result of updates, policy changes, or technical considerations made by Apple, the company behind iTunes.

However, it's important to note that iTunes has undergone significant changes over the years, and its functionalities have been incorporated into different Apple services. For ebooks, PDFs, EPUBs, and audiobooks, you may want to explore alternative platforms or apps specifically designed for managing and accessing these types of content, such as Apple Books or other popular ebook and audiobook platforms available on the App Store.

To stay up to date with the latest features and capabilities of iTunes or other Apple services, it's advisable to refer to official Apple documentation, announcements, or reach out to Apple support for further assistance and clarification

The ability to manage iBooks and other ebook formats was removed from iTunes 12.7 along with the ability to mange apps, ringtones, and voice memos. What version of iTunes are you running now? I've just checked and the current version of iTunes (12.12.9.4) still supports audiobooks. Imported PDFs may end up in the podcasts section of the library, but if you're trying to reconnect digital booklets to their albums it should be possible to change the media kind to music and edit other details to merge with the album.

tt2

What version specifically are you running on what version of Windows? Installed from apple.com or the Microsoft Store?

As noted above, support in the library for PDFs (with the exception of Digital Booklets for albums) and epub/iBooks was removed back in iTunes 12.7. You should be able to drag & drop suitable content to a connected iOS device.

tt2

iTunes 12.7 was released 5 years ago. This is not a recent change of behaviour.

I've just tested 12.12.9.4 once again, importing a 14 file mp3 audiobook via the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. The tracks were treated as music. I selected all of them, pressed ctrl+i to get info, then used the options tab to change the media kind to audiobook and pressed OK. All 14 files were updated at once.

I also tried importing a couple of PDFs, one named in the form Digital Booklet - <Album>.pdf and another random document. Both ended up in Music so I may have been recalling an earlier behaviour. You can use a smart playlist with the rules Kind is PDF document to find all PDFs that have been added to the library. As far as I am aware these won't sync to a connected device. iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. can be used to copy PDFs and epub files to iOS devices. iBooks purchases should make their way to the Books app automatically via the cloud.

tt2

Use File > Add Folder to Library to add content, then change the media kind. See Organizing audiobook chapters - Apple Community and Audiobooks on iPods for further advice.

tt2