EPUB book import from Apple Books library

Negyb
I was hoping to import all my (non DRM) books in my Mac "Books" library (iCloud>Books) into Zotero.... oddly the files don't import when you drag them from the file folder. However the same epub, in the form it was before being imported into iBooks, are easily imported. As a test case, I tried copying some of the (non DRM) epub books into another folder on my desktop (so, outside the official Apple Books book folder)... it seems as if "Books" modifies the files that make them non-readable/importabler in Zotero. Only the original files that were first imported into Books seems to import into Zotero. The problem is that over the years I deleted the original files as they went into my Books library. So I have over 1000 books that Id like to reference from Zotero (and dont have the original epub file copies)... is there a way to fix this?
  • aborel
    edited September 18, 2024
    Yes, apparently Books silently modifies EPUB files: if I understand correctly, it unzips them and what you see afterwards is actually a folder with the same name as the original file

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254517709

    Create a zip with the folder content (not the folder itself), replace the zip extension with epub, and you should have an ebook readable by all other applications.
  • Negyb
    Thanks for this... can I ask for clarification/guidance
    What do I use to create a zip? Any recommended apps?
    So I create a zip for the Books folder content (all 1000+ books)
    Or do I have to do this for each book, treating each Book in the Books folder as basically a folder and zip the content then change the file name?
    Is there a way to do this for all the books at once? Or a bunch of them at the same time?
    Thanks
  • Negyb
    I did try to zip ("compress" the file from the apple menu) and then copy that into Zotero after removing the .zip extension and changing it to .epub but that didn't seem to work as the imported file was not opening up.... in either Zotero or Books
  • AbeJellinek
    Create a zip with the folder content (not the folder itself), replace the zip extension with epub, and you should have an ebook readable by all other applications.
    This will probably work well enough to open the EPUB in the Zotero reader, but it doesn't actually create a fully valid EPUB file. The spec has some specific requirements that a Finder-zipped folder won't satisfy - in particular, that the mimetype file is the first entry in the archive and is uncompressed.

    We'll look into automatically re-zipping Apple Books EPUBs.
  • Negyb
    A quick question in relation to this future update for importing Apple Pubs... will it also import the existing highlights. Thats one issue Im trying to figure out, how to get all the annotations and highlights from Apple Books into Zotero (and ultimately into Obsidian)
    Thanks... any idea about the timeline on this?
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