iOS 16.3 has deleted all my books on iPad. Lost 2000+ books.

[mlody]

I disagree. A good backup solution is available 24/7 and accessible from anywhere in the world. If I need access to data, I need access.

What you describe here is a file sever, not a backup solution, but that is OK, some people have different definitions, like calling a keyboard a computer.

 

[MrWillie]

Correct… I stated in my original post, I don’t do backups. I save data in multiple places.

Neighbor lady P&Ms about her iPad, does another backup, resets iPad, restores from backup, continues to P&M.

I don’t get it…

 

[mlody]

Correct… I stated in my original post, I don’t do backups. I save data in multiple places.

Neighbor lady P&Ms about her iPad, does another backup, resets iPad, restores from backup, continues to P&M.

I don’t get it…

I totally get it. A term 'backup' can mean hundred different things, whoever you ask. Doing multiple copies is better than nothing, but keep it in mind that because the data is accessible on those different mediums, that also means, it is available to crooks, viruses and exposed to malware which can quickly quickly spreading corruptions across all these different mediums as there is nothing to stop that.

The moment a file at main location gets corrupted, that corrupted state will replicate to all your other locations, leaving you with a corrupted file across all.

A backup solution is something that happens on a schedule, and rotates and has a retention period, let's say 30-60 days. that way if you encounter a corrupted files after a week or so, you can easily go back to a backup from 7 days before and restore that file. At high level, this is how enterprise backup solutions typically work, but there are also tons of other options to cover very specific or niche scenarios.

 

[transmaster]

If you will recall when Apple pushed out the "Books" app it disabled their addition to iTunes, at least that is how is worked on my PC. The only thing I use the Books app for it loading advanced copies of the books of authors I support on Patreon. I have Audible, and Kindle. Plus in one of my HDD's in storage I have 35,000 ebooks in various formats. I have never had much use for this file because right now it is unsearchable. I have the 2TB level in iCloud. I was looking at the setting for iCloud. There is a tab to enable storage optimisation its description says it deletes already viewed media files.

 

[taralee]

Apple doesn't delete books without asking, it also doesn't automatically delete books with asking. Deleting books to safe space isn't a thing on IOS.

Have you tried restarting your iPad? because it might just be some bug, where it doesn't show the books.

Quick google suggests doing this:

Turn off Books in iCloud on iPad​

Reboot iPad​

Turn on Books in iCloud on iPad​

Launch Books​

Apple most certainly does delete books without asking. ALL my paid-for crochet patterns and patterns I collected, all my favorite recipes I collected over the years, ALL gone, from one day to the next. I am a very technical person, been in software development for decades, and these items are gone. I thought they were safe in iBooks. Apple literally wiped them out one day, and no one will own up to this. I was able to access them from mu iMac, iPhone, iPad. ALL of these devices now show an empty iBook account.

 

[taralee]

Hello,

Today iOS 16.3 has deleted all my books in Books App, it's now just an empty app with categories and 0 books or PDFs.
2000+ books and PDFs has gone. Collection I was creating for the past 5 years. 95% hand picked and sorted to almost 150 categories, including articles, which I've converted to PDFs and custom ePubs.
iCloud wasn't enabled for Books. I was making full backups with iTunes, but somehow Apple stopped including content from Books to backups. For third-party reader everything is backed up.
How crazy is that? Apple made AI in photos, but can't keep users data safe
Why not to:

1. Warn user when there is not enough space
2. Ask if user wants to delete something manually
3. Ask for confirmation when iOS wants to delete content in Books
4. Make a log about it! No log in my case in Privacy & Security -> Analytics & Improvements -> Analytics Data. Nothing about deleting the whole Library with books
5. Delete a few books, latest/largest
6. Backup database where I can at least see titles for further recovery!

Nothing from the list above. iOS just silently deletes all my books.
The funny part that iOS hasn't cleared caches for some apps (10Gb+ in total), instead it deleted all books. Unbelievable.

Same thing happened to me. Silly me, thinking my stuff was safe in iBooks.

 

[Tt58]

Sure, many times. It shows in Storage usage, that Books app has no data. So storage is not used by Books anymore.

Additionally, I've made a full backup via iTunes and I was able to retrieve current Books app database - it's empty, I can see only Categories I've made. That's all. No titles, from which it was possible to recover.

iCloud was turned off for Books, all epubs and pdfs were stored locally in Books app.

And yes, iOS has deleted my books - database is empty, so it's 100% lost.

Same thing just happened to me. 10 years of pdfs gone. I’m sick and furious! I turned off syncing to iCloud because I thought that would protect my books from disappearing . I didn’t expect it to cause all my books to disappear permanently. I’m appalled that there was no warning that this would happen. FYI I had more than enough space.

 

[BigMcGuire]

How horrible is that. Thank you for posting here. I wish Apple made it easier to get stuff out of Apple Books… Especially for the cases of backup. I have hundreds of DRM Free PDF books from my pre Apple days that I uploaded to Apple Books.

<sigh>