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Nick Jinks

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 17, 2010
48
2
I'm trying to transfer books [PDF/epub files, NOT purchased via store] between my MacBook and iPhone using the iCloud. I THINK I've managed to upload them successfully from the MacBook [although how I tell I'm not sure!] but my iPhone can't see them at all.

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but I've gone forward and back through the settings and frankly this is starting to wind me up. If anyone has an idea I'd be very grateful.
 
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mhunter6378

macrumors regular
Feb 20, 2015
108
11
There are two ways I use to move PDF content to iBooks. On my Mac, I right click the file and select open with iBooks. The other is to transfer the file to the iCloud folder in Finder. Once it's there I can open it on my iPad or iPhone, tap the share button and import into iBooks. Make sure in your phone iCloud settings that iBooks is set to on and in iBooks settings it is set to sync online content. I've never done this with ePub files, don't have any, but anything I've had with .pdf extensions has always worked this way. Hope this helps.
 
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Nick Jinks

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 17, 2010
48
2
There are two ways I use to move PDF content to iBooks. On my Mac, I right click the file and select open with iBooks. The other is to transfer the file to the iCloud folder in Finder. Once it's there I can open it on my iPad or iPhone, tap the share button and import into iBooks. Make sure in your phone iCloud settings that iBooks is set to on and in iBooks settings it is set to sync online content. I've never done this with ePub files, don't have any, but anything I've had with .pdf extensions has always worked this way. Hope this helps.

Thank you very much, I didn't know iPhones had direct access to the iCloud drive [app magically appeared on my phone after I uploaded a book to iCloud from the Mac]. I couldn't get the iBooks app to work, but this seems like a much less..."complex for the sake of being complex" method.

Thanks again, saves alot of headaches and trouble in the future. Now I actually need to find time to read all this...
 
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T'hain Esh Kelch

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2001
6,391
7,296
Denmark
Did you ever get automatic sync in Books to work? I can't get it to work on my iPhone, where I only see books from the Book Store, not the ones I have added manually. They are synced between my iPads and Mac, so they are clearly in iCloud.

Just got a new iPhone, and I have/had the problem on both the new one, and the old one, so it appears to be a settings problem after transfering everything to the new phone.

Edit: Finally got it to work! Turns out turning on Books under iCloud is not enough - You also have to activate iCloud Drive synchronization under the Books settings. That really isn't logical!
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
Yep, and iCloud Books is one of the last things to sync on a new iPhone/device I've noticed. So for me, it wants to sync photos and other things before it even begins to start syncing music (which can take a long time in my case). Wish Apple Books had more of the features Kindle App does.
 
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