Uninstalling iBooks and moving Books back to iTunes?

[Khryz]

Hey everyone, I am not the biggest fan of iBooks right now, and I personally think it is not ready for a public release.

Not being able to edit metadata is a deal breaker for me, along with it just feeling sluggish and crashing. I'd like to know if there is an option to return to how books were handled on ML, with them in iTunes. I know I won't be able to read on my Mac, but I'd rather it that way so I can organize things easier and they're all in 1 place.

Is this possible?

Thank you!

 

[taurineg]

Yes you can
Use the following link
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion

 

[jaugust]

Hey everyone, I am not the biggest fan of iBooks .....

....there is an option to return to how books were handled on ML, with them in iTunes. I know I won't be able to read on my Mac, but I'd rather it that way so I can organize things easier and they're all in 1 place.

Is this possible?

Yes their is an option to return to iTunes book management. I did it after suffering the hell that is iBooks.

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

I have done it and it works, iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be used ever again.

 

[Khryz]

Yes their is an option to return to iTunes book management. I did it after suffering the hell that is iBooks.

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

I have done it and it works, iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be used ever again.

Hmm, thank you!

So if I do this, then all my books will obviously be removed from iBooks and iTunes, and I'll have to re-import everything back into iTunes again?

I suppose I can do that, a fresh start.

 

[rasputin666]

perfect

the above worked for me. even better, when i opened iTunes, all my books were already there. like it knew to put them back in iTunes if ibooks was not installed, didn't even have to reimport or mess with any metadata. wahoo.
thanks for the how-to!!!!

 

[soundsgoodtome]

Yes their is an option to return to iTunes book management. I did it after suffering the hell that is iBooks.

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

I have done it and it works, iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be used ever again.

This worked perfectly in Mavericks. But in Yosemite with iTunes 12, the file bookstoreagent is no longer at the location mentioned above.

So, I completed the other steps, hoping that would suffice. But iTunes still reports that my books have been moved to iBooks.

UPDATE: I'm now in a "hybrid" state: After restarting iTunes a 2nd time, the message that "your books have been moved to iBooks" is no longer displayed. However, I still can't access my epub books. I can now see my PDFs — which were not visible after the first restart, so there's partial success there. But when I click on Books, it shows my audiobooks, instead of my epub books.

To be clear, there are two tabs in iTunes 12: Books and My Audiobooks. But both tabs are (incorrectly) showing audiobooks. I still cannot view or access my regular (epub) books at all.

Any new suggestions?

 

[George Parker]

Yes their is an option to return to iTunes book management. I did it after suffering the hell that is iBooks.

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

I have done it and it works, iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be used ever again.

I know, your post is a year old, but THANK YOU!!!!!!!
iBooks was driving me crazy. You save my (and my family's, coz' I tend to act out ;-)) #$@#%.

 

[Adonnan]

Oh my goodness, thank you for sharing this information! I just did this with OSX 10.9.4 and iTunes 11.3.1!!!

This also allows you to put your iBooks content with the rest of your iTunes library. So if you put it on an external, you're golden. Or if you want to share said folder via bit torrent sync or dropbox, you're good too.

 

[Partron22]

This worked perfectly in Mavericks. But in Yosemite with iTunes 12.....

Everyone who has dumped iBooks would likely do well to back up all the books they have in iTunes before updating to Yosemite.

The Mavericks version of iBooks was pretty aggressive about stripping books irreversibly out of iTunes. I expect the Yosemite version will be even more insistent.

 

[ssolomon]

I had previously followed the removal steps under Mavericks and when I upgraded to Yosemite I only had to use CleanApp to remove iBooks and then my library showed up as normal in iTunes 12 (except for the interface change in iTunes itself).

 

[sarakn]

I had previously followed the removal steps under Mavericks and when I upgraded to Yosemite I only had to use CleanApp to remove iBooks and then my library showed up as normal in iTunes 12 (except for the interface change in iTunes itself).

I tried removing iBooks in Yosemite but can no longer access my books library in iTunes. I only see books when I connect my ipad.

How did you do it?

 

[gnasher729]

I tried removing iBooks in Yosemite but can no longer access my books library in iTunes. I only see books when I connect my ipad.

How did you do it?

iTunes in Yosemite doesn't show books anymore, so this isn't going to work.

 

[Partron22]

iTunes in Yosemite doesn't show books anymore, so this isn't going to work.

I removed iBooks from Yosemite (see earlier threads on how), and now see this in iTunes after I click "books" on the ••• control:

Looks like it works to me.

 

[lokster]

thanks guys, i deleted ibooks on my mavericks, hell of annoying not to be able to use ebooks from other purchased sources.


thanks also for confirming that i can do the same on yosemite as I'm planning to upgrade in a few hours after backing up some of my stuff

 

[lokster]

I removed iBooks from Yosemite (see earlier threads on how), and now see this in iTunes after I click "books" on the ••• control:

Image

Looks like it works to me.

how did you remove ibooks on yosemite? can you share a step by step?

 

[Partron22]

how did you remove ibooks on yosemite? can you share a step by step?

Post #7 in this thread has the details. In my case, bookstoreagent wasn't yet running so, after checking that, I did steps 2 and 3 as described. Books then showed in restarted iTunes as a choice under the ••• control.

 

[lokster]

ahh where did the system folder go?? normally its in finder and under my user name but now its gone! lol

edit: nevermind i found it lol, my sidebar didn't have my hard drive listed

edit 2: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent there is no bookstoreagent only appstoreagent which I'm sure is for the app store which i want to keep

edit 3: running app cleaner and deleting ibooks worked!

 

[Apple_Robert]

thanks guys, i deleted ibooks on my mavericks, hell of annoying not to be able to use ebooks from other purchased sources.


thanks also for confirming that i can do the same on yosemite as I'm planning to upgrade in a few hours after backing up some of my stuff

It is very easy to import epub books into iBooks, that were not bought from the iBooks store.

 

[sarakn]

Found a solution

Found a solution for Yosemite that puts Books back into iTunes and reconverts the files back to meaningful names in iTunes folder.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23542460#23542460

A small refinement or let's say alternative to Kevin's wonderful solution:



1.) Stopped the bookstoreagent process.



2.) Moved its file to elsewhere (Documents) so it wouldn't start up again on reboot.



Now assuming that you want and have organized all your media (music, video, book, pdf, etc.) in your 'iTunes Media' folder:


3) Opened up iTunes, made sure I had checked 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' in iTunes >Preferences>Advanced


4.) Went to iTunes>File>Library and checked 'Consolidate library' (and all my files (books/pdf's) magically reappeared (got copied back) in my iTunes Media folder (with all tags and so on like they used to be)



5.) Counted to ten.



6.) Restarted iTunes, saw all my stuff still there.



7.) Deleted iBooks for Mac (maybe wise to backup it to some external drive before), and the books in the new iBooks storage folder (that's in:

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



8.) Synced to my iPad, and was, yea, verily happified.



For whom it helps.



Message was edited by: Andy Epprecht