tl;dr: Is there an iOS ereader app that can import a few gigs of Calibre formatted eBook library all at once, rather than importing each book individually?
Unnecessarily long version: I really like Android. There are a bunch of reasons. A big one is that I hoard data, and the two iOS devices I’ve had - my first smart phone, a gift from a friend who’d upgraded in like 2012 and some mini iPad that came free with a phone plan probably ten years ago, which stopped working almost immediately - were basically impossible to actually get files onto. Like it felt antagonistic, like they were intentionally designed to ensure that I couldn’t get books or comics onto them, the subtext seeming to be “why own your own files when you could simply buy them from the iTunes store?” So I’ve always kinda been like fuck that, Android actually lets me be in charge of my phone/tablet and what’s on it, iOS can go to heck.
But a week or two I got an iPad from Craigslist because so many people speak so highly of them for making music, and music stuff is just not android’s strength. Music apps on iOS are an exciting new playground for sure, but I was like, why not be able to read books on here too?
Comics and art books were easy enough - I imported stuff to On My IPad, imported them into yacreader, deleted them from On My IPad. (And this has been awesome btw. It’s glorious to read 90s cyberpunk manga and Destroy All Movies: the Complete Guide to Punks on Film on this thing’s giant screen.) But ebooks…
I’d hoped the situation had improved since a decade ago, but I’m bumping into the same thing I did then - I’ve tried a bunch of different eBook reader apps, and I can’t find one that will just import a whole folder and its subfolders. They can all import books individually, but that would take foooorreeeevvveeeeerr with the utterly unnecessary number of books I want to import. Android apps can do this so easily! Moon reader is so chill and flexible, same with Librera FD. So why is this impossible on an iPad?
Idk I can’t tell if this is annoying because I’m not fluent in iOS and I’m missing something obvious, or if - and this is what feels true in my heart - it’s because everything apple does is designed to make you buy more things from apple rather than having my own stuff. Idk. Thoughts? Help?
File transfer on iOS has historically been super annoying. It’s gotten a little better, but it’s certainly not perfect. I’m sure there are reasons why, linking back to “the perfect user experience” but geez.
Anyway, sometimes I use “Documents” to transfer files. I have file sharing turned on for my home computers, where my main media dumps are, and Documents can easily let me pull files from there. Unfortunately sometimes you then have to copy from Documents to Files to use them in apps
I have a OneDrive account and sometimes I’ll also use that to transfer files.
I like iComics for reading comics. I use eBoox for reading ebooks of all kinds of formats. Both are free but I don’t know how well they handle bulk imports, I usually just do one at a time as I’m reading.
One thing to be aware of, though, with bulk importing: you might end up using twice the amount of space. Newer apps are able to read files directly from Files, which is cool and sane and modern. Some apps will copy the files into their own app space. So if you’re bulk importing a ton of files, watch your space usage.
Hope that helps!
Edit to add for clarity: I get that this doesn’t address the lack of ability to bulk import in certain apps. I was focusing more on free apps that let you control your own files. The inability to bulk import is not an iOS restriction that makes you buy more things? It’s the app itself that isn’t supporting it.
And off topic for your question, but I’d love some recommendations here. I grew up with Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Dominion, but I’d love to hear more I missed.
Can’t test it because I’m on the free version and have filled it up, but I think Yomu lets you bulk upload. It’ll let me choose multiple files at once in the uploader, in any case
@mabelsound I’ll try it! I was reluctant to use Books because it automatically copies things to iCloud - which I don’t want to use - but your comment made me realize I could probably turn off, so I did. I’m re-importing now. I guess I don’t love Books because iirc it doesn’t really let you do any theming, but I’m going to explore it again, so thanks!
@zaven this is all helpful, thanks! I definitely already learned about doubling up files already - I filled up the whole hard drive during my first comic/art book import before I figured out that was what was happening. And yeah I know I’m a wingnut - it just seems like every time I run into an Apple problem, there’s a way to give Apple money that would solve it (such as re-buying all my books from them - I guess this is specific to their Books app).
And yeah those are the big ones haha! That’s pretty much the list. I’m also reading something called BLAME! that feels 90s cyberpunk to me, even though it might be on the outskirts of the genre.
Just fyi on the subject of file management and bulk transfer from a pc I used shared folders on my rig and access them via the file explorer pro app that’s available on the app store it’s really very good and supports OneDrive and all the major file sharing standards, after you’ve downloaded all your files you can then share them into the iOS files app and delete the downloaded files from fe pro folder…
Update: i guess ipad os just doesn’t really do bulk importing, but i have a great attitude ao I’ve decided to use this as an opportunity rather than a barrier. I downloaded Readest and spent an hour going through the whole ebook collection, only copying over the books I truly needed. Great news! Turns out I truly need exactly three hundred and ten books.
A side effect I hadn’t anticipated was that it made me feel super stoked to read lol. There is so much great stuff I haven’t read! There is so much great stuff i could re-read! I forgot about how much I used to love Aimee Bender! Remember Anne Rice? Do I really need EVERY Stephen King book? How many late 80s/early 90s Dean R. Koontz books do I TRULY need? (It’s more than you might think!) Heck yeah books
I just do it the old school way. I have an ebooks folder on the iPad, managed via the files app, which contains all my pdfs and epubs. When I open one in the Books app, it creates a copy of the file, but I can just delete it feom the books app after reading, and the original file will still be on the files folder
256GB storage is plenty for my whole library
PS I have permanently disabled icloud syncs on my iPad (I feel like they’re more trouble than worth)
