How to Not Lose All Your Books From iBooks When You Get a New Computer

The Apple iOS device you use to read titles from your iBooks library depends on iTunes to organize and maintain all of your PDF and EPUB files. If you synchronize your iOS device with iTunes on a new computer that doesn't have the original PDF and EPUB files, iTunes will wipe your device's iBooks collection and replace it with the new computer's empty library. To ensure you don't lose the iBooks collection on your iOS device, you must transfer your iBooks library to your new computer.

Things You'll Need

• USB thumb drive

Instructions

1. Launch iTunes on the old computer and click "Books" in the left side bar.

2. Right-click the first title and click "Show in Folder." This reveals the directory where your iBooks library is stored on your computer.

3. Highlight all of the titles in the Explorer window. Right-click and click "Send to" and then "Compressed (zipped) Folder" to create a compressed archive of your iBooks library with a ZIP extension.

4. Insert a USB thumb drive into a USB port on your computer and copy the ZIP file to the storage device.

5. Insert the thumb drive into your new computer and copy the ZIP file from the drive to the new computer's desktop.

6. Double-click the ZIP file to extract the iBooks library. A window appears displaying all of the extracted files.

7. Launch iTunes on your new computer, and click "File" in the menu bar of the application window. Click "Add to Library."

8. Navigate to the iBooks library on your desktop using the Add to Library dialog. Highlight all of the files and click "Choose" to add the files to your new computer's iTunes library.

References

• Apple; Where Are My iTunes Files Located?; June 2011