Maintaining an eBook collection can feel like a full-time job.A folder full of public domain books downloaded from the internet can include multiple copies of the same book in different file formats, or file names that bear little resemblance to the titles of the books themselves.I used Yazi, a terminal-based file manager, to clean up an eBook download before the files ever made it into my Calibre library.
Yazi made the mess easier to deal with Downloaded eBooks can be a nightmare to sort through Yazi is a free and open-source terminal file manager.It's designed to be fast and allows you to browse, preview, filter, move, and rename files directly from the terminal.It's not specifically designed for dealing with eBooks, but many of its features make it well-suited to the task.
I wanted to see what Yazi could do without totally destroying my current Calibre library, so I downloaded a selection of public domain eBooks from Project Gutenberg to put it to the test.As is often the case, I ended up with 41 different files representing eight public domain novels, including EPUB, MOBI, and TXT files, as well as ZIP files containing HTML and image files.The file names made use of Project Gutenberg's catalog numbers, which give no indication of the title of the book or the name of the author.
This mess of random-looking files is exactly the type of thing I've had to deal with in the past.I was hoping that Yazi could help me get the books in shape before I added them to my Calibre library.Related I’ve Been Using Calibre All Wrong I hated Calibre until I made this one change.
Posts 9 By Patrick Campanale Filtering makes it easy to spot duplicate versions and unwanted formats You often end up with multiple formats of the same book Close The first thing that I tried was using Yazi's filtering.This was a really useful way to see which files were in which formats, so that I could keep the files that were in the format I wanted, and ditch the versions in other formats.Using just a single key to open the filter, I could enter the format name, and see a list of just EPUBs, just MOBI files, or even just ZIP files.
I was also able to filter by the Project Gutenberg catalog numbers.Filtering for 1342, for example, showed me every copy of , so that I could see that the download included multiple different formats of this book.Bulk renaming turned numbers into useful file names File names from downloads can be unhelpful at best Calibre can extract book titles and authors from the metadata of eBook files, but for my own sanity, I didn't want a bunch of files with names such as pg1260-images-3.epub hanging around, because that file name told me nothing about what the file contains.
Yazi's bulk renaming feature enabled me to turn these mostly meaningless file names into names that I could understand at a glance.I opted to change each EPUB into the format Book title – Author.epub.For example, one file would be renamed as Middlemarch – George Eliot.epub.
Rather than having to edit each of the file names one at a time in Finder, Yazi let me select the files I wanted to rename and edit them all in one location.Once I'd made the changes I wanted, I was shown a list of all the changes, with the original file names and the proposed new file names.This meant I could double-check that everything was exactly how I wanted it without any typos or mismatched books before the changes were applied.
A staging folder kept Calibre clean Only the books that were in good shape got shared with Calibre The final step was to add the files that I wanted to my Calibre library.Rather than pointing Calibre at the entire download folder, I used Yazi to move only the files that I wanted into a staging folder which I'd created within the file manager.The rest of the files that were in formats that I didn't need remained outside of this folder.
Then, instead of having to open Calibre and point it at the staging folder, I used Calibre's calibredb command-line database tool to import the contents of the folder.By creating a custom shortcut in Yazi that runs a reusable import script, I could import the selected files to Calibre with just two keystrokes.This was one of the things that made Yazi so useful for this purpose.
Although Yazi is a general file manager, by creating custom keybindings, you can turn a multi-step Calibre command into an action that you can run with a keyboard shortcut.A TUI file manager can be a quick way to tidy up the mess Yazi can't magically repair metadata or automatically select the formats that I want.What it can do is make the job of turning a messy folder of files into something ready to add to Calibre a little quicker and easier.
The mess of cryptically named files ended up as eight clearly named EPUBs imported into a beautifully clean Calibre library.
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