Batch updating book details

Books that arrived from an import, a CSV list or a drive scan usually have a title and not much else. Tools › Batch update book details (Ctrl+U) goes back to the online source for many books at once and fills in what is missing.

1. Choose which books to work on. The caption of the group shows how many books the run will cover:
   • All books — the whole collection.
   • Selected only — the books you highlighted in the list before opening the dialog.
   • Unfilled only — only books with empty fields, which is the usual choice after an import.
2. Choose what to update under Update:
   • Details online — re-read the book's page at the online source.
   • Details from file — re-read tags and metadata from the linked e-book or audiobook file. No internet needed.
3. Pick the source in Update from, or leave it on any source.
4. Set the two options if they apply:
   • Do not change ratings — keeps the ratings you set yourself from being overwritten by the source.
   • Continue previous update — picks up where an interrupted run stopped instead of starting over.
5. Click Start. Progress is reported as it goes; you can stop at any point and the books already done keep their new data.

Updating hundreds of books means hundreds of requests to somebody else's server, so a large run takes a while — start it and go and do something else.