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, or rather every book in it that the run can handle (see below).
   • Selected only — the same, but only among the books you highlighted in the list before opening the dialog.
   • Unfilled only — books whose URL field is empty, that is, books that were never found online: imported, scanned from disk or typed in by hand. This is the usual choice after an import or a scan.
2. Choose what to update under Update:
   • Details online — get the details from the online source.
   • Details from file — re-read tags and metadata from the linked e-book or audiobook file. No internet needed. Not available with Unfilled only.
3. Pick the source in Update from. With All books and Selected only you can leave it on Any (by the saved link). Unfilled only needs a specific source, so there the program puts one in place of “any” by itself.
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.

How the books are found

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.