Database tasks
A collection lives in one file with the extension .amb. Books,
authors, subjects, covers, loan history and your own custom fields are all
inside it, so moving a collection to another computer means copying one
file.
You can keep as many collections as you like — one for the household library, one for the office, one for the books you only read as files — but only one is open at a time. The pages below cover everything that happens to the file itself rather than to individual books.
In this chapter
- Creating a new database — How All My Books stores a collection and how to keep more than one.
- Opening a database — Open an existing collection, switch between collections and use the recent list.
- Importing — Import a collection from Calibre, Book Collector, BookCAT, Readerware, Alfa, Sony, MyHomeLib, Booknizer, CSV or Excel.
- Appending from another database — Merge selected books from one .amb collection into another.
- Making a backup — Manual backups and the automatic multilevel backup that runs for you.
- Compressing the database — Reclaim space in the collection file and repair it after a crash.
- Password protection — Protect the whole collection with a password, or only protect it from changes.
- Working over a network — Share one collection between several computers on a local network.
- Sharing with friends — Publish your collection as a web page you can email or upload.
- Collection statistics — Charts and figures about your collection, plus the list of who owes you books.
Free to try. Catalog up to 100 books at no cost, forever.