New Clara BW, odd behaviour setting up

[Rugbyfan1986]

I have bought a Clara BW, but when I go to set it up from the kobo desktop it shows all my books are already on it, even though I have not downloaded any. How can I make kobo desktop recognize which books are on the clara as opposed to those not yet loaded. I know not every book I have is on it as my kobo library is around 26gb, and when I check the free memory on the clara it is showing 12gb free.

Thanks
Rugbyfan1986

[DNSB]

Since you mention the Kobo Desktop app, this suggests that these are books purchased from Kobo. Your Clara BW will get a list of those books and a download of a relatively small number during setup when you connected it to your Kobo account.

If you go into Books on the Clara BW and tap on the ... in the right hand edge on the same line as Filter and Sort, does it show Download All as an option (not greyed out)? If you tap on Filter, what numbers does it show for All, eBooks, Unread, all the way down to Downloaded?

[Rugbyfan1986]

DNSB, on the Clara it is showing all the books I have purchased on kobo (double checked by going into the kobo account on the internet and selecting books under account setting).

Oddly when I first try setting up the Clara BW, it goes straight for the internet option and does not give the option of setting up from the desktop. I have factory reset and tried this twice.

Even with the wifi disabled on the Clara BW it does not give the option of a desktop set up.

[DNSB]

When it is asking for the WiFi connection, you can connect it to your computer using a USB cable instead. OTOH, several people have reported that their Kobo Desktop app does not recognize their Libra Colour/Clara Colour/Clara BW. Here's what I see when I connect my Libra Colour to the Kobo Desktop app. Note that the model is not displayed, the Libra Colour shows my Adobe ID and not my Kobo account. If I flip back to the EREADER/Book Management tab, there is no way to select books and send them to the Libra Colour.

Looking at the Kobo Desktop app version, it shows as 4.37.19051 which was built on 2023-Jun-21. Looking at the Github repository, the last update was to add the hardware IDs for the Elipsa 2E.

[Quoth]

You also don't need the Desktop app. Just use the File Browser/Finder/Explorer etc and "show hidden files" if .kobo isn't visible.

I've never even installed it on Windows. I've used Kobo on Windows and Linux from fresh "set-up" if no internet was available. SideloadedMode=true can be set.

[Rugbyfan1986]

Thank you both for the responses, so basically we are waiting for Kobo to stop dragging their feet and to update the kobo desktop app.

Thanks
Rugbyfan1986

[Quoth]

You don't need the Kobo Desktop for a Kobe ereader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Rugbyfan1986

Thank you both for the responses, so basically we are waiting for Kobo to stop dragging their feet and to update the kobo desktop app.

Considering how few people use the Kobo Desktop app, not really dragging their feet. If you have a Kobo ereader, it's OTA sync will do pretty much everything that the Kobo Desktop will do for books, firmware updates, etc. Even if you are using the Kobo Desktop to purchase books, they will sync OTA to your Kobo ereaders. At one point in time, when not as many people had WiFi networking at home, the KDA had it's uses. Now when most people use their WiFi network, it's a bit of an appendix.

As you noted, your new Clara BW had the titles of the books you were wanting to manage using KDA already synced to it. Now you simply need to download books on your Clara BW as you want to read them realizing from your statement that you have more books that will fit on your Clara BW so download all is not an option.

[RAH]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As you noted, your new Clara BW had the titles of the books you were wanting to manage using KDA already synced to it. Now you simply need to download books on your Clara BW as you want to read them realizing from your statement that you have more books that will fit on your Clara BW so download all is not an option.

Yes, I agree with this. I had the same questions when I recently bought my Clara BW. I did use the Windows desktop app to get started (being a dinosaur), but I agree with what others have said - once you have your Clara setup with WiFi, you don't really need the desktop app (but I will still use it for sideloading books I did not purchase from Kobo).

In my case, all my Kobo-purchased books appeared in a list, but only a few were ready to be read. You have to pay attention to the words "Download" on a book. That means you cannot read it till it downloads it, so you would need to be connected to WiFi to get it. Once you get it on the device you can disconnect from the WiFi and read the book. Sorry if I have just reiterated stuff alread said, but I think this might help to hear someone else having the same experience with the new device.

[Quoth]

Calibre is best for sideloading to Kobo. Even ebooks bought from Kobo.