Can Calibre Find Lost Annotations and Highlights?

[BookCat]

As stated here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...06#post3777406

I lost all my notes and highlights from my kindle after doing an update. I'm desperate to find the notes etc which I made on one particular book, the first draft of a novel I wrote myself.

Using Calibre was suggested, but not how to do this. The notes appear to be in myclippings file, but I would like to sort this file by book. Can Calibre help with this? If so, please tell me how to do this. If not, could you point me somewhere which might help.

Thanks.

[davidfor]

The Annotations plugin might help. It reads the clippings file and tries to match them to books in your library. Then it adds them to the comments or a separate column for the book in the library. It needs the book to be both in the library and on the device.

[BookCat]

I can't get this to work. The book is in txt format. I put it into Calibre, had my paperwhite hooked up to the computer via usb, and tried to get annotations. A box flashed up, but was gone too quickly for me to see what it said. Nothing appeared in Calibre. I've tried this with several books, with the same result. I've even tried importing my clippings, but can't do anything with them.

How is the annotations plugin supposed to work?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I can't get this to work. The book is in txt format. I put it into Calibre, had my paperwhite hooked up to the computer via usb, and tried to get annotations. A box flashed up, but was gone too quickly for me to see what it said. Nothing appeared in Calibre. I've tried this with several books, with the same result. I've even tried importing my clippings, but can't do anything with them.

How is the annotations plugin supposed to work?

Firstly, you need to configure the plugin. It will probably work without changing the configuration, but, the annotations will be added to the comments field. I've never liked that.

Then, connect the device and when the device jobs are finished running, select a book in the library list that is on the device. Then select the option in the Annotations plugin button to fetch annotations from the Kindle device. It should read the clippings file, match all the books in the file to those on the device and in the library and present a list of books with the number of annotations found. I can't think of what it does if it doesn't find any matches, but it should display a message.

The book the annotations are for must be both on the device and in the calibre library. The matching between the clippings file and the books is based on the title and author. If these have changed, the match won't happen.

But, I think the problem is that this is a text file. Looking at the code, it is only looking at the following formats: azw, azw1, azw3, kfx, mobi. It doesn't support TXT files on Kindles. Can you add annotations to TXT files on a Kindle? If so, I can add the support. But, it would be quicker to send the book to the device as one of the above formats and try again.

And you might want to try some annotations in another book and see what they look like when fetched. That's just in case it isn't suitable for what you want. And take a backup of the clippings file just in case.

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Firstly, you need to configure the plugin. It will probably work without changing the configuration, but, the annotations will be added to the comments field. I've never liked that.

Then, connect the device and when the device jobs are finished running, select a book in the library list that is on the device. Then select the option in the Annotations plugin button to fetch annotations from the Kindle device. It should read the clippings file, match all the books in the file to those on the device and in the library and present a list of books with the number of annotations found. I can't think of what it does if it doesn't find any matches, but it should display a message.

The book the annotations are for must be both on the device and in the calibre library. The matching between the clippings file and the books is based on the title and author. If these have changed, the match won't happen.

But, I think the problem is that this is a text file. Looking at the code, it is only looking at the following formats: azw, azw1, azw3, kfx, mobi. It doesn't support TXT files on Kindles. Can you add annotations to TXT files on a Kindle? If so, I can add the support. But, it would be quicker to send the book to the device as one of the above formats and try again.

And you might want to try some annotations in another book and see what they look like when fetched. That's just in case it isn't suitable for what you want. And take a backup of the clippings file just in case.

I did all of this, making sure books were both on the kindle and in the calibre library, and trying books in various formats, particularly mobi. Yes, you can add highlights and annotations to txt books.

Although I downloaded the plugin, the version of Calibre which I have 3.33.1 already had a 'fetch annotations' function, which I was using. I added a column for 'Notes'. Whatever I did, I got the same result: a box flashed up, but nothing happened. So I gave up!

After spending hours failing with calibre, I tried Kindle Mate, which someone suggested in the kindle thread mentioned in my original post. Within a few clicks, I had the notes of every book on the kindle sorted into author and book.

Calibre is great for conversion and management, but doesn't seem designed for annotation fetching.

Thanks for the help.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I did all of this, making sure books were both on the kindle and in the calibre library, and trying books in various formats, particularly mobi. Yes, you can add highlights and annotations to txt books.

OK. I'll have to change that and get it tested.

Although I downloaded the plugin, the version of Calibre which I have 3.33.1 already had a 'fetch annotations' function, which I was using. I added a column for 'Notes'. Whatever I did, I got the same result: a box flashed up, but nothing happened. So I gave up!

I don't know how the built-in fetch annotations works for Kindles. But, there is no configuration for it, so I would expect it to add the annotations to the comments field.

After spending hours failing with calibre, I tried Kindle Mate, which someone suggested in the kindle thread mentioned in my original post. Within a few clicks, I had the notes of every book on the kindle sorted into author and book.

Calibre is great for conversion and management, but doesn't seem designed for annotation fetching.

No calibre was not designed for annotation management. But, enough people are using the Annotations plugin with Kindles to make me believe it works. When it stops working, I get error reports and try to fix them. As the book was a TXT on the device, then currently it won't retrieve annotations. But, that is a simple change.