Yunfi

title: Using Chinese Paths in Calibre (Don't Translate My Folders, Calibre)
categories:

• [Tutorials, Troubleshooting]
  tags:
• Calibre
  date: 2023-10-19
  plink: calibre-not-translate-path
  cover: /img/calibre-not-translate.webp
  description: Calibre will turn paths into pinyin, but you can prevent this behavior by replacing a file!

Calibre, as the most popular open-source local e-book management program, surprisingly does not support UTF-8 file paths. Perhaps this is the nature of open-source software.

I previously came across an article on a niche software website: Please Calibre, Don't Translate My File Paths, which used the project Cirn09/calibre-do-not-translate-my-path to enable the use of Chinese paths. However, the article by Qing Xiaowa (青小蛙) was not perfect and even became misleading within a few days (due to updates in the project while the article remained unchanged). Therefore, I decided to write my own tutorial.

In fact, the README.md of the project has also been updated, and you can refer to that as well. However, I have documented some issues I encountered, which may be helpful.

Even with this plugin, the file paths imported to devices will still be in ASCII. This is because some older e-book readers may not handle paths with UTF-8 characters correctly.

It is recommended to backup your library before proceeding, just in case.

Installation#

Choose the Appropriate Version#

First, go to the Releases page and find the latest version. This version number should match the version number of Calibre. If Calibre's version is newer than the plugin's version, you can wait for a few days for the author to update it, or you can downgrade Calibre yourself.

Note: The author has specifically packaged the plugin for versions 5.14.0 and 6.11.0. If you have to use these versions of Calibre due to using an older version of macOS, you can use them.

In simple terms, "the version number of Calibre must match the version number of the plugin." If the version numbers do not match, it may have no effect or even prevent Calibre from starting.

Replace the File#

Download -> Unzip -> Replace the original Calibre file

In fact, you are replacing a file called python-lib.bypy.frozen.

Note that if you directly drag and drop in macOS Finder, it will overwrite all other files. Only drag and drop this one file. Quoting from the README.md:

1. Unzip the downloaded package and navigate to the bottom-level path by clicking through the layers. Find the python-lib.bypy.frozen file.
2. Open Finder, go to "Applications" (/Applications), right-click on "Calibre - Show Package Contents", and go to Contents/Frameworks/plugins (the complete path is /Applications/calibre.app/Contents/Frameworks/plugins). Copy the python-lib.bypy.frozen file from step 1 and overwrite it, then close the Finder window. Calibre should open normally.

If you are a new user, you can start using it now!

Converting an Existing Library#

In simple terms, you need to change the names of all the books once and then change them back, similar to a refresh feeling 😜

Quoting from the README.md:

1. Open the library and press Ctrl+A to select all books.
2. Right-click - Edit Metadata - Bulk Edit Metadata - "Search and Replace" page.
3. Search mode: Regular expression, Field to search: title, Search for: $, Replace with: __DELME__.
4. Click "Apply" and wait for Calibre to finish (before clicking, pay attention to the replacement preview below, the new book names should be the original book names + __DELME__).
5. Search mode: Text matching, Field to search: title, Search for: __DELME__, leave "Replace with" empty.
6. Click "OK" and wait for Calibre to finish (before clicking, pay attention to the replacement preview below, the new book names should be the original book names).

Congratulations, you're done!