iPhone: bulk move ALL voice memos + ALL pdfs generated from Safari page prints (pdf-exports using "Books") to pc

Question

voice memos:

I have 100s of voice memos that I recorded using the Apple voice recorder standard app and I want to get them on my pc altogether in one go.

pdfs:

I often save mobile Safari pages as Books which are then automatically saved (very quickly and well-formatted) as pdfs. On a website opened in Safari, you can choose the "send to"- button and then the orange Symbol for books. I have houndreds of self-generated pdfs in ibooks, and I have googled and tested for a longer time how to transfer them to my pc (see the details of these tests in the answer section).

Is there any trick to bulk move ALL voice memos in just one go + ALL pdfs in Books to the pc in just one go? I am happy about ANY way to reach this.

Please mind: I do not want to save every voice memo / pdf, piece by piece, in a cloud or app nor send each of them, piece by piece, by mail. This costs too much time and nerves and is not a bulk move.

Answer 1

For PDFs, I found an alternative solution that requires an iPad and the FileBrowser app:

1. On the iPad, activate Stage Manager.
2. Open both the Books app and the FileBrowser app and place them side-by-side.
3. In FileBrowser app, navigate to the desired destination folder for your PDFs (I used my NAS via SMB, other target locations should work as well).
4. In the Books app, navigate to the desired collection of PDFs, select all PDFs.
5. Using drag&drop, drag one of the selected PDFs on the FileBrowser app window.

FileBrowser will first show an import progress bar, and then copy the files to the selected destination folder.

Caveat: if some PDFs have the same title, only the first (?) file will be imported using this method. You can still drag these files one by one from Books to FileBrowser, and choose to keep both files. However, this does not work if multiple files are selected.

Tested with iPadOS 17.2.

Answer 2

I found a working solution in Decipher Backup Browser 14. This program might not be the only one achieving the aim, but it does the thing. Whoever finds other programs, please add an answer.

It simply reads out the data from the iPhone backup that you can create with iTunes. The program offers extracting all voice memos, as well as extracting all PDFs in "All PDFs in Backup". In the full version, you can then save them in one go to your pc. Thanks go to the pragmatic e-mail help including the screenshot.

Another possible solution perhaps is to sync your iBooks with iCloud - perhaps, because there is no working test, neither on Windows nor on macOS.

#### Testing the sync of the Safari pdfs:

(I originally got the info of the possible sync on macOS from the Decipher company, but I assume this is a simple misunderstanding or outdated.)

I sync iBooks with iCloud, iBooks are part of iCloud's "Manage Storage" option in my iPhone Settings, and still I do not see the pdfs there. On Windows, I do not see any iBooks sign at all in iCloud. iBooks is supposed to be hidden in iCloud Drive according to https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/296462/locating-the-ibooks-folder-in-icloud-drive?newreg=1d6ae7995129403b99e57fe74feae430, but I could not succeed with the help of that link, the answers there are for Apple macOS command line (macOS bash). Then an additional investigation turned out that even if there were a hidden folder on Windows (which does not), it would not help: @ankii was so kind to test this on macOS, the needed pdfs cannot be seen in the macOS hidden iBooks folder either. See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/395290/locating-the-ibooks-folder-in-icloud-drive-on-windows, @ankii:

I exported a wikipedia page to iOS iBooks, as pdf. It shows up on iOS app. but not on Mac app. that is weird.

Please, if anyone has managed this iCloud sync on Windows or macOS, answer here, but it seems as if there is no solution.

####

The simple reason why all of the normal file transfer tools cannot help, but only those which give you the contents of the iTunes backup, is because the needed pdfs ARE only in the backup. :)

When you delete such a "Safari-pdf", it will ask you whether you want to delete this from iCloud or if you only want to delete it from the downloads. That is just the standard question for the real e-books, while the "Safari-pdfs" that this thread is about are not part of iCloud anyway.

And it seems as if this will not change in the future, according to https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251534441 discussion results.

##################### Finally:

After having saved all of the PDFs, deleting them in two alternatives:

• Books > Library > Edit > "Select All" on the left (you may also do this inside a specific collection only so that you can filter what you want to delete, you can also multi-select PDFs manually instead of "Select All")

• or delete all by going to Settings --> Passwords & Accounts --> iCloud --> iCloud --> Manage Storage --> Apple Books (mind there are 2 of them, take the first one) --> Delete Documents & Data

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Additional documentation

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Proof that the bulk move cannot be done without a 3rd party app.

I have tried several 3rd party programs to transfer the pdfs, but none of them find the Safari pdf prints, they only find just the commercial e-books. iTunes does not find them either.

I was asked by a moderator to move the details of what I have already tried to reach a bulk move - and which were at first part of the question - to this answer. This was tested in 04/2020, but the problem will still be the same.

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• iPhone 7, iOS 13.4.1 transfer iBooks pdfs to Windows 10

• either with 3rd party apps or iTunes v. 12.10.5.12

• result: nothing works, only workaround is using Adobe Acrobat or

  iCloud Drive going through each single pdf

Unsuccessful try only using iBooks and iTunes:

In iTunes, clicking on your phone symbol, the iTunes pane that appears has a lot of options like overview, music, films... and also third party apps like kindle or acrobat in the last menu point, but there is no iBooks anywhere.

In the main menu, iBooks folder is empty. Right-click on iBooks and "transfer purchases" leads to nothing, of course: I have not bought any pdf, but just printed it from safari. In the settings, in "iTunes and App Store" make sure that "iBooks and audiobooks" are switched on for automatic download.

Third party apps fail to show iBooks' Safari pdf prints:

• Tested up to now (few of so many): iMazing, iExplorer, easeus, ApowerManager, Phonepaw, iTools 4.4.5.8

• Only those pdfs that you had actually added from the pc to the phone

  are also in the books folder in the third party apps.

• Those pdfs that are just printed pdfs from safari websites do not appear in the third party apps of iTunes.

iCloud Drive or Adobe Acrobat app: The current workaround which takes too much time and nerves:

• Adobe Acrobat v. 20.04.00 app on the iPhone, click on every pdf's 3 dots in the overview in iBooks, save it in Acrobat. Then use iTunes, clicking on your Phone symbol, use the last menu point to get to Acrobat 3rd party app and then mark all pdfs and save them to a folder on your pc.

• You can also use iCloud Drive, AirDrop or the like, works the same and does not need iTunes. Make sure that in your iPhone preferences, iBooks --> iCloud Drive is switched on (this is the standard anyway). Still the same issue with any such solution: no bulk move possible.

Answer 3

In Books, use the "Save to Files" option. Afterwards, follow these directions.