File management in iPad

stolzy

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I frequently find myself needing to manipulate files on my iPad, but have yet to find anything that is half-way useful.

A typical example would be to transfer PDFs from one app to another. I have lots of PDF fles in Kindle that I would prefer to have organised in an app that allow better organisation.
 
Maybe a stupid question, but have you tried the "Files" app that it comes with? It gets the job done for me. Would be better if you could have multiple tabs open at once and drag and drop between them, but copy and paste works fine.

In case you didn't know, you can select multiple files using a "two finger click and drag" gesture, so you are not limited to working with a single file at once - which would be really tedious.

As well as iCloud Drive, you can also add any DropBox, Google Drive or Box locations to it so it's easy to pull a big wedge of files from these onto the iPad - or from one to the other.
 
Maybe a stupid question, but have you tried the "Files" app that it comes with? It gets the job done for me. Would be better if you could have multiple tabs open at once and drag and drop between them, but copy and paste works fine.

In case you didn't know, you can select multiple files using a "two finger click and drag" gesture, so you are not limited to working with a single file at once - which would be really tedious.

As well as iCloud Drive, you can also add any DropBox, Google Drive or Box locations to it so it's easy to pull a big wedge of files from these onto the iPad - or from one to the other.
Thanks for chipping in.

Yes, I have tried Files. The problem is that the great majority of files (mostly pdfs) don't appear in Files. Files seems to see files associated with Cloud storage, but not with apps.

For example, I have dozens of pdf files in my Kindle app, but these are not viewable in Files.

Kindle app has a number of shortcomings that I would like to overcome by using a different pdf app (Foxit), but there doesn't seem to be a way to view pdfs associated with Kindle in Foxit.
 
Thanks for chipping in.

Yes, I have tried Files. The problem is that the great majority of files (mostly pdfs) don't appear in Files. Files seems to see files associated with Cloud storage, but not with apps.

For example, I have dozens of pdf files in my Kindle app, but these are not viewable in Files.

Kindle app has a number of shortcomings that I would like to overcome by using a different pdf app (Foxit), but there doesn't seem to be a way to view pdfs associated with Kindle in Foxit.

Ah, I see your problem now. Files definitely supports pdf files with no problems at all - so it's probably something to do with whether the Kindle app allows it's files to be seen by other apps. Certain apps seem to do so and others don't. On my iPad I can see files "owned" by DJI Fly, Filmic Pro, GoPro and PS Express, but not Kindle and I can't find a way to add Kindle to the files sidebar.

I presume it's down to the App developer whether they give visibility to the Files app or not.

You could probably JailBreak the iPad and be able to do what you want, but that's kind of the nuclear option.
 
I sort all my PDF’s in Books - manuals etc. But I don’t see any PDF’s from Kindle in files, though files does have local storage, not necessarily associated with cloud.
Maybe you need to export your files from Kindle before being able to view them elsewhere


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I sort all my PDF’s in Books - manuals etc. But I don’t see any PDF’s from Kindle in files, though files does have local storage, not necessarily associated with cloud.
Maybe you need to export your files from Kindle before being able to view them elsewhere


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just checking on my IPad, I can see files from Adobe Document Cloud, my NAS, Dropbox, Downloads, RAV FileHub, 2Do, locally stored on my iPad, and iCloud.

But not Kindle, even though it has some PDF’s stored


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Seems I'm fcuked then. Problem is I use Print-to-Kindle, which is a very convenient way to send files I come across on my MacBook to the iPad.

I've been doing this for years and there are hundreds of files on the iPad. Inevitably they're in something of a disorganised mess since Kindle doesn't really support a half-decent file management system.
 
Seems I'm fcuked then

Yes. "App independent" file management on iOS devices is not really considered.
The "files" app is a bit of a patch to be honest.

Kindle doesn't help.

Have you tried using Evernote? You can save articles to it or attach pdf files, etc.

Problem is I use Print-to-Kindle, which is a very convenient way to send files I come across on my MacBook to the iPad.

Print to pdf and save on a dropbox folder.
 
Yes. "App independent" file management on iOS devices is not really considered.
The "files" app is a bit of a patch to be honest.

Kindle doesn't help.

Have you tried using Evernote? You can save articles to it or attach pdf files, etc.



Print to pdf and save on a dropbox folder.

Evernote for the win. That's what I use. I must have thousands of pdfs there - all accessible across all platforms and devices. You can organise them into notebooks by subject, create "stacks" of multiple notebooks, add tags, etc, etc....

Also - you can print any document, pdf, webpage etc directly to Evernote, then annotate it directly in Evernote.
 
Yes, but Stolzy’s problem is all those PDF’s are in the Kindle app.
I agree re. Evernote, I use the WebClipper a lot for travel planning


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Should be fairly easy to extract the pdfs from the Kindle and transfer them over.

Haven’t checked, but they could be fetched via USB directly.
I do have quite a few non-amazon books on my Kindle and they are standalone .mobi and pdf files.

But, yes, it should be a “do it once” operation in order to move to Evernote (or another solution). Otherwise highly unpractical.
 
Yes. "App independent" file management on iOS devices is not really considered.
The "files" app is a bit of a patch to be honest.

Kindle doesn't help.

Have you tried using Evernote? You can save articles to it or attach pdf files, etc.
I used to use Evernote some years ago, I'll atke another look.



Print to pdf and save on a dropbox folder.
I guess, but the print to Kindle was very convenient.
 
Evernote for the win. That's what I use. I must have thousands of pdfs there - all accessible across all platforms and devices. You can organise them into notebooks by subject, create "stacks" of multiple notebooks, add tags, etc, etc....

Also - you can print any document, pdf, webpage etc directly to Evernote, then annotate it directly in Evernote.
I'll give it a go. My current problem is how to extract my pdfs from Kindle on the iPad
 
Should be fairly easy to extract the pdfs from the Kindle and transfer them over.
You'd think. Currently can't get my iPad to connect to the MacBook at all.

Haven’t checked, but they could be fetched via USB directly.
I don't see how to be honest. Aside from the fact that the iPad is invisible to the MacBook, there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to transfer pdfs in Kindle (iPad) to the MacBook. All my books from Amazon are visible on both iPad and MacBook, but no pdfs on the MacBook

I do have quite a few non-amazon books on my Kindle and they are standalone .mobi and pdf files.
But inaccessible apart from Kindle?

But, yes, it should be a “do it once” operation in order to move to Evernote (or another solution). Otherwise highly unpractical.
I'm prep[ared to put the ffort in, but how do I transfer the files?
 
Ah ok – I assumed you where using a physical Kindle, not the app on the iPad.

You should be able to access the files from your Amazon account. I've done something similar when I changed my Kindle a couple of years ago. Let me have a quick look.
 
Ah ok – I assumed you where using a physical Kindle, not the app on the iPad.

You should be able to access the files from your Amazon account. I've done something similar when I changed my Kindle a couple of years ago. Let me have a quick look.
Books I have bought on Amazon automagically on iPad and MacBook, but there doesn't seem to be a way to move pdfs from other sources to the Mac.

In the meantime I have another problem, even if I had a method to transfer the files IOS devices refuse to connect to the MacBook. My iPhone does the trust thing, but never appears in iTunes.
 
If you go under your Amazon account and manage your device:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/mycd

You will be able to download your PDFs (not the books or other stuff bought via Amazon).
It is a bit fiddly to use, maybe if you move them into a collection first, it will be easier to select them all at once later on from the web interface.

I just tried and I can download the books and PDFs that I manually added to my Kindle.

kindledl.png


See if it works for you, not 100% sure as you are using the "print to kindle" function.
I used to send digests and copies of longer online articles I wanted to read on my Kindle via Instapaper, and those are not downloadable weirdly.
 
My iPhone does the trust thing, but never appears in iTunes.

I don't know about it to be fair.
Apple is increasingly make it more and more complex when you connect a device to the mac.
I literally just backup the photos and I don't think I have used iTunes in the last 5 years at least.
 
I don't know about it to be fair.
Apple is increasingly make it more and more complex when you connect a device to the mac.
I literally just backup the photos and I don't think I have used iTunes in the last 5 years at least.
Me too. I was hoping it was just unfamiliarity.

Something I have less and less need to do.
 


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