OpenAudible Documentation

OpenAudible Documentation

This Audio Book Manager lets you catalog and organize your audio book collection. It is optimized for Audible users, but can import MP3 audio books as well.

Please respect copyright owners by not distributing MP3 files created with OpenAudible.

Setup

Configure your working directory in the preferences. The working directory will contain Audible files (AAX), MP3 files, artwork, and other data.

The Web Dir can contain a web page listing of your audible content, a json version of your audiobook meta data, and an MP3 directory with titled audio books.

Connecting to Audible

Connecting to audible is done via a web browser. The first time you use the program you should log in to your audible account using the built-in web browser.
When connected, you should be logged in via the browser, and OpenAudible Library status should be Connected: Yes.

OpenAudible automatically imports the first page of your Audible library into the application. From there, books can be downloaded and converted.

Once connected, you can import the rest of your books by doing a full scan.

Downloading Files

Before converting or downloading files, you need to select one or more audible books in your library, then select either "Download" or "Convert to MP3" from the Action menu.

Audible files are kept in the AAX directory. Once converted to MP3, you may decide to delete the AAX files to save space.

When viewing your library from the OpenAudible web browser, you should be able to download individual book files by clicking on a "Download" button from the Audible Library page.

Audible Settings

Audible has a setting you need to change if you have problems downloading books.

If you see a message about How To Listen or an alert about the need to change a setting, follow these instructions.

Ensure the Check for Audible Download Manager setting is unchecked, try downloading a file again.

Exporting

Your audible library can be exported as a web page, json file, or .csv (Excel) file from the File menu

Importing

Use the File:Import menu, or drag and drop MP3 or AAX files onto the desktop application.

To import a book that contains multiple mp3 files, please see Joining Files in the next section.

Join MP3 Files

Split By Chapter

We like 1 MP3 file per audio book. Its how our software was designed. However, we've gotten a few requests for the ability to have the audio book split into one MP3 file per chapter.

This feature is new and should be used with care. Do put split audio files into the OpenAudible working (mp3) directories or attempt to import them into OpenAudible, or you could end up with a mess.

1. Select Split by Chapter under the file menu.
2. Select an MP3 file you wish to split, which can be OpenAudible web or mp3 working directory.
3. Select a destination directory location
4. If chapter data is present, the audio book will be split into multiple chapters, leaving the original file untouched.

Menus

• File

  • Console - View error messages and technical logs
  • Import Books - Existing AAX and/or MP3 files can be imported--copying them into the media directories
  • Export Web Page - Creates a web page listing your books that you can host on a private server
  • Export Book List - Select either "CSV" or "JSON" to choose the output format.
  • Join Audio Files - Combines 2 or more audio files into a single audio file.
  • Split by Chapter - Utility to split an audio file into multiple files, one audio file per chapter.
  • Quit - Exits the application

• Edit

  • Preferences- Set application directory, audible region, and user name/password

• Controls

  • Connect to Audible - Attempts to log into your Audible account for content scraping
  • Quick Library Sync - Looks for new books and adds them to your library.
  • Full Library Sync - Does a complete scan of your library and updates ratings and book meta data.
  • Download All from Audible - Downloads all audible books that haven't already been downloaded
  • Convert All to MP3 - Converts downloaded files to MP3
  • Browser - Opens internal browser. Connecting and logging in to Audible using this browser helps the app get past any "captchas" and allows the application to collect information about your books.
  • Rescan Files - Scans your mp3 and aax files and updates your library

• Actions (acts on selected books)

  • View In Audible - Opens the Browser to the book's Audible page, if available.
  • Show MP3 - Opens Explorer/Finder to display the MP3 in the desktop.
  • Play Audio Book - Opens MP3 using your system's default MP3 player.
  • Download AAX - Downloads selected books from audible
  • Convert to MP3 - Converts selected books to MP3
  • Refresh Info - Gets missing book meta data from Audible web page and/or files. Downloads image if not found.
  • Ignore Book - Permanently adds a book to the OpenAudible ignore list. This book will not be shown or exported.
    There is currently no GUI to restore ignored books. But you can delete the ignore.json file to restore all books, or carefully use a text editor to edit the list of ignored books.
    The ignore.json file can be found by opening the Preferences dialog. Near the bottom is the path to your preferences directory. You can click: "Show"

• About

  • Help - Opens the Browser to this page.
  • Project Web Page- Goes to http://openaudible.com
  • Check for Update- Checks with openaudible.org to see if a new version is available.
  • Send Bug Report- After experiencing a problem, you may send a bug report to developers. Recent .html, book lists, and tmp files will be collected to assist
  • About Open Audible - The about box and copyright info.

Preferences

Some directories used by the application can be changed. The "Show" button will reveal the directory in the desktop file system.

• Working

  The working directory is where your audio books (AAX, MP3) and artwork files are saved. A tmp directory is also there for temporary files that are deleted on application exit.

• Web/MP3

  The Web directory is a directory that saves the output of a copy of your books saved as a web page. This optional feature is if you want to access your books on your own personal web server. Please ensure that you password protect this file to prevent the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.

• Automation

  • Automatically download books - will automatically download books if they aren't already in MP3/AAX format.
  • Automatically convert to MP3 - will automatically convert books that aren't already in MP3 format.
  • Automatically Update Web Page - will automatically rebuild the web page list of your books when the library changes

• Preferences Directory

  The preference files are located in this directory. You can show the directory to see the files. These files can be deleted after uninstalling the application.

Library Status

• Connected: Shows true or false if "connected" to your audible account.
• Region: The audible region you are using (US, AU, FR, DE, JP, DE).
• Books: Total books managed by the application.
• Hours: Total listening time of all books.
• MP3 Files: Number of MP3 files.
• To Download: Number of books that need to be downloaded.
• To Convert: Number of books that need to be converted to MP3.
• Downloading: Downloading book status.
• Converting: Conversion to MP3 status.

Note: Click on the number portion of the library status to filter books by that status. For instance, click on the number next to 'To Download' to see all books that need downloading.

Audio Book Info

Information about a selected book is displayed here. This info is collected from web or meta tags and cannot (at this time) be edited.

The blue labels on the left side can be clicked on to filter books by title, author, narrator, genre, or publisher.

Clicking the blue text on the right side will open the browser to display the audible page for the title, author, narrator, genre, or publisher.

The info for each data element is self-explanatory. The State field shows any errors or tasks that can be performed.

Searching

The search bar at the top right of the app allows you to filter books by keywords. Use CTRL-F to activate the search. Use Escape to clear the search results and display all books.

Additional Help

This may stop working at any time, due to changes in Audible systems or web site. If this happens, check for an update or open issues.

This software is copyright the authors of the software.

Submitting a bug report from the tools menu will send diagnostic information to developers. For best results, restart OpenAudible, reproduce the problem, then fill in the bug report with as many details as possible and click send.

No technical support is provided, no warranty provided, no.

Suggestions welcome by creating a github issue or by sending a bug report from the menu.