Kobuddy is a tool to backup Kobo Reader sqlite database and extract useful things from it.
It gives you access to books, annotations, progress events and more!
Tested on Kobo Aura One, however database format should be mostly the same on other Kobo devices. Iโll happily accept PRs if you find any issues or want to help with reverse engineering more events.
Installing
From pypi: pip3 install --user kobuddy
You can also use without installing by running ./kobuddy.
Usage
kobuddy --helpusage: kobuddy [-h] [--db DB] [--errors {throw,return}] {books,progress,annotations,backup} ...
Library to parse and provide Python interface for your Kobo reader
positional arguments:
{books,progress,annotations,backup}
books print all books
progress print all book reading progress
annotations print all annotations (bookmarks/highlights/comments)
backup backup the database from your Kobo device
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--db DB
By default will try to read the database from your Kobo device.
If you pass a directory, will try to use all Kobo databases it can find.
--errors {throw,return}
throw: raise on errors immediately; return: handle defensively long as possible and reasonable
as a standalone app
Example of printing reading progress:
Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan Started : 27 Jul 2019 14:39 Finished: 05 Oct 2019 14:00 -- 27 Jul 2019 14:39: reading -- 04 Aug 2019 16:40: highlight -- 27 Aug 2019 12:33: reading: 25% -- 02 Oct 2019 17:33: reading: 39%, read for 7 mins -- 02 Oct 2019 17:42: reading: 46%, read for 8 mins -- 02 Oct 2019 17:46: reading: 48%, read for 3 mins -- 02 Oct 2019 17:48: reading: 50% -- 02 Oct 2019 17:52: reading: 52%, read for 4 mins -- 02 Oct 2019 21:49: reading: 75% -- 02 Oct 2019 21:50: reading: 76%, read for 29 mins -- 05 Oct 2019 11:56: reading: 86%, read for 14 mins -- 05 Oct 2019 13:50: reading: 90% -- 05 Oct 2019 14:00: reading: 100%, read for 19 mins -- 05 Oct 2019 14:00: finished, total time spent 200 mins
as a backup tool
kobuddy backup --helpusage: kobuddy backup [-h] [--label LABEL] path You can run it via cron, for example every minute. When you connect your device via USB, the database will be backed up. : * * * * * kobuddy backup /path/to/backups/kobo/ Alternatively, you can add a udev rule or something similar. positional arguments: path target directory or file to dump the database optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --label LABEL device label (check lsblk if default doesn't work)
as a library
import kobuddy
kobuddy.set_databases('/L/backups/kobo/')
return kobuddy.get_books()[8: 10][Blindsight by Peter Watts, Classical Mechanics by John C. Baez & Derek K. Wise]
You can also find some examples in Orger or my package.
If you are looking for some specific Kobo events, check out EventTbl class, there is a good chance itโs been reverse engineered.
Related projects/services
- export-kobo: only processes annotations from a single database
- https://www.thekobonotes.com: closed source; you have to upload database manually, however it does display them as a nice html