Re-consolidating a book's various formats back in one folder subtree?

[HappyChris]

I have copies of a given book in different formats made by calibre some years ago but now dispersed in different folders on different devices. I now want to consolidate them back in my new calibre library under the usual folder tree system.

Just dragging the various ebook copies into the only existing Calibre Library>this Author> Book(s) folder doesn't work. Is there a standard, trustworthy way to do this consolidation, please?

[BetterRed]

I would try to consolidate the formats into a one book per folder structure and then use the Add books from directories... (One book per directory, ...) option.

Otherwise, once you create a book, say by adding the PDF, you have to add subsequent formats (EPUB, TXT etc) to individual books using one of the Add files to selected books options - which could be tedious.

BR

[dwig]

I'd attack the problem by:

1. Add all of the books, letting them each be separate book entries.
2. Review the metadata for each to choose which has the data you prefer to keep and, if necessary, manually edit its metadata to append any data from the others that you don't want to loose.
3. Select the "best book" by itself and then select each of the others
4. Press "M" to merge them into a single entry; calibre will now do "the heavy lifting" merging the various individual entries into the first selected entry and in doing so will move the files as necessary so all will be in a single folder.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by HappyChris

Just dragging the various ebook copies into the only existing Calibre Library>this Author> Book(s) folder doesn't work. Is there a standard, trustworthy way to do this consolidation, please?

While several solutions have been suggested, I wanted to say "NEVER, EVER manually add or remove files to/from a calibre's library directories!" It is a very bad idea since the calibre database will have no records for those files.