How to Fix iBooks not Syncing Between Devices

iBooks is an e-book reader application available for free on the Apple App Store. You can search, download, and purchase books in this application to read it on any Apple iOS-powered devices. However, users are unable to synchronize their books between two different devices. Because of this issue, users are unable to read books comfortably.

What is Causing iBooks not Syncing between Devices issue?

We managed to discover some of the most common causes that will trigger this particular issue. We have done this by looking at various user reports and the repair strategies that they used to get the issue resolved. Here is a shortlist with common scenarios that have the chance of triggering this particular error:

This article will help you with different methods to resolve the issue. We will start from the most common and simple method to the detailed one.

Method 1: Checking Your Synchronization Settings

The first and important step is to check if your settings are correct for the synchronization of iBooks. We will show settings for both devices where you can set options for synchronization. You can compare your settings with the ones in the below steps:

1. Go to your phone Settings, then tap on iBooks and confirm whether it is ON or not.
2. Scroll down and you will find two options named ‘Sync Bookmarks and Notes‘ and ‘Sync Collections‘, turn them ON so that all activities will be synced.

   

3. You can also check synchronization settings on macOS, open the iBooks application on macOS.
4. Click on iBooks in the menu bar at the top and choose the Preferences option.
5. In the General tab, check the box ‘Sync bookmarks, highlight, and collection across devices‘ option.

   

Method 2: Resetting User Interface of iBooks

This method is applied for a scenario where users have their collections of books but inside those folders/files, they are all empty. You can simply apply this trick to solve the problem. You can try this several times and see if it works.

1. Open iBooks application by tapping the iBooks icon on your iPad.
2. Tap on the Featured or My Books button for 10 times.

   

3. This will reset the user interface of iBooks and you will be able to find the books inside the icons of collection.

Method 3: Switch Off iCloud on the Device

In this method, we will refresh the iCloud synchronization settings to get all the books synced to the device. You can do this by a simple ON/OFF trick. Turning off the synchronization settings for iCloud and iBooks, then turning it back ON will refresh and all your saved files will be restored.

1. Go to your phone Settings and tap on iCloud.
2. Now turn OFF the iCloud, wait for a moment and then turn it back ON.
3. If this doesn’t help, you can also try toggling off the iBook option in iCloud and then turning it ON back.

   

4. Now try and check if your books are sync to the device.

Method 4: Reinstall iBooks Application on the Device

Sometimes, the culprit can be the application itself. The application can also get corrupt or stop working properly due to multiple reasons. Several users finding themselves in a similar situation solved the issue by uninstalling the iBooks application on their device and reinstalling it back from the app store. You can do this by following the below steps:

1. Find the iBooks application on your device, tap and hold on it for 2 seconds.
2. You will get the option with a small cross on the icon for removing the application.

   

3. Press that and wait for it to uninstall completely.
4. Go to your App Store in the device and search for iBooks.
5. Download and install the application, now check the problem will be resolved.