# Calibre - Empty Folders on Kindle



## k2reader (May 5, 2010)

I've been using Calibre to send books I've downloaded from guttenberg et al to my Kindle. Works great. 

However, today I hooked up my Kindle to my computer and noticed that, in the Documents folder, there are a bunch of folders with authors names. Apparently, when you use Calibre to send books to your Kindle, it creates a folder with the author's name and puts the material in that folder. What concerned me is many of these folders are empty as I've read the books and deleted them from my Kindle. I've got more than 50 folders that I'd need to go through manually to see if they're empty and then delete them (manually).

Is there an automated way (Kindle or Calibre) to do this instead?

Thanks!


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

I'm just guessing here, but if you used the 'remove books' option from the top of the main Calibre screen to delete books from your kindle (rather than just using the delete key on the kindle) wouldn't Calibre remove the empty folders automatically for you? This is just a guess however as I've added books from Calibre to my kindle but not yet removed any.


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## aslagle (May 17, 2010)

You can set Calibre to not put the books in folders at all, I believe. I'm not positive, because I'm at work and don't have it running here.


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## k2reader (May 5, 2010)

After some experimentation:

Yes, you *should * delete books via Calibre which will remove the folder if it's the only book in it. I'm so used to deleting via Kindle that it never occurred to me that I'd have to use Calibre to delete books on my Kindle. 

I couldn't find an option in Calibre to *not* put books in folders when sending to device - that's not to say it doesn't exist, just I couldn't find it. I searched all the Preferences screens but...nada.

I think this would be a handy because, if I'm on travel/vacation, I don't want to be tied to a computer to delete books. Anyway, if someone finds this option, please let me know.


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## Stormy (May 24, 2010)

mrscottishman said:


> I think what your are looking for is preferences-plugins-kindle device plug in (pick the one for your type of kindle) click customize plug in and uncheck use subdirectories. That is if I understand it.
> 
> Scott


Thank you so much! it was so annoying to have to do this one by one to not have the folders!


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## Tom Diego (Jun 30, 2010)

k2reader said:


> I think this would be a handy because, if I'm on travel/vacation, I don't want to be tied to a computer to delete books. Anyway, if someone finds this option, please let me know.


If the folders are empty there's no reason why you can't just delete them when you have your Kindle attached to your computer. You can still delete the books on the Kindle if you're away from a computer just as you've already done and then just delete the folders the next time you attach your Kindle to your computer.


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## k2reader (May 5, 2010)

TomDiego said:


> You can still delete the books on the Kindle if you're away from a computer just as you've already done and then just delete the folders the next time you attach your Kindle to your computer.


I'm trying to avoid going through 50+ folders, looking for empties, because I couldn't remember what books I'd deleted.



mrscottishman said:


> I think what your are looking for is preferences-plugins-kindle device plug in (pick the one for your type of kindle) click customize plug in and uncheck use subdirectories. That is if I understand it.


Thanks Scott, I found it and it worked great!


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## brandy1 (Jan 19, 2010)

Last night I decided I was going to move all my Calibre books out of the folders and then delete the folders (so they appear in the main directory, the same as the books from Amazon).  That went fine, except now they no longer sort into the correct collections on my Kindle.  So now I get to redo the collections on about 350 books


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## BlueMoonRising (Jul 6, 2011)

Hi, I'm new to the KindleBoards so apologies for my tardiness  but if you want to delete empty folders on the Kindle there are free PC programs such as "Remove Empty Directories" which work with the Kindle plugged into the PC.


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