Jimthing,
If you can connect to the Apple App Store, tag editor is there — that is where I got it.
Can’t answer about Apple.
Don’t know about Adobe metadata tools besides Lightroom and Bridge.
Jim
Same app. Still audio only. Thanks anyway.
@james.cutler So what did you end up going with in the end?
FYI, I’ve read online that some users have had success simply importing the Catalina version of the Books app to their Monterey machines, instead of using the (utterly crap with metadata editing) Catalyst version included with Monterey. I suppose the Ventura version is just as crap too…?
After finding almost ZERO information online about this –either from news sources, in forum discussions, or generally elsewhere– I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the only solution if one wants to remain using macOS Apple Books app, is to use the older version from Mojave that still has the missing user-editable fields still there.
Options to consider for a separate older macOS version:
- Boot Camp it (for Intel machines)
- use a spare drive to boot into it
- virtual machine for it
Issues with options 1 & 2:
-
Boot Camp: not likely a good idea, as I may update to a Mac Mini M2 (i.e. Apple Silicon) when they arrive (currently my server is a MM 2018) so this likely not worth it.
-
Booting into something like a small SSD with it on is likely to be annoying going back and forward.
So AFAICS, that only leaves option 3:
- VM: can use it to add the ebooks to its version of Books app; wait for data to sync; then see the data in the newer non-VM Monterey/Ventura version of the Books app software and use it to read.
…if only Apple could just re-add the old functionality to change/add tags for fields Year / Category / Comments / Description back again!
This removing metadata tagging functionality/view-ability from their ‘headline’ media-asset management apps (Books, Music, TV, etc.), all as if no one uses them, is utterly ridiculous (e.g. in Music they removed being able to see more than the cover art, for booklets etc… why?!) – decent metadata management is literally the reason many users began using Macs in the first place and want to continue to do so! 
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Have you tried copying the Mojave version to your Monterey system?
I have copied older versions of several macOS apps to newer versions of macOS successfully. It’s worth a try.
Thanks for the idea, but no (last time I did similar was with those old iWork '09 apps; until Apple later added the old stuff back into the newer versions!).
While I could do that, given Books is a media asset mgmt database app (rather than something like Pages that simply opens & allows edits to separate Finder .pages docs, for example), I fear it would no doubt screw-up the database or something, making things even worse…? 
I read books in Books, but I manage/track them using LibraryThing. It’s free:
You can use the Web or Android/iOS apps. It’s for books, but can handle ebooks or other media.
You can add your own tags, categories and comments. Lots of options for sorting or display. LibraryThing uses ISBN numbers, but can use other sources as well.
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Long ago I started using librarything to keep track of my very large book library - only got a small portion of my books into it but it was/is a great resource. Never thought about using it for keeping track of my Books items. I find Apple Books extremely confining when it comes to trying to catalog what I have in any meaningful process. Apple clearly does not encourage anyone who wants to do quality cataloging. Like the idea of libarything, thank you!
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The key is finding the ebook ISBN, but if you’re not tryng to create a formal carchive catalog, you can find the print version, and then choose Ebook as a format. I also like that it’s easy to take your data with you.
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Thank you. You are so right and I’m going to look into using it. Excellent resource!
LibraryThing looks interesting:
So I presume you’re saying here that you ignore metadata tagging in Books app itself (except for the basics), and use a separate online database to do it all – am I right?
If so, what makes LibraryThing different to the other popular online database site, Goodreads?
I’ve recently noticed that the LibraryThing iOS app has been updated and improved. It was once obvious that it was merely scraping the web; now, when you edit the details of the book, it’s a normal looking iPhone app display. (I personally never use the Books app to read anything, but I do use LibraryThing to track the books I’ve read.)
If so, what makes LibraryThing different to the other popular online database site, Goodreads?
Some people don’t like the fact that Goodreads is owned by Amazon. (LibraryThing also has a lot more fields, if you want or need to use them.)
For an online app that’s more like Good reads but isn’t owned by a company like Amazon, StoryGraph is very good.
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I use Books for reading on my iPad and Mac. I don’t use Books’ metadata for anything; Books can’t even properly sort and display author’s names, nor can you correct them. I use Collections to make it easier to locate books, but that’s about it. My metadata lives in LibraryThing and in a Numbers spreadsheet I use instead of a Reference manager (i.e. Zotero or Bookends).
LibraryThing is mostly owned by the founder and creator, Tim Spaulding. There’s a minority (tiny) share owned by Amazon, in order to access Amazon’s database of publications. Spaulding is a good guy. They enforce civility without being restrictive in terms of what people think about a book.
Goodreads is entirely owned by Amazon. They allow doxxing, trolling, fake reviews (books that haven’t even been released as ARCs and can’t have been read, have been reviewed), retributive and hostile reviews about the author not the book, reviews designed to hurt an author and their sales. More than one user has blithely created multiple socks for purposes of damaging an author’s sales.
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Goodreads is a social media site for sharing your reading activity, book reviews and recommendations with friends. The fact that you can use it to catalog your books is really secondary to it.
I haven’t used LibraryThing, but based on a quick read of its home page, it seems to be more focused on cataloging books, with the social media aspects being secondary.
Unfortunately, neither is a standalone app that you can use to just catalog your collection without some third-party server getting involved.
I catalog my books using a custom FileMaker database. It works for me, but I need to hand-enter the data for every book I add (and use my scanner to include the cover art). Which is more work than most people want to do for this task.
In the not-too-distant past, I would have recommended Delicious Library, telling people to download a shareware installation before committing to buy it. But according to Wikipedia it is no longer supported by its authors. The last update on the App Store was a year ago, for Big Sur compatibility. So my recommendation is now conditional, because there’s no guarantee it will remain compatible with future versions of macOS (or the Amazon service it uses to look up book data from bar codes and ISBN numbers).
(According to the author’s blog, as of last year, he plans to keep it compatible with macOS updates, but doesn’t plan to add any new features in the future.)
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Thanks to all, some great suggestions there. Looks like some of you take this probably a lot more seriously than I do, tracking all your physical and digital books, and/or using books for research purposes and the like. Bravo!
I’ll likely consider one of these options in the near future – LibraryThing looks the most positive candidate, TBH. Although I still want my tags in Apple Books app to continue as best they can, hopeful that Apple will eventually pull their finger out and finally reinstate the past tagging support or better. So as books take little space, the VM idea looks very likely the best and only (for this purpose) way forward that I can think of.
Does the “Get Info” thing in Apple Books app on Monterey not suffice for correcting them?
EDIT: Although on checking, looks like you can only edit imported books/PDFs, not purchased ones from Apple Bookstore. For purchased books, even editing Title or Author in Books on Mojave, doesn’t sync and show-up in Books on Monterey. Mine are 99% DRM free imports, but really Apple, really?! 
My central issue is that you can’t correct the author name in terms of how the books are sorted. If, for instance, I sort by Author, some authors’ surnames are used to determine order, while with others, the first name is used.
There needs to be a way to correct the metadata associated with the author’s name and sort order. Library catalog systems do this with a “hidden field” that allows library catalogers to map the name on the title page with the way the name is sorted for books. Some of this is the fault of publishers’ though to be fair the process of prepping a book for an online retailer is arcane in terms of the metadata. Some of tis is because of odd names, that are not the typical construction of European names.
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Yes, I see what you mean. Basically they need a “Sort Author” type field, a la iTunes/Music.
One would have thought Apple might just have realised that books need decent metadata tagging, given we have these places called Libraries in the physical world, who all use multiple systems of cataloging objects (Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress, eat your heart out!).
I would suggest Delicious Library as it checks most of these boxes, but apparently it isn’t supported anymore (though my over-large library of books and physical music media still works in MacOS Monterey and in High Sierra)
I use an iPhone app that scans barcodes, or for more obscure items, manually enter, then can add/edit whatever metadata I wish, which is then exportable to Numbers/.csv for whatever purposes necessary.
re. copying old app version to newer OS.
Are there certain steps to doing this that should be followed? As surely just copying the app from applications folder doesn’t copy any associated library files over…?
It’s been a while since I’ve attempted such a thing, so any guidance would be great. 
I feel obligated to remind everyone to use Product Feedback - Apple, and in this case, specifically:
Apple does pay attention to the feedback they receive there, so let’s all go give them a piece of our minds about all this! I can’t begin to name all the examples I run across daily that point to the fact that our favorite computer maker is seriously losing focus, and making a lot of boneheaded decisions when it comes to its ongoing software development!
I don’t post on their Feedback page often enough, so this reminder is as much for me as anything.
Also, good discussion here. I’d also like to point out that Kobo.com, initially owned by Rakuten, and now owned by Walmart, is my favorite place to buy and read ebooks, mostly because they’re the only one that I know of that allows you to share a portion of every purchase with your favorite independent bookstore (or one nearby that’s in their system). Their reader app has improved immensely in recent years, but alas, it doesn’t appear that their tagging options are very good.
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