Update, 7 PM EST, 10/15/2019: Audiobook Builder 2.1 is out! Head here for update details.
Update, 10:20 AM EST, 10/15/2019: The original Audiobook Builder 2.1 submission to Apple had an issue so we submitted a fix yesterday afternoon. We expect it to enter review soon.
Update, 12 AM EST, 10/12/2019: We just submitted Audiobook Builder 2.1 to Apple for review, so it shouldn’t be long until it’s approved and out in the wild.
If you’ve updated to macOS 10.15 Catalina and tried to use Audiobook Builder 2.0.2 or earlier, you’ve probably hit an error when Audiobook Builder tries to add your audiobooks to iTunes. iTunes isn’t part of Catalina – you’ll manage audiobooks in Books and music in Music – so you’ll need to follow these steps to get things going again:
- Open Audiobook Builder 2.0.2.
- Go to the Audiobook Builder menu at the top left corner of your screen and click the Preferences… menu item.
- If the Save to setting at the top of the window is set to iTunes Media Folder, pick something else.
- Make sure the Add to iTunes Library checkbox is unchecked.
That’s all you need to do to build audiobooks with Audiobook Builder 2.0.2 on Catalina. After they’re built, drag them from the location you set up in your preferences to the appropriate application – to Books for M4B audiobooks or to Music for M4A music tracks.
One other thing – the Add iTunes button and menu item won’t work, and dragging directly from Music will also fail. Work around that by dragging the tracks you need directly from the Finder. To see your tracks in the Finder, select a track in Music, go to the File menu, and click the Show in Finder menu item. Drag from there to your Audiobook Builder project and you’re all set.
Audiobook Builder 2.1 is coming with fixes – we’re putting it through a final round of tests and plan to submit it to Apple for review later today tomorrow. We apologize for the delay – a last-minute issue means we have to run some tests on El Capitan through Catalina – but we’ll get it to Apple as soon as we possibly can. Keep an eye out!