How to export notes from iBooks

Create useful notes when reading iBooks, then send them all at once! I’ve been using iBooks on iOS to send draft copies of my latest book to friends for review. Emailing an iBook draft is easier and less wasteful than paper.

Tip: if someone emails you an iBook, open the email on your iPad or iPhone and tap the attachment. After some seconds, a popup will appear. Tap the icon that says “Open in iBooks” and presto! The book will open in iBooks.


When creating notes, highlight several words

Highlight a phrase rather than just a single word. This gets around a design flaw in iBooks’ note exporting. You’re going to lose the context when you export multiple notes, so highlighting several words will allow the recipient to find the location later.


Send the notes

You’ve read the whole book and finished making your notes. Time to send them.


Tap the bookmarks icon to view Contents | Bookmarks | Notes.


Tap “Notes” to see all of your notes, and then tap the sharing icon at top-right. A pop-up will appear. Choose “Edit Notes”.


Tap “Select All” to select all of your notes at once.


Tap “Share” and another pop-up menu will appear.


You have several choices, but let’s tap Mail (assuming you use the Mail app). Mail will open a new email containing all of the selected notes.


You can see that the email doesn’t show much context: only the highlighted words plus the note. If you highlight a longer phrase, the email recipient can search their original text to find the spot that corresponds to your note.

This How To works in iOS8.3 through iOS 9.x — if newer versions of iOS change the steps or the appearance, please let me know! I hope this was useful.