Best Methods for Dividing Your Audiobook Into Chapters - A Comprehensive Guide

Top 4 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

Posted by Grace Sue on 7/31/2024 2:42:52 PM.

If you have multi-hour long audiobooks, obviously you can’t sit and listen for 10 hours or more time. So you totally need to cut the audiobook into chapters. Then choose any chapter you want to listen to. After splitting, the audiobooks will be read as the books, whenever you want to listen, you can access to the recent chapter. The following ways can Split Audiobook into Chapters and create audiobooks with chapter information preserved easily.

Method 1. Split Audible Audiobook into Chapters with Epubor Audible Converter

Epubor Audible Converter is the best tool to hep you split Audible audiobooks into chapters. It’s also the the best Audible AAX/AA to mp3 converter and Audible DRM Removal to help you decrypt Audible audiobooks and convert Audible books to MP3, M4B or MP4.

Step 1. Download and install Epubor Audible Converter

Download Epubor Audible Converter for Free

Step 2. Add AA/AAX audiobooks into Audible Converter

Launch Epubor Audible Converter. Click Login, choose your Audible marketplace, and the sign in Audible within Epubor Audible Converter. Click “Refresh” button, the audiobooks in your Audible library will be added in the left side of Audible Converter

Step 3. Split audiobook into chapters

If you are in need of splitting your audiobooks into chapters, Audible Converter must be your first choice. It enables you to split big Audible file into small parts. You can just check the splitting “option” box to split by time or by chapters.

Step 4. Remove the DRM and Convert Audiobooks to MP3

Then click on “Convert to MP3” or “Convert to M4B” button at the bottom to start the process of removing DRM and converting your audiobooks to mp3.

Epubor Audible Converter helps you easily unlock and convert Audible books at the same time. Once it has finished, “Succeeded” will appear. Also, the folder holding the converted MP3 files will automatically pop up.

Notes:

Compared with mp3, m4b audiobooks allow you to store digital bookmarks which make it easier for you to jump to the point where you last left off. And also the m4b format is more suitable than mp3 for an Apple device like iPhone, iPod, iPad since it’s specially used by iTunes to store audiobooks. Follow this guide to convert Audible aax/aa to m4b: Ultimate Way to Convert Audible AAX/AA to M4B with Chapters Kept .

By using the Epubor Audible Converter, you don’t need to find Where are Audible Books Stored on PC/MAC/Android/Kindle Devices any more.

Bonus Tips:

Epubor Audible Converter can satisfy your demand for splitting Audiobooks into chapters on the premise of decrypting the DRM and converting them to MP3 simultaneously. There are some other methods you can take to split your audiobooks, like the following 3 ways I’m going to share with you. But what should you do first before splitting is to ensure your audiobooks are DRM-free. Therefore, I sincerely suggest that you could utilize Epubor Audible Converter to meet one-for-all needs.

Method 2. Split Audiobook into Chapters with Audible

In Audible.com the audiobook that is over 12 hours can be downloaded in multiple parts. You can get several parts of one audiobook. But this function is invalid in the audiobooks shorter than 12 hours. How inconvenient! But half a loaf is better than no bread.

For a computer, you can download it with several parts from the Audible Library.

For android or IOS, tap “Settings” and click download settings. Then choose to download audiobooks with “Single-Part” or “Multi-Part”.

Check the detailed official ways about How to Download Audible audiobooks in Multiple Parts .

Method 3. Split Audiobook into Chapters with iTunes

No matter a Mac or Windows system, iTunes is used frequently. Here is the way for you to divide Audible audiobooks into chapters with iTunes. According to below steps, you can add chapters to audiobooks with iTunes and listen conveniently.

Step 1. Convert Audible Files to MP3

You can use iTunes to play Audible audiobooks. But if you want to split Audible audiobooks into chapters, you must Download Epubor Audible Converter to remove DRM and convert Audible to MP3 firstly.

Step 2: Download & Install iTunes

For a mac, generally, there is no need for you to install iTunes again. It is a built-in app on a Mac. Or you can install it from Apple Store. For Windows system, you can download iTunes from Apple official site. Then install iTunes on your computer.

Step 3. Add Audiobook to iTunes

Launch iTunes. Select “Music” tab. Click the “File” on the navigation. Then click “Add File to Library” or “Add Folder to Library” option. Select the converted MP3 file or folder from the pop-up window. Then the MP3 file will be displayed in “Recently Added” section of Library.

Step 4. Enter Time of Each Chapter

Play the added MP3 file in iTunes. Remember the time of each chapter you want to begin. Right-click the MP3 audiobook and click “Get Info” option. Then click “Options” from the pop-up menu. Enter the start time and stop time of a chapter. For the first chapter, the start time is “0:00”. The stop time is the timing you want to end a chapter. After enter and check the check box. Then click “OK”.

Step 5. Set Import Format

Click “Edit” on the navigation bar and choose “Preferences” option. From the “General Preferences” window, click “Import Settings” option. You can ignore other default options.

Then set the “Import Using” as “MP3 Encoder” from the pop-up window. Then click “OK”. Here you can find AAC/AIFF/WAV/MP3/Apple Lossless Encoder. And you can choose the format you like.

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Step 6. Create Chapter Version

Select the added MP3 file again. Click “File” option in the navigation bar and put your mouse on the “Convert” Option. Click “Create MP3 Version” option from the pop-up menu. This operation will create a new MP3 file which contains the content of the time period you selected.

After conversion, you can find the new MP3 file in “Recently Added” section. Click the name of the new file and rename it as “Chapter One”. Now you get the first chapter in Music section.

Step 7. Add Chapters into Audiobooks

Right-Click the Chapter One file. Select “Get Info” option from the pop-up menu. Click “Options”. Change “media kind” from “Music” to “Audiobook”. Then click “OK”. You will find the Chapter One file disappears in the current interface and appears in “Books > Audiobooks” section.

For more chapters, you can repeat above steps from Step 4 . For Chapter Two, you can enter the start time one second later than the previous stop time. Let me illustrate. Chapter One, enter the start time “0:00” and the stop time “3:00”. Then Chapter Two, enter the start time “3:01” and the stop time you want to split.

You can right-click these chapter files and choose “Show in Windows Explorer” to find the split chapter files in your computer. It’s easy for you to create audio books with chapter divisions using this way.

Method 4. Split MP3 Audiobook into Chapters with Audacity

Audacity is a freeware and has full versions for different computer systems. If you want to cut audiobooks into chapters, it’s a good partner. MP3, AIFF, WAV, FLAC and other output formats are provided for you.

First of all, for Audible audiobooks, please Convert Audible AA/AAX to MP3 . If your audiobooks are open files, just skip to below steps.

Step 1. Download & Install Audacity

Select the appropriate version for your computer. Download Audacity. You can download the installer file and the zip file which is a portable version. Choose your favorite one.

Step 2. Import Audiobook

Launch Audacity. Click “File > Open” to import audiobooks. Or click “File > Import > Audio” to add audiobooks into the interface.

Step 3. Edit Start and End Timing

Play the added audiobook and determine which timing to split. Below the “Audio Position”, you can find the current timing number. Once you want to split, stop playing and edit the timing number into the “End” box. The timing you want to start a chapter can be edited below “Selection Start”.

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Step 4. Export Selected Audio

Click “File > Export Selected Audio” on the navigation bar. From the pop-up window, select the format of selected audio and storage location. Also, you can rename the selected audio file.

For next chapter, enter the timing you want to begin below “Selection Start”. Choose another stop timing.

Conclusion

Now, with above four ways to split audiobook into chapters, you can flexibly arrange the listening time. You may find the first one is the most efficient and the easiest way to split your audiobooks into chapters. That’s right! With the help of Epubor Audible Converter, you can not only easily remove Audible DRM and convert DRM-protected AA/AAX books to MP3/M4B, but also split large Audible files into several segments on the basis of your own needs. Doesn’t it attract you? Let’s start!

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Grace Sue A reading enthusiast. Always pay close attention to the world of Ebook. Devote myself to share everything about e-book and favorably receive any suggestions.

SHARING IS GREAT!

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12 Comments

Lucy

Re:Top 3 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

01/14/2018 11:01:51

Why do you want/need to split the books into smaller parts? With larger segments, especially the full book, you can always see how much more is left. And if you use the sleep timer, you know you set it for say 20 minutes and you can easily go back up to that amount to restart.

Can you actually split them into chapters? And if so, why does it matter? Maybe I read differently. I read/listen until I fall asleep or have to do something else. I never care where I am in a chapter.

I really hate the books that are split into several minutes. They are so difficult to manage. If you are streaming them then go into a dead-zone, such as the 20 minute one I have on my hike, many times I can’t listen to my book during that time period.

Ivan

Re:Lucy

01/20/2018 02:31:20

This very much depends on apps that you are using. iTunes prefer one big file m4b which is basically MP4 container with AAC encoded audio and chapters metadata. However there are other apps for which its better to have chapters separated into individual files. And these apps can cache several files ahead or whole audiobook.

Mee

Re:Lucy

01/26/2019 08:13:50

I find that I need to split the file because the car cd player doesn’t have many options. The choice is to continue or start from the beginning - no way to jump forward to remaining audio after cd has been ejected. Chapters would allow continuing where I left off.

Ivan

Re:Top 3 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

01/20/2018 02:19:15

If you are not afraid of command line and FOSS you can try this zderadicka.eu/splitting-large-audio-books/
you can automatically convert whole library. Opus is great format for audiobooks with 48 kbps bitrate in same quality as 128 kbps mp3 (eg. 1/3 of space/bandwidth).

gilmijar

Re:Top 3 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

05/14/2018 07:26:51

W h e n u s i n g A u d a c i t y s e a r c h f o r s o u n d (M e n u > A n a l y z e > S o u n d F i n d e r . . .)
T h i s w i l l a l l o w t o d e t e c t p i e c e s o f a u d i o b e t w e e n p a u s e s (s i l e n c e) . I i t i s g o o d a t s p l i t t i n g t h e a u d i o f i l e i n t o m e a n i n g f u l p a r t s i f n o t e x a c t l y c h a p t e r s . I t h i n k i t i s b e t t e r t h a t d e c i d i n g o n a f i x e d a m o u n t o f t i m e a n d h a v i n g a u d i o e n d a b r u p t l y m i d - s e n t e n c e .

T h e s i l e n c e i n t e r v a l I u s e i s 2 . 4 s e c o n d s , o t h e r s e t t i n g s I l e a v e o n d e f a u l t .
T h e t o o l w i l l a d d a s e r i e s o f l a b e l s w h i c h c a n t h e n b e u s e d a s b a s i s t o s p l i t t h e b i g f i l e i n t o s m a l l e r p a r t s .

David Lees

Re:Top 3 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

01/3/2019 02:47:39

Hope you can help
All of my audio books have the DRM removed
My older Sansa Clip players would stop playing when the Audio book reached the end of a chapter but all the newer players of any make I tried to this point just keep playing

Do you have any thoughts that might help?

Dave

Epubor Angel

Re:David Lees

01/4/2019 09:46:20

I’m not sure what’s wrong with your “other players” but I guess maybe you can try to edit the “settings”, maybe it will help you. Or you can also visit the official website support center for help about that player.

Tks.

daveclark966

Re:Top 3 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

01/8/2019 16:18:22

i recommend the most professional MP3 splitter - Avdshare Audio Converter to help you.

keyboard

Re:daveclark966

08/1/2019 16:07:36

Yes, it’s good. Unfortunately it has bad price / performance value.

sirgregory

Re:Top 4 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

05/20/2020 00:02:52

Is there any way to change the chapter titles or insert titles if the file doesn’t have any?

Epubor

Re:sirgregory

05/20/2020 09:07:20

Thank you for asking. To edit the title or add a new title, you can also use Epubor Audible Converter. Here is the detailed guide: https://www.epubor.com/best-audio-tag-editor-to-edit-metadata-on-audible-files.html

theWiz

Re:Top 4 Ways to Split Audiobook into Chapters

10/22/2021 02:41:48

Just use MKVtoolnixGUI (freeware).
It can demux & split the chapters (without re-encoding) to mka files, which you could optionally rename to aac, as that is what they are.

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Best Methods for Dividing Your Audiobook Into Chapters - A Comprehensive Guide