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Realign Chapters

The realignment workflow keeps the titles of an existing chapter source and attempts to automatically fix misaligned timestamps by detecting cues in the audio.

Realign Realign

When to use it

Realignment is for situations where you have an existing source whose titles are correct, but whose timestamps are slightly off. For example, when using the chapter (Audnexus) lookup feature in Audiobookshelf, you'll often see this familiar message when the durations differ:

ABS Lookup Duration Mismatch

A duration mismatch between your audiobook and the Audnexus data almost always means that the Audnexus chapters will not correctly align with your book's audio. The realignment workflow fixes this by performing targeted smart detection around the areas where it thinks the chapters should go, and then shifts the timestamps to the best-fitting locations.

Realignment Accuracy

Chapter realignment works best when the book and source durations differ by only a few minutes. The greater the difference, the less accurate realignment becomes. If the durations are off by 10+ minutes, consider the possibility that your selected source corresponds to a different version of your book.

Steps

  1. Select a book from Achew's main screen.
  2. Choose Realign Chapters on the Select a Workflow screen.
  3. Pick a source, e.g. Audnexus. If there are no sources, or you wish to include additional sources, click the Add Chapter Source button near the bottom.
  4. Toggle the Dramatized checkbox for books that contain music or sound effects. Note that dramatized detection takes significantly longer than regular detection, so it is recommended to leave this unchecked for regular audiobooks.
  5. Click the Realign button to start the realignment process.
  6. After realignment has finished, use the Chapter Editor to review and polish the chapters.

The Offset column

In the editor, the Offset column shows how far each chapter moved during realignment. If the chapter's offset is a guess or is low-confidence, it will have a warning icon and a different color:

Realignment Guess Realignment Guess

You will want to manually review the accuracy of the chapter timestamps, especially for those marked as guesses. Use the play button () on each chapter to hear the first few seconds and confirm the timestamp is correct. You can click on timestamps to edit them directly, using the space bar to start/stop playback and the ↑/↓ keys to shift the timestamp by ±1 second.

Tip

If realignment is wrong for most chapters, the source might not match the version of the book you have. Try another source, or use the Smart Detect workflow and then Apply Titles.