How (and why) to download your Kindle books
Special edition: Download your Kindle e-book files
Jared Newman | 
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Over the weekend, Amazon finally convinced me to liberate my Kindle e-books from its ecosystem.
I’d been happy enough reading on my Kindle Paperwhite e-reader and the Kindle mobile app. But then came the news that on February 26, Amazon will remove the ability to download Kindle book files from its website onto a computer. Removing the copy protection from those files is fairly trivial (albeit illegal in many jurisdictions), allowing users to access books on alternative apps and competing e-readers, and Amazon clearly wants to cut off that behavior.
So in a move driven largely by spite, I downloaded all of my Kindle e-book files to my PC ahead of that February 26 deadline. It only took a few minutes, and I’m glad I did it.
Why you might want your Kindle e-book files
To be clear, Amazon is not taking away your books on February 26, nor will it require an internet connection to read them. You’ll still be able to download purchased books to all but the oldest Kindle e-readers and to the Kindle app on phones, tablets, and computers, with full support for offline reading.
Still, there are several reasons you might want access to the underlying e-book files:
- If you have a really old Kindle with no Wi-Fi and just 3G (which no longer works), you won’t be able to transfer purchased books onto it without those files.
- Publishers can automatically update e-books in readers’ collections—famously, Puffin stripped offensive terms from Roald Dahl’s writing in 2023—and you may want to maintain the original versions.
- With digital content, there’s always a risk—however slim—that it may become unavailable to download in the future over licensing restrictions.
- By removing digital rights management from the files, you can convert them to other formats such as PDF or ePUB, letting you read them outside of Kindle’s own apps and devices.
That last scenario is especially intriguing to me. I’ve started poking around with an alternative apps such as eBoox (for iOS and Android) and Moon+ (for Android), and they offer more granular display formatting tweaks and an uncluttered views of your bookshelf without all of Amazon’s upsells. I also like the idea of being able to annotate PDF versions and potentially read the books I bought on non-Kindle e-readers from companies like Kobo and Remarkable.
Breaking digital rights management to achieve those goals is illegal in a lot of places, including the United States thanks to the DMCA. But I’m allowed to write about it, you’ll allowed to think about it, and there’s nothing illegal about downloading Amazon’s e-book files in their still-protected form regardless.
How to download your Kindle e-book files
To download your Kindle book purchases from Amazon’s site, you’ll need to own a Kindle e-reader from 2023 or earlier. The option isn’t available for the latest Kindles that Amazon released last year.
Sign into Amazon’s website and navigate to Account & Lists > Content Library > Books. You can also use this link if you’re already signed into your Amazon account already.
Downloading each file takes four clicks:
- Select “More actions” next to the book you want to download.
- Select “Download & transfer via USB.”
- Select one of your Kindle e-readers from the list. It doesn’t matter which unless you’re transferring to an old Kindle.
- Hit the Download button.
(If you’re trying to download from a phone or tablet, you may need to enable your browser’s desktop site view for the “Download & transfer” option to appear.)
You’ll now have an AZW or AZW3 file in your downloads folder. Repeat the process for any additional books you want to download, then move the files wherever you please for safekeeping.
For paid subscribers: Download your books in bulk
If you’re trying to download hundreds of Kindle books before the February 26 deadline, having to click four times on each one isn’t ideal. That’s where a tool called Amazon Kindle Bulk Downloader comes in, allowing you to pull down hundreds of files from your Kindle e-book library in seconds.
This does require a few minutes of setting up software and running various terminal commands, but I couldn’t find any guides online with the exact steps you need to perform. So after figuring it all out on my own, I made a tutorial for Advisorator subscribers:
Read the bulk download guide here →
As for DRM removal—again, probably not legal—there are lots of guides to those already, This is the best one I’ve found so far, but I’ll make a more thoroughly-illustrated guide for Advisorator members if there’s interest. DRM removal can come later, so long as you grab those book files now.
Until tomorrow!
Thanks for tuning into this early edition of Advisorator. I’ll send out a shorter newsletter tomorrow, which will also serve as one more reminder to download your Kindle books already.
Got questions in the meantime? Just reply to this email.
Until then,
Jared
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