Amazon is making a big change to Kindle that probably won’t impact you directly yet, but it may impact you in the future — and the solution needs to happen today.
For years, you’ve been able to download your Kindle books for use on other devices. I never really have, as the Kindle ecosystem is quite smooth, but the option as been there. As of tomorrow (Feb 26, 2025) that option is going away. As a result, whether you think you need to or not, I strongly suggest that you download all of your books and tuck them away for safekeeping in case you want them later.
Downloading them is simple, but a bit time-consuming. To start, go to your Content Library on Amazon by clicking “Accounts & Lists” > Content Library > Books” (this link should take you directly there). To the right of each book is a “more actions” button, and in that list is “Download and transfer via USB”. Don’t let that scare you, as you’re really just downloading it to your computer.
Now the fun begins — go one at a time and download each book. Fortunately, they’re very small files (average of 1-2MB each) so it’s super quick downloads. Drop them in a folder, and then just save that folder in Dropbox or Google Drive or somewhere for later use.
There are three things to know about this:
- These are your books, and this is the way to actually own them. If you don’t do this today, you’ll never be able to in the future.
- The format that you download the books in isn’t particularly helpful, but it gives you control. If you want to read your books elsewhere in the future, you can use a tool like Calibre to convert them into other file formats.
- This gives you the ability to share books with friends (which is likely why Amazon is cutting it off), but I encourage you not to do that. I believe in rewarding authors for their work, so let’s not steal from them. I’m simply doing this so that I can read the books that I purchased on any device that I want in the future.
If you get stuck, this article from PC Magazine should help a bit. Happy reading!
