Starting on February twenty sixth, 2025, Amazon is eradicating a characteristic from its web site permitting you to obtain bought books to a pc after which copy them manually to a Kindle over USB. It’s a characteristic that a whole lot of Kindle customers are most likely not conscious of, given books will be extra simply despatched to units over Wi-Fi, but it surely’s particularly helpful for backing up purchases or changing them to different codecs appropriate with non-Kindle e-readers.
There are a number of the explanation why some Kindle customers may miss this characteristic. It’s helpful in the event you don’t have entry to a Wi-Fi community, and though it’s a tedious course of since bought books can solely be downloaded one after the other, there’s some peace of thoughts in figuring out you have got offline copies of all of your books.
It doesn’t occur continuously, however as Good e-Reader factors out, Amazon has sometimes eliminated books from its on-line retailer and remotely deleted them from Kindles or edited titles and re-uploaded new copies to its e-readers. In 2009, the corporate eliminated copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, explaining the books had been mistakenly revealed. More just lately, lots of Roald Dahl’s books, together with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, had been changed with up to date copies that includes modified language on varied book platforms. It’s a reminder that you simply don’t truly personal a lot of the digital content material you eat, and with out the power to again up copies of ebooks, you could possibly lose them totally in the event that they’re banned and eliminated.
The characteristic can be the simplest solution to convert books bought from Amazon to different codecs like EPUB that can be utilized on different units equivalent to a Kobo. Books downloaded by way of Amazon’s web site are delivered within the older AZW3 format which permits DRM to be simply eliminated utilizing varied software program instruments.
Older Kindle fashions additionally retailer books within the AZW3 format, and they are often extracted by connecting the system to a pc with a USB cable. But trendy Kindles use the newer KFX format (first rolled out in 2015) which launched improved font rendering, higher format capabilities, and DRM that’s practically inconceivable to avoid.
The obtain characteristic is a carryover from the times when Kindles didn’t include Wi-Fi, permitting customers who additionally weren’t in a position to benefit from Amazon’s mobile Whispernet service to get bought books onto their e-readers. It’s nonetheless accessible by way of Amazon’s web site by accessing your “Content Library” whereas logged into your account. For bought books you choose the “More actions” menu, select “Download & switch by way of USB,” choose a Kindle system you have got registered, and a duplicate of the e-book will probably be downloaded to your pc.
But the pop-up that seems when deciding on the obtain possibility now contains a further warning. “Starting February 26, 2025, the ‘Download & Transfer by way of USB’ possibility will now not be accessible. You can nonetheless ship Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled units by deciding on the ‘Deliver or Remove from Device’ possibility.“
Once this characteristic goes away, you’ll nonetheless be capable to manually copy book recordsdata and different paperwork to Kindles over USB utilizing Amazon’s apps or third-party options like Calibre. You simply received’t be capable to obtain copies of your bought books to a pc.
The Verge reached out to Amazon with a request for touch upon why this characteristic is being eliminated however didn’t instantly hear again.
