How to move kindle e-books to an open source reader?

5 days ago by aim4harmony to c/privacy

Hi, everyone. 👋

I'd like to move a few of my books from Amazon kindle app to an open source reader before closing the Amazon account. Preferably, I'd like moving to a European -based servive.

Curious about what my options would be? What is the procedure like? 🤷‍♂️

thejoker954 20 points 5 days ago

It's been a while since I had to convert Kindle books, but the last time I did - Calibre was the way to go.

It's a complete collection manager too so you can edit metadata, cover art, format and so much more.

It's definitely intimidating when starting out, but well worth it.

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aim4harmony 4 points 5 days ago

Thank you. I have heard about Calibre before and got a bit spooked by the complexity of the process. 🤭

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N0t_5ure 9 points 5 days ago

If you want to make it easy, just go to libgen.li, download the books without DRM and it's off to the races....

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voxel 1 point 5 days ago

Likely illegal (depending on where the post author lives).

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aim4harmony 2 points 5 days ago

I live in the EU country and would prefer a legal way to save my purchased books.

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SocialistVibes01 0 points 5 days ago

If Calibre is complex then just desist.

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Snailpope 1 point 5 days ago path: 0 24307906 24307945, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 5
aim4harmony 1 point 5 days ago

Thanks. Would this work on Linux, too?

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Snailpope 2 points 5 days ago

Not sure, don't see why not. I'm not smart enough to use Linux

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AHemlocksLie 1 point 4 days ago

Nah, you don't need to be all that smart. You just gotta be willing to spend time learning. It's not even all that difficult as long as you don't get too hung up on the old Windows or Mac way of doing things. There are some great beginner friendly distros these days, and they tend to work pretty well without too many issues for most people. If you do have issues, there are chats, typically on IRC, where you can ask for help, and google can go a long way if you're decent with it.

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leadore 11 points 5 days ago

There's a looooong thread on mobileread forums about how to do this. Amazon changed their ebook format a year or two ago to make it harder to remove the DRM, but someone usually comes up with a new way to do it every time Amazon tries to foil them.

This is the thread I have bookmarked -- I haven't kept up with it all since I quit Kindle back when they removed the "download & transfer" option to let us save our own purchased property. But I think their newest format has been figured out now, so if it's possible to do, the instructions should be in that thread.

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RodgeGrabTheCat 8 points 5 days ago

You need to remove the DRM from the books. I've heard Caliber can do this.

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TheTechyHobbit 3 points 5 days ago

I second Calibre.

I used to know of a plugin, years ago, that would remove all DRM from ebooks at the time of import into Calibre

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gruhuken 2 points 4 days ago

DeDRM!

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lemmyng 5 points 4 days ago path: 0 24321944, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
lsjw96kxs 4 points 5 days ago

You can use dedrm plugin in calibre to remove the DRM on your ebooks. You just need to download them on your computer, like using an old version of kindle.

If you want to buy more recent ebooks, as someone else said, the DRM cannot be removed now, so you should download them from kobo if you want to still be able to download and remove DRM.

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unskilled5117 3 points 5 days ago

This is the most uptodate option i know of, using DeDrm/noDrm and Calibre, havent tested it myself though.

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SharkWeek 3 points 5 days ago

If they're popular, chances are they're easily downloadable TBH

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racoon 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah Anna might have them archived from the A to the Z-library

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ScoffingLizard 2 points 5 days ago

Any update on how to get to Anna? I have three links at this point. None seem to work.

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SharkWeek 4 points 5 days ago

Hot tip is to check the wikipedia page for the latest

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AHemlocksLie 3 points 5 days ago

What open source reader are you using? I'd love an open source device to replace my Kobo, but the only option I ever found when I looked was basically to use an Android app, and that's not really what I hoped for.

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spy 4 points 5 days ago

(Not OP)

I think Kobo is not too closed, is it? Not saying it's open source, but not hard to install KoReader or other stuff it may support.

I have a PocketBook reader, more specifically a pocketbook touch hd 3.

When plugged into a pc the thing seems open source but I am not sure if everything it runs is visible there. Installing KoReader on by device was just a matter of copying 2 folders to specific places in the existing hierarchy, and not a single file replaced a previously existing one.

This is an older device, I hope newer ones are still as open as this one seems to be.

I don't expect to need to buy another e-reader anytime soon but Kobo would be on my radar if I would.

What is wrong with yours?

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AHemlocksLie 2 points 4 days ago

I'd just prefer something genuinely open. I can and did put KOReader on my Kobo, but it still runs its own proprietary firmware or OS or whatever. That's probably based on or built on top of something open like a Linux kernel, but a proprietary layer still sits on top

I've been considering getting... I think it's the Pine Note? It's from Pine64 and is supposed to be a tablet with an e-ink display, but last I checked on it a year or two ago, software and driver support was still not quite there. It's all open hardware, though, so it's just a matter of the community getting it up to speed. Probably about time I look back into it, but my Kobo isn't that old, so I kinda hate to spend so much replacing it.

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localghost 1 point 4 days ago

I absolutely adore my Kobo. I run calibre and calibre web to manage everything for it and it's been flawless for me for a couple years now.

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EncryptKeeper 2 points 4 days ago

Supposedly you can’t use Calibre to remove DRM from Kindle E-books anymore since Amazon no longer lets you download the raw files to a computer. The only workaround I’m aware of requires you have a kindle device.

Of course you could find an alternative form of ebook acquisition

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