Up until now, Amazon had this function where you could download your Kindle eBooks to your computer and then transfer those files to your Kindle device via USB. But because Amazon is fuckin evil, they’re getting rid of that feature on February 26. The good news is, you still have time to get the fuck out of Kindle’s ecosystem!!
Step 1: Download your Kindle books
Follow the instructions and use this this script to mass-download all of your files: Download all your Kindle books before Feb 26, 2025 · GitHub
Step 2: Get calibre
If you’re not already using calibre, it’s time to start:
Step 3: Get some de-DRM plugins
You’re also going to want to get this plugin for it that strips out DRM when you import books into your calibre library:
Download the .zip file on that page and unzip it. Inside are two more .zip files. These are the plugins you need to import into calibre:
This one is not for Kindle but it will come in handy for other eBook stores that use ACSM (Adobe DRM):
This one you do NOT need to unzip first, that zip file on the page is itself the plugin.
In calibre, go to Preferences > Plugins. Click the “Load plugin from file” button:
Click that and import in the three plugins above (DeDRM_plugin.zip, Obok_plugin.zip, and DeACSM.zip). Close and reopen calibre.
Step 3.5 Make a throwaway Adobe account to set up the DeACSM plugin
In order to get rid of the DRM on ACSM files, you’re gonna need to make an Adobe account. (You COULD use your main one if you already have one, but I would highly recommend making a new throwaway one just in case…)
Go back to Preferences > Plugins, highlight the DeACSM plugin, and click the “Customize plugin” button.
Log in to your Adobe account, then restart calibre. Now you can import .acsm files (such as from the Kobo store), and calibre will automatically fetch the accompanying ePub associated with it, de-DRM it, and add it to your library. KAPOW!!!
Step 4: Import all your Kindle books into calibre
Since you’ve set up all the de-DRM plugins above, they should be imported into calibre with the DRM stripped out! How nice! Now you can organize your library to your heart’s content.
Step 5: Connect your e-reader device and sync all your liberated Kindle books onto there
Enjoy the taste of freedom, and never buy another eBook from Amazon ever again!!! With calibre, you can just plug in your device and it will automatically scan it to see what books from your library are already on there, and you can choose to convert files to different formats and sync them over.
I personally have been using the Kobo store to download books, strip out the DRM, have calibre convert them to .mobis, and put them onto my decade-old Kindle Voyage. It’s SO GOOD. The downside to the Kobo store is their search engine is absolutely dismal, so what I do is go to Duck Duck Go (or whatever search engine you use) and type in “book title” + “Rakuten,” and usually the top result is what I want.