I have purchased my wife, my mother, and my mother-in-law brand new Kindle 3s for Christmas. My wife currently has a Kindle 2 (the mothers do not have a Kindle). In addition, I currently have my wife's Kindle 2 listed for auction on eBay.

Here are my questions:


How do I get my wife's books off of the Kindle 2 and on to the Kindle 3, and is the answer the same if I don't have both Kindles in my hands at the same time (i.e. I ship her Kindle 2 tomorrow when the auction ends, and give her the Kindle 3 on Christmas day)?
What are the recommended steps for ensuring that the old Kindle 2 is no longer associated to my wife's account (i.e. what do I need to do before shipping it)?
Other than registering all 3 new Kindle 3s to the same account, is there another way my wife can share all of her books with my mother and mother-in-law?

I did search for answers to these questions before posting, but as new features/abilities can be introduced with new software versions, I wanted to start a new topic to get the most current information.

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to Mobileread Patrick!

The answer to all of these involves going to the "Manage Your Kindle" page on Amazon, either through the "Your Account" link, or near the top when you're looking at a Kindle book


How do I get my wife's books off of the Kindle 2 and on to the Kindle 3, and is the answer the same if I don't have both Kindles in my hands at the same time (i.e. I ship her Kindle 2 tomorrow when the auction ends, and give her the Kindle 3 on Christmas day)?

You don't "get them off" the old Kindle, they need to be re-downloaded to the new Kindle (unless they are DRM-free mobi books from another source).

To pre-load the books onto the new Kindle, on the Manage Your Kindle page find your books ("Your Orders"). Use the drop-down menu "Deliver to..." and select your new Kindle. You can only do this after the new Kindle ships, at which point they'll add it your account.

Alternatively when the new Kindle arrives all of the books will be in its Archives, and you can download them direct from the Kindle.

What are the recommended steps for ensuring that the old Kindle 2 is no longer associated to my wife's account (i.e. what do I need to do before shipping it)?

On the Manage Your Kindle page, find your Kindle 2 and hit the deregister link. Amazon's Terms of Service also require you to delete all books off of the Kindle when you sell it.

Other than registering all 3 new Kindle 3s to the same account, is there another way my wife can share all of her books with my mother and mother-in-law?

No, but sharing an account with your family is fairly easy.

What are the recommended steps for ensuring that the old Kindle 2 is no longer associated to my wife's account (i.e. what do I need to do before shipping it)?

After you've de-registered it from the Amazon website, you might want to nuke all the lingering settings and such by doing a Reset to Factory Defaults (via Home/Menu, Settings/Menu). This will completely wipe anything left behind such as search indexes and any other stuff that might be missed by doing a simple delete of the visible files.

As for sharing books, your wife and respective parents can keep separate accounts for buying, but temporarily re-register their Kindles to the account with the books they'd like to read, just long enough to download a copy encrypted for their particular Kindles. This allows family members to swap books but maintain privacy and separate book-buying budgets.

Also, welcome to MobileRead!

Welcome to Mobileread Patrick!
No, but sharing an account with your family is fairly easy.

Thank you for your responses! Can you please elaborate on this? Would this not involve providing access to my credit card(s)? Or would I simply create a brand new "family" Amazon account, register all Kindles to that account, and then keep a gift card on file or something?

You could create a separate account, but I can't imagine you don't trust your mothers enough not to abuse your account. (Although, they would have access to see your previous purchases, now that could open a whole other can of worms! ;) )

Other than registering all 3 new Kindle 3s to the same account, is there another way my wife can share all of her books with my mother and mother-in-law?

Not legally...
Sharing the same Amazon account is the only real way to do it without removing the DRM...

Not legally...
Sharing the same Amazon account is the only real way to do it without removing the DRM...

Not true. Just register the Mother's Kindles to your account. The only thing they would be able to buy are books for the Kindle account. You can work out a system where they pay you back for the books that they buy. Or they can buy gift certificates and those are applied to the account. Or you could agree that they books they buy are their birthday presents.

I share my account with my Mother. I pay for her books. It strikes me as fair because she raised me and paid for college. And she doesn't buy too many books.

Okay, I've done something here, and I'm not sure how to resolve it...

I successfully de-registered the old Kindle 2 and sold it. However, now that I have all 3 new Kindle 3s in-hand, and registered to the same Amazon account, I can't get my wife's existing books to show up in that Amazon account. Again, all 3 Kindle 3s are successfully registered to this new Amazon account I set up, and I can see all of her books on her new Kindle 3, and I am able to open them up and read them, but I can't get those books to show up online so that I can share with the other 2 Kindles. How do I get these books from my wife's new Kindle to show up online on the account, and then subsequently share with the other 2 Kindles?

To clarify, I did already de-register my wife's Kindle from her old account (the account on which the books were originally purchased). I then downloaded all books to my PC. Do I need to re-register her new Kindle (the Kindle on which the books currently reside) back to her old account (the account on which the books were originally purchased), and if so, then what?

you are going to have to register all of the new Kindles to the original account with the books to get the books on the kindles. you can move the kindles around between accounts, but not the books. once you get all of the books on the new kindles, you can move them to the new account. keep in mind though, that these will not be archived on the new kindles. I'm not entirely clear why you made the new account? the K2 buyer will not be able to access it. if it were me I would simply keep them all on the original account

The purpose of creating the new account was to allow my wife, my mother and my mother-in-law to all share books among their Kindles. Doesn't registering all 3 Kindles to one account allow for this?

The purpose of creating the new account was to allow my wife, my mother and my mother-in-law to all share books among their Kindles. Doesn't registering all 3 Kindles to one account allow for this?

yeah, sure, but you can't get the old books onto the new account. personally I'd leave them on the old account, have a candid discussion about spending your money and see how it goes

yeah, sure, but you can't get the old books onto the new account.

So, I can't re-register all 3 Kindles to the old/original account, send all books to each Kindle, and then re-register all 3 Kindles to the new account while still keeping the books?

So, I can't re-register all 3 Kindles to the old/original account, send all books to each Kindle, and then re-register all 3 Kindles to the new account while still keeping the books?

yeah, you can keep the books on the new kindles, they will not be archived though. so if they are deleted, they stay deleted until/unless you re-register the kindles to the old account

Okay, since my wife's original Amazon account was set up JUST for her old Kindle when she received it last year, I just changed the email address and password for that account to match what I had set up for the newly-created family account, and then registered all 3 Kindles to her account, which is now the new family account.

Question... I have 3 User's Guides on the Kindle:

* User's Guide
* User's Guide 4th Ed
* User's Guide 5th Ed

I deleted the 4th Ed, and would like to delete one more, but how do I know which edition the one that just reads "User's Guide" is?

Okay, since my wife's original Amazon account was set up JUST for her old Kindle when she received it last year, I just changed the email address and password for that account to match what I had set up for the newly-created family account, and then registered all 3 Kindles to her account, which is now the new family account.

Question... I have 3 User's Guides on the Kindle:

* User's Guide
* User's Guide 4th Ed
* User's Guide 5th Ed

I deleted the 4th Ed, and would like to delete one more, but how do I know which edition the one that just reads "User's Guide" is?

I would imagine that is the original, and the 5th is the most recent

Well, it's not the original because there's a photo of the Kindle in it and it has the 5-way controller.

Well, it's not the original because there's a photo of the Kindle in it and it has the 5-way controller.

that's the K2

Both the K2 and the K3 have the 5-way controller. I actually meant to say the 5-way controller was in its current location by the keypad, instead of out to the right side.

Be brave and delete the guide that doesn't have the version number.