Transfer all books from old Kindle to new one

deb27 · 06-16-2011, 10:26 PM

So today my new K3 arrived in the mail. And the first thing I tried to do was get all the books which are currently on my K2 onto my K3.

I'm one of those people who hates to delete books. So I have 413 books on my K2 that were purchased from Amazon.
I want all 413 of them (which have been neatly filed into collections) on my K3.

After 20 minutes with technical support I have determined that the only way to do that is download them ONE AT A TIME!!!! There doesn't seem to be any mechanism to do all of them at once.

The PC interface provided by amazon.com doesn't have a way to select more than one book. You have to click the download button next to each one. And the Kindle interface (i.e. Archived Items) also can only be done one at a time.

The customer service rep tried to insist that those Archived Items were perfectly good and there was no reason why I needed to download them until I want to read them. I explained that the Archived Items are completely useless when I'm on an airplane.

So...is it just me? Or is this really dumb?

Any ideas for transferring them more efficiently?

I could just copy them all from my Calibre interface but when I tried that they didn't show up in the Kindle collections.

TimW · 06-16-2011, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deb27

So today my new K3 arrived in the mail. And the first thing I tried to do was get all the books which are currently on my K2 onto my K3.

I'm one of those people who hates to delete books. So I have 413 books on my K2 that were purchased from Amazon.
I want all 413 of them (which have been neatly filed into collections) on my K3.

After 20 minutes with technical support I have determined that the only way to do that is download them ONE AT A TIME!!!! There doesn't seem to be any mechanism to do all of them at once.

The PC interface provided by amazon.com doesn't have a way to select more than one book. You have to click the download button next to each one. And the Kindle interface (i.e. Archived Items) also can only be done one at a time.

The customer service rep tried to insist that those Archived Items were perfectly good and there was no reason why I needed to download them until I want to read them. I explained that the Archived Items are completely useless when I'm on an airplane.

So...is it just me? Or is this really dumb?

Any ideas for transferring them more efficiently?

I could just copy them all from my Calibre interface but when I tried that they didn't show up in the Kindle collections.

The DRM is coded to the specific device. Books taken directly from your old Kindle will not open on your new Kindle. [edit: You must load books from archive] Each book must index to allow the search feature to operate. It's best not to load large numbers of books all at once in case you have a book that will not index. Leave your Kindle plugged up while indexing is being done...it takes a good bit of battery power. To check to see if any books are still indexing, search for a nonsense term (eg xazeqa) and any unindexed books will be listed (after a few moments.)

abookreader · 06-16-2011, 10:40 PM

I'm hoping your books in Calibre are un-DRM'd. If not, you are going to have to delete them from Calibre and then add them all back in. If you have un-DRM'd books, then just select them all and hit transfer to device. Plug it in and let them index. They should go into the Collections if you copied that from the old device.

And yes, DRM device lock down sucks. We say it 50 times a day around here.

deb27 · 06-17-2011, 09:04 AM

What I wanted was to transfer all the books which I purchase from Amazon from one Kindle to the other. I assume they all have DRM. That's not the point. The point is that they don't have a mechanism to do this other than one at a time. As far as I'm concerned this is yet another serious deficiency in their book management and organization. As much as I adore my Kindle, I believe that if Amazon doesn't come up with a better way to organize ebooks, some other competitor will. At the very least, on the PC at Amazon.com, I should be able to select multiple books from my own ebook collection and download them with a single click.
Why am I bothering to write this? For one thing, in case someone else wants to do this, they don't have to waste their time with customer service on the phone and also in the feeble hope that someone at Amazon will read this and suggest that perhaps they should make a few improvements? After all, they want people to purchase more books. The more books you have the more critical it is to be able organize them.

Three cheers for Calibre for tackling a lot of the problem. Sadly it doesn't help with this particular one. But that's not their fault.

Mike L · 06-17-2011, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deb27

Why am I bothering to write this? For one thing, in case someone else wants to do this, they don't have to waste their time with customer service on the phone and also in the feeble hope that someone at Amazon will read this and suggest that perhaps they should make a few improvements?

It's more likely that Amazon will take action if you tell them direct - not via customer service, but using their kindle feedback email address.

pidgeon92 · 06-17-2011, 11:37 AM

I really think it is more of a method to keep your Kindle from hanging up while loading a boatload of books. Putting 413 books on it at once will cause the Kindle to be very slow while loading and indexing, and the indexing will drain the battery. Then they'll have people calling wondering why their Kindle doesn't work.

susan_cassidy · 06-17-2011, 12:38 PM

This is one thing that I think was better on the K1. On the K1, you could check multiple books in "Content Manager", and then download them all in one click. Not sure why they changed it.

tomsem · 06-17-2011, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deb27

What I wanted was to transfer all the books which I purchase from Amazon from one Kindle to the other. I assume they all have DRM. That's not the point. The point is that they don't have a mechanism to do this other than one at a time. As far as I'm concerned this is yet another serious deficiency in their book management and organization. As much as I adore my Kindle, I believe that if Amazon doesn't come up with a better way to organize ebooks, some other competitor will. At the very least, on the PC at Amazon.com, I should be able to select multiple books from my own ebook collection and download them with a single click.
Why am I bothering to write this? For one thing, in case someone else wants to do this, they don't have to waste their time with customer service on the phone and also in the feeble hope that someone at Amazon will read this and suggest that perhaps they should make a few improvements? After all, they want people to purchase more books. The more books you have the more critical it is to be able organize them.

Three cheers for Calibre for tackling a lot of the problem. Sadly it doesn't help with this particular one. But that's not their fault.

Actually there are many DRM free books on Amazon (nearly 40% of them if my Google search is accurate), but there's no easy way to tell which are which, and they are likely to be less popular.

I think the easiest way is to use the web interface, but on Kindle itself, instead of pushing the Select button when an item is 'highlighted', which immediately starts to download the item and then opens it, taking you away from the Archived Items list and forcing you to navigate your way back there, push the 5way to the right (or however you would put it). This will reveal the 'add to home' option. THEN push Select. It will add it to the download queue while leaving you on the archived items list, where you can repeat the process for the next item on the list immediately. It will make the process of getting the books you want on your new Kindle much much quicker.

And I assume you know that Collections from your old Kindle can be added to your new one with the 'Add Other Device Collections' option at the top of the Archived Items list.

Also you might want to give Amazon CS another try. I've heard of people in the same situation having the rep offer to push the content to the new Kindle from Amazon's end.

HarryT · 06-17-2011, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomsem

Also you might want to give Amazon CS another try. I've heard of people in the same situation having the rep offer to push the content to the new Kindle from Amazon's end.

As has been said, though, adding 400 books to the Kindle in one fell swoop can lead to issues with indexing. Adding a few books at a time is probably a better strategy.

crich70 · 06-18-2011, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I really think it is more of a method to keep your Kindle from hanging up while loading a boatload of books. Putting 413 books on it at once will cause the Kindle to be very slow while loading and indexing, and the indexing will drain the battery. Then they'll have people calling wondering why their Kindle doesn't work.

Yeah, really. It would be like emptying a large pail of table scraps down a garbage disposal all at one time. Chances are you would end up with a clogged, non-functional garbage disposal. If however you did it a little at a time it might take a bit longer but the scraps would all be chewed up by the disposal without clogging it up. Data can only travel at a certain speed no matter if it's wireless or via a cable of some sort, and ebooks are basically data.

deb27 · 06-18-2011, 12:12 AM

I disagree. I have issues with repetitive strain injury in my hands and the last thing i want to do is go through all that clicking. I have no problem with leaving my kindle plugged in for a couple of days - or even a week - so the indexing is complete. I realize indexing uses the battery and the processor. That's really not a problem for me. In fact, I've gotten used to the fact that every time I download new books, I plug the Kindle in over night so the indexing can complete. I still feel that there ought to be a mechanism to download multiple books at once.

ProfCrash · 06-18-2011, 12:16 PM

Email Kindle support and tell them that. No one here can do anything about it.

HarryT · 06-18-2011, 12:25 PM

This is why, as has been said so often before, it's a very good idea to remove the DRM from a book as soon as you buy it. Had you done that, loading your books onto your new Kindle would have involved no more than connected it to Calibre, selecting all your books, and saying "Send to device". Might be an idea to do this for the future!

crich70 · 06-18-2011, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is why, as has been said so often before, it's a very good idea to remove the DRM from a book as soon as you buy it. Had you done that, loading your books onto your new Kindle would have involved no more than connected it to Calibre, selecting all your books, and saying "Send to device". Might be an idea to do this for the future!

The problem being that some of us can't figure out how to remove the DRM from an ebook. And of course it's against the rules for someone to post how to do it here at the forums. I've done the search for the addons (or whatever the term) for doing so and have never been able to figure out how to get things to work right. And being as questions require answers that can't be given in a forum (for legal reasons) I've been stuck not knowing what would be needed to correct whatever I myself did wrong while trying to remove DRM (for books that I own and that would be for my own personal use only of course).

abookreader · 06-18-2011, 01:31 PM

I get what you are saying Deb and actually I'm always really glad I don't have to mess around with the Amazon archives every time I set up a new Kindle. I like having all my books on my devices so I don't have to download from the archives.

I remember when the K3 was released on the Amazon Kindle forum -- all those people discovered that the DRM'd copies they were holding in Calibre would have to be deleted book by book and then added in with new DRM'd copies in order to work with their new Kindles. It is a pain in the butt with a library numbered in the hundreds of books. When you've accumulated thousands of books and documents, it is unworkable. And five years from now, who is going to want to dig out a book from their Calibre library and try to remember what device it is locked to?

So ... get those things liberated.

And for what it is worth, last time I set up a Kindle I dumped 1200 books on it at once, plugged it into the wall charger overnight and just let it go. It took about 24 hours to Index them all but it made it through okay.

06-16-2011, 10:26 PM	#1
deb27 Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Kindle 2	Transfer all books from old Kindle to new one So today my new K3 arrived in the mail. And the first thing I tried to do was get all the books which are currently on my K2 onto my K3. I'm one of those people who hates to delete books. So I have 413 books on my K2 that were purchased from Amazon. I want all 413 of them (which have been neatly filed into collections) on my K3. After 20 minutes with technical support I have determined that the only way to do that is download them ONE AT A TIME!!!! There doesn't seem to be any mechanism to do all of them at once. The PC interface provided by amazon.com doesn't have a way to select more than one book. You have to click the download button next to each one. And the Kindle interface (i.e. Archived Items) also can only be done one at a time. The customer service rep tried to insist that those Archived Items were perfectly good and there was no reason why I needed to download them until I want to read them. I explained that the Archived Items are completely useless when I'm on an airplane. So...is it just me? Or is this really dumb? Any ideas for transferring them more efficiently? I could just copy them all from my Calibre interface but when I tried that they didn't show up in the Kindle collections.

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06-16-2011, 10:40 PM	#3
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	I'm hoping your books in Calibre are un-DRM'd. If not, you are going to have to delete them from Calibre and then add them all back in. If you have un-DRM'd books, then just select them all and hit transfer to device. Plug it in and let them index. They should go into the Collections if you copied that from the old device. And yes, DRM device lock down sucks. We say it 50 times a day around here.

06-17-2011, 09:04 AM	#4
deb27 Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Kindle 2	What I wanted was to transfer all the books which I purchase from Amazon from one Kindle to the other. I assume they all have DRM. That's not the point. The point is that they don't have a mechanism to do this other than one at a time. As far as I'm concerned this is yet another serious deficiency in their book management and organization. As much as I adore my Kindle, I believe that if Amazon doesn't come up with a better way to organize ebooks, some other competitor will. At the very least, on the PC at Amazon.com, I should be able to select multiple books from my own ebook collection and download them with a single click. Why am I bothering to write this? For one thing, in case someone else wants to do this, they don't have to waste their time with customer service on the phone and also in the feeble hope that someone at Amazon will read this and suggest that perhaps they should make a few improvements? After all, they want people to purchase more books. The more books you have the more critical it is to be able organize them. Three cheers for Calibre for tackling a lot of the problem. Sadly it doesn't help with this particular one. But that's not their fault.

06-17-2011, 11:37 AM	#6
pidgeon92 Wizard Posts: 3,144 Karma: 8426142 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Device: Kindle PW2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle DXG, Boox M90, Kobo Aura HD	I really think it is more of a method to keep your Kindle from hanging up while loading a boatload of books. Putting 413 books on it at once will cause the Kindle to be very slow while loading and indexing, and the indexing will drain the battery. Then they'll have people calling wondering why their Kindle doesn't work.

06-17-2011, 12:38 PM	#7
susan_cassidy Wizard Posts: 2,251 Karma: 3720310 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: USA Device: Kindle, iPad (not used much for reading)	This is one thing that I think was better on the K1. On the K1, you could check multiple books in "Content Manager", and then download them all in one click. Not sure why they changed it.

06-18-2011, 12:12 AM	#11
deb27 Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Kindle 2	I disagree. I have issues with repetitive strain injury in my hands and the last thing i want to do is go through all that clicking. I have no problem with leaving my kindle plugged in for a couple of days - or even a week - so the indexing is complete. I realize indexing uses the battery and the processor. That's really not a problem for me. In fact, I've gotten used to the fact that every time I download new books, I plug the Kindle in over night so the indexing can complete. I still feel that there ought to be a mechanism to download multiple books at once.

06-18-2011, 12:16 PM	#12
ProfCrash Tea Enthusiast Posts: 8,554 Karma: 75384937 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Somewhere in the USA Device: Kindle1, Kindle DX Graphite, K3 3G, IPad 3, PW2	Email Kindle support and tell them that. No one here can do anything about it.

06-18-2011, 12:25 PM	#13
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,560 Karma: 93980341 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	This is why, as has been said so often before, it's a very good idea to remove the DRM from a book as soon as you buy it. Had you done that, loading your books onto your new Kindle would have involved no more than connected it to Calibre, selecting all your books, and saying "Send to device". Might be an idea to do this for the future!

06-18-2011, 01:31 PM	#15
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	I get what you are saying Deb and actually I'm always really glad I don't have to mess around with the Amazon archives every time I set up a new Kindle. I like having all my books on my devices so I don't have to download from the archives. I remember when the K3 was released on the Amazon Kindle forum -- all those people discovered that the DRM'd copies they were holding in Calibre would have to be deleted book by book and then added in with new DRM'd copies in order to work with their new Kindles. It is a pain in the butt with a library numbered in the hundreds of books. When you've accumulated thousands of books and documents, it is unworkable. And five years from now, who is going to want to dig out a book from their Calibre library and try to remember what device it is locked to? So ... get those things liberated. And for what it is worth, last time I set up a Kindle I dumped 1200 books on it at once, plugged it into the wall charger overnight and just let it go. It took about 24 hours to Index them all but it made it through okay.