Dealing with Kindle ebooks in calibre

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

The BlueStacks K4A method works fine for me for books published after April 22, 2025. I receive KF8 (AZW3) + AZW6 (if available) without any problems. If you use an older E Ink device, the images will be black and white, so this is your last hope to get original quality files.

So you're using Kindle for android on Bluestacks. How do you get the book files from Bluestacks? Do you just use file manager to drag and drop them?

[Ronins]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I just tried an older book published before the K4PC 2.4.0 cutoff so I could download it with K4PC 2.4.0 and the download worked and was importable to calibre.

Please note the K4PC 2.4.0 will not download books published on 2025-Apr-22 and Amazon may have snuck an update by you.

I am going to assume that by the KFX plugin, you mean the KFX input plugin.

I mean the kfx plugin, yeah.

Once I look at the program versions, I have the ones I said before.

What should I try then?

[Freshenstein]

I was able to successfully transfer a book released after the cut off using my old kindle paperwhite running firmware 5.9.7 (3330440020) and transferring/converting the file via Calibre.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

So you're using Kindle for android on Bluestacks. How do you get the book files from Bluestacks? Do you just use file manager to drag and drop them?

Under Windows, I am using a batch file to transfer the books from Bluestack's storage to a Windows directory. You do need to set the config file location and Bluestacks instance in the batch file and have installed the Android SDK Platform Tools to have adb. The rem before the @ECHO OFF can be removed once you have the file running happily.

rem @ECHO OFF
CLS
rmdir %userprofile%\BS_Export /S /Q
mkdir %userprofile%\BS_Export

REM Extracting all books from a Bluestacks instance with unknown port
REM Edit the following SET commands with your own file location and
REM BlueStacks instance name

SET BS_config_file=C:\ProgramData\Bluestacks_nxt\bluestacks.conf
SET BS_instance=Pie64_1

FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%F IN ('findstr ".%BS_instance%.status.adb_port=" %BS_config_file%') DO SET ADB_PORT=%%F
C:\platform-tools\adb connect localhost:%ADB_PORT%
C:\platform-tools\adb -s localhost:%ADB_PORT% -a pull /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files %userprofile%/BS_Export
C:\platform-tools\adb disconnect localhost:%ADB_PORT%

@PAUSE

Edit: I've attached the batch file to this message. Rename to remove the .txt before using.

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Under Windows, I am using a batch file to transfer the books from Bluestack's storage to a Windows directory. You do need to set the config file location and Bluestacks instance in the batch file and have installed the Android SDK Platform Tools to have adb. The rem before the @ECHO OFF can be removed once you have the file running happily.

Nice one cheers

[l8ppl]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Under Windows, I am using a batch file to transfer the books from Bluestack's storage to a Windows directory. You do need to set the config file location and Bluestacks instance in the batch file and have installed the Android SDK Platform Tools to have adb. The rem before the @ECHO OFF can be removed once you have the file running happily.

rem @ECHO OFF
CLS
rmdir %userprofile%\BS_Export /S /Q
mkdir %userprofile%\BS_Export

REM Extracting all books from a Bluestacks instance with unknown port
REM Edit the following SET commands with your own file location and
REM BlueStacks instance name

SET BS_config_file=C:\ProgramData\Bluestacks_nxt\bluestacks.conf
SET BS_instance=Pie64_1

FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%F IN ('findstr ".%BS_instance%.status.adb_port=" %BS_config_file%') DO SET ADB_PORT=%%F
C:\platform-tools\adb connect localhost:%ADB_PORT%
C:\platform-tools\adb -s localhost:%ADB_PORT% -a pull /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files %userprofile%/BS_Export
C:\platform-tools\adb disconnect localhost:%ADB_PORT%

@PAUSE

Edit: I've attached the batch file to this message. Rename to remove the .txt before using.

tried but the only thing iam getting is 3 kfx files and calibre tells me it's a kfx-zip flie and after i try to convert it, it says cannot convert cr, this book is blocked by drm.
what am i doing wrong?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by l8ppl

tried but the only thing iam getting is 3 kfx files and calibre tells me it's a kfx-zip flie and after i try to convert it, it says cannot convert cr, this book is blocked by drm.
what am i doing wrong?

That suggests that you did not import the DRM key from the Bluestacks install to calibre.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That suggests that you did not import the DRM key from the Bluestacks install to calibre.

I had the same problem when I installed the newer version of Kindle for Android. Shouldn't the key have already existed from the older version?

Anyway, I zipped all the files up and renamed the zipped file to KFX-ZIP. After importing it to calibre, it was successfully converted to epub.

[DNSB]

When I first installed K4A, I backed up up the key and imported it to calibre. After I updated K4A, I did not have to redo the import. What bothers me is the statement that they were getting KFX/KFX-ZIP files when my K4A install downloads prc files which show up as KF8/azw3 files in calibre. If I only copy the .prc file, it still imports to calibre with DRM removed but I don't get the larger cover image and other bits and bobs.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

When I first installed K4A, I backed up up the key and imported it to calibre. After I updated K4A, I did not have to redo the import. The other possibility is that they only copied the KFX files and not the entire directory containing the KFX file so all the bits and bobs were present.

Ah, ok. Yes, I copied and zipped all the files in the directory, not only the KFX files.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Ronins

Good night everybody.

I'm trying to quit the drm of a book I've recently bought on Amazon but everytime I import the book into Calibre it is a kfx-zip file and I'm not able to do it.

I'm running Calibre 7.13, K4PC 2.4.70904 and I've tried either DeDRM 10.0.9 and the alpha version. I've also installed the kfx plugin.

If you don't have a Kindle, I don't have the expertise to assist you.

When your Kindle is connected to calibre navigate to the books on your device and right click and click on the "add books to the library” option. As long as your serial number is in the DeDrm plugin accurately, then this will allow the KFX input plugin to gather all the files and place them in your library as a KFX book.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What bothers me is the statement that they were getting KFX/KFX-ZIP files when my K4A install downloads prc files which show up as KF8/azw3 files in calibre. If I only copy the .prc file, it still imports to calibre with DRM removed but I don't get the larger cover image and other bits and bobs.

I got the kfx files with a book published a couple of days ago, but a prc file with an older book.

[Ronins]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

If you don't have a Kindle, I don't have the expertise to assist you.

When your Kindle is connected to calibre navigate to the books on your device and right click and click on the "add books to the library” option. As long as your serial number is in the DeDrm plugin accurately, then this will allow the KFX input plugin to gather all the files and place them in your library as a KFX book.

Well.

That finally did it.

The only thing is that the cover is in black/white, but by now, that's pretty much.

Is there a way to have the cover in color?

Thanks for your help.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That suggests that you did not import the DRM key from the Bluestacks install to calibre.

Or has the wrong version of DeDRM (needs to be the alpha version).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Ronins

Well.

That finally did it.

The only thing is that the cover is in black/white, but by now, that's pretty much.

Is there a way to have the cover in color?

Thanks for your help.

You can change the cover in calibre easily enough.