Transferring books/collections from Kindle to Kindle

ezzkmo · 11-20-2011, 12:52 PM

I have a Kindle Touch, and about 300 books on it that I transferred from Calibre and organized into collections (I imported the collection folders from my old K3), but I still had to move most of the books into their respective collection by hand after putting them on the Kindle.

Anyways, I have a 2nd Kindle Touch under the same Amazon account coming in the mail Wednesday. Can I literally drag-and-drop the whole documents folder (via the PC) from my current KT and dump it on the new KT when I get it, and have all the books, notes, and collections show up on it, making it identical to the 1st one? Because it took me hours to pick and choose those 300 books from calibre to transfer over, then organize the collections, let them index, etc. I'm not so much concerned about the few books I purchased from Amazon...I can re-download those few to my new device via wi-fi. I just don't feel like going through calibre, transferring, and moving 300 books into collections by hand again if I don't have to.

Hope I made it clear and sorry it was long-winded for a simple question...couldn't find an answer in the forum. Thanks!

abookreader · 11-20-2011, 01:26 PM

Put the books on the Kindle and then import the Collections from Kindle Touch 1 to Kindle Touch 2. By the way, just organizing them into folders in the file structure does not put them into Collections. Collections are not a file system of folders, they are "tags." Your older K3 has a file called "collections.json" that contains the Collections for that device. That file has disappeared from the newer Kindle Touches and people are still trying to figure out how Amazon is working Collections now. For now, it is best just to use the official Amazon method to copy Collections from one device to a newer Kindle Touch:

From the Amazon Help Section

Quote:

To import a collection from another Kindle:

Select "Archived Items" from the Kindle Home screen.
Select "Add Other Device Collections" from the Archived Items page.
Select the desired collection to import and select "OK" to confirm.

Note: Importing a collection from another device does not import the books or other items to your Kindle if they aren't downloaded already. However, books already on your Kindle that are associated with a collection will automatically appear under that collection name on your Home screen.

ezzkmo · 11-20-2011, 02:53 PM

Thank you so much for your quick and informative reply! I was aware of importing/exporting collections through Amazon and the kindles, but didn't know if would only work for official books from Amazon or ones from calibre too.

Also, after importing collections from my old K3 to the KT, it only put a few books out of 300 into the collections...I had to move the rest by hand. So hopefully KT to KT will keep all the books tagged this time! (Although now that I think about it I imported the collections before the books, that may have been my problem.)

blue_skies · 11-21-2011, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abookreader

Put the books on the Kindle and then import the Collections from Kindle Touch 1 to Kindle Touch 2. By the way, just organizing them into folders in the file structure does not put them into Collections. Collections are not a file system of folders, they are "tags." Your older K3 has a file called "collections.json" that contains the Collections for that device. That file has disappeared from the newer Kindle Touches and people are still trying to figure out how Amazon is working Collections now. For now, it is best just to use the official Amazon method to copy Collections from one device to a newer Kindle Touch:

From the Amazon Help Section

Thank you for that post Abookreader, it was very helpful. I spent yesterday putting over 400 books into over 30 different collections on my Kindle4PC. I made my list of collections on the K4PC in the order I would prefer and also chose the names in such a way that if they were ordered alphabetically they would still work very well for me.

The collection lists all transferred to my K3, but they are all jumbled up. Is there anyway to get them to stay in a preferred sort order?

I buy a lot of questionable freebies which I further sorted by genre and was hoping those collections would be listed at the end, but instead they're all over the place.

Is the order of the collections based upon the order that I most recently accessed them on my K4PC? Is there any other way to set the order, at least alphabetically?

nynaevelan · 11-21-2011, 10:30 AM

AFAIK the order they are created are the order that they appear and I too wish there was a way for you to change the sort order. And I too have had trouble getting my collections to import into my Touch from K4pc. Though I am not going to complain too much after all 700 of the 800 appeared in the collection they belonged in. Unfortunately getting the other 100 in their collection was quite tedious. I never realized how dependent I was on the Calibre collections plugin.

nynaevelan · 11-21-2011, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abookreader

Put the books on the Kindle and then import the Collections from Kindle Touch 1 to Kindle Touch 2. By the way, just organizing them into folders in the file structure does not put them into Collections. Collections are not a file system of folders, they are "tags." Your older K3 has a file called "collections.json" that contains the Collections for that device. That file has disappeared from the newer Kindle Touches and people are still trying to figure out how Amazon is working Collections now. For now, it is best just to use the official Amazon method to copy Collections from one device to a newer Kindle Touch:

From the Amazon Help Section

A little side note, let them index before you do the import. I ran into interference when I tried it before the indexing was completed.

Nyn

CRussel · 11-21-2011, 11:24 AM

Since you're using Calibre, you could easily use the Kindle Collection Manager plugin to do this. Read the collections off your current Kindle into Calibre, download the files to your new Kindle, and then create the collections from Calibre.

NOTE: if you haven't removed DRM from your books on the Kindle, then you can't just copy the files from one Kindle to another. Even though they are on the same account, they are DRM locked to the individual device. You will need to re-download them from Amazon. Of course, if your normal workflow has removed the DRM, then you can copy them.

abookreader · 11-21-2011, 12:03 PM

The plug-in isn't working for the new Kindle Touches.

CRussel · 11-21-2011, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abookreader

The plug-in isn't working for the new Kindle Touches.

Hmmm. Well, I expect a new version of the plug-in shortly, then.

abookreader · 11-21-2011, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRussel

Hmmm. Well, I expect a new version of the plug-in shortly, then.

Oh I hope you are right.

Unfortunately I think the author of the plug-in is British so getting him a Kindle Touch is problematic. I think we might have to take up a paypal collection and hand deliver one.

nynaevelan · 11-21-2011, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abookreader

Oh I hope you are right.

Unfortunately I think the author of the plug-in is British so getting him a Kindle Touch is problematic. I think we might have to take up a paypal collection and hand deliver one.

Though I would not mind contributing, I wonder if it will do any good, Amazon seems to have hidden the collections file.

11-20-2011, 12:52 PM	#1
ezzkmo igloo appraiser Posts: 36 Karma: 933022 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: California, USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2, Kindle Keyboard	Transferring books/collections from Kindle to Kindle I have a Kindle Touch, and about 300 books on it that I transferred from Calibre and organized into collections (I imported the collection folders from my old K3), but I still had to move most of the books into their respective collection by hand after putting them on the Kindle. Anyways, I have a 2nd Kindle Touch under the same Amazon account coming in the mail Wednesday. Can I literally drag-and-drop the whole documents folder (via the PC) from my current KT and dump it on the new KT when I get it, and have all the books, notes, and collections show up on it, making it identical to the 1st one? Because it took me hours to pick and choose those 300 books from calibre to transfer over, then organize the collections, let them index, etc. I'm not so much concerned about the few books I purchased from Amazon...I can re-download those few to my new device via wi-fi. I just don't feel like going through calibre, transferring, and moving 300 books into collections by hand again if I don't have to. Hope I made it clear and sorry it was long-winded for a simple question...couldn't find an answer in the forum. Thanks!

11-20-2011, 02:53 PM	#3
ezzkmo igloo appraiser Posts: 36 Karma: 933022 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: California, USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2, Kindle Keyboard	Thank you so much for your quick and informative reply! I was aware of importing/exporting collections through Amazon and the kindles, but didn't know if would only work for official books from Amazon or ones from calibre too. Also, after importing collections from my old K3 to the KT, it only put a few books out of 300 into the collections...I had to move the rest by hand. So hopefully KT to KT will keep all the books tagged this time! (Although now that I think about it I imported the collections before the books, that may have been my problem.) Last edited by ezzkmo; 11-20-2011 at 02:57 PM.

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11-21-2011, 10:30 AM	#5
nynaevelan eBook Junkie Posts: 1,526 Karma: 1464018 Join Date: May 2010 Location: USA Device: Kindle Fire 2020, Kindle PW2	AFAIK the order they are created are the order that they appear and I too wish there was a way for you to change the sort order. And I too have had trouble getting my collections to import into my Touch from K4pc. Though I am not going to complain too much after all 700 of the 800 appeared in the collection they belonged in. Unfortunately getting the other 100 in their collection was quite tedious. I never realized how dependent I was on the Calibre collections plugin.

11-21-2011, 11:24 AM	#7
CRussel (he/him/his) Posts: 12,283 Karma: 80074820 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Sunshine Coast, BC Device: Oasis (Gen3),Paperwhite (Gen10), Voyage, Paperwhite(orig), Fire HD 8	Since you're using Calibre, you could easily use the Kindle Collection Manager plugin to do this. Read the collections off your current Kindle into Calibre, download the files to your new Kindle, and then create the collections from Calibre. NOTE: if you haven't removed DRM from your books on the Kindle, then you can't just copy the files from one Kindle to another. Even though they are on the same account, they are DRM locked to the individual device. You will need to re-download them from Amazon. Of course, if your normal workflow has removed the DRM, then you can copy them.

11-21-2011, 12:03 PM	#8
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	The plug-in isn't working for the new Kindle Touches.

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