Amazon has removed Download & Transfer option

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Inquisitive_Ram

Out of interest, if you download a book from kobo as ASCM and then import into calibre it shows as an epub. But is that an epub or is it really a kepub?

If by default you have the kobo extended touch driver on to convert your epubs to kepubs when you sideload to kobo, and then you tried to side load THAT book to a kobo, would it not work because you are eseentially trying to turn what is a kepub already into another kepub?

This is all hypothetical because if you were to have a kobo and bought a book from the kobo store there would be no lead to download as an ASCM and sideload.

I'm just wondering

If you download the acsm file, it's an epub. If you download directly from the store to your Kobo, it's kepub.

And of course I download all my Kobo purchases to my computer as epubs, to store them in calibre. I make a personal backup of every ebook I buy. I also sideload all my ebooks to my Kobos from calibre, because I edit the metadata and the formatting. I never download directly to my ereaders.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

I know the K5 aka K4BNT will since I have that one. I believe KF8 started with the K3/Keyboard, so K3, K4, K5/K4BNT. After that I'm not sure as I skipped several generations. I know my 10th gen Oasis is KFX.

The AZW3/KF8 was backported in 2015

In August 2015, all the Kindle e-readers released within the previous two years were updated

Model years from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle_devices
Table here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
The K3 / Kindle Keyboard from 2010, but not the DXG (2010) is the oldest with AZW3 backport.

KFX is on 2014 and later models (though it must have been backported in 2018 or 2019)

The Kindle (7, 8 & 9), Kindle Paperwhite (2, 3, 4 & 5), Voyage and Oasis (1, 2 & 3) can display KFX files natively. KFX is Amazon's successor to the AZW3 format.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon...port_by_device

See complete details here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=525

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If you download the acsm file, it's an epub. If you download directly from the store to your Kobo, it's kepub.

The acsm is a small text file that expires and is a kind of "ticket" to get the epub.

But yes, downloads in Browser from Kobo are ACSM that gives epub or DRM free epub. The kepub is only via direct wifi on the ereader. Or maybe the kobo app?

[Karellen]

I just received an email from Amazon regarding this issue...

Dear Customer,

Thank you for being a loyal Kindle customer. We wanted to let you know about changes to the Download & Transfer via USB feature in the Manage Your Content and Devices page. Starting February 26, 2025, while you can continue reading books previously downloaded on your Kindle device, you will not be able to download and transfer via USB any Kindle content. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.

You can, of course, continue to read Kindle content using Kindle for Web, or the free Kindle apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and PC as well as supported Kindle devices with WiFi capability. You may be eligible for a discount on the purchase of a new device, please visit http://amazon.com/tradein for more information.

If you have any questions or require assistance, please visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport.

Best Regards,

The Kindle Team

[TheSmitty]

Not surprised. I have been anticipating this for a long time. For well over a year now, I have twice a month or at least once a month D&T books I bought since the last D&T into Calibre.

It is a shame. I love my newest Kindle (Colorsoft with no yellow, etc.) and use it more than my Libra Colour. For now, I will continue to do so. However, I will most likely buy books from Kobo only after the 26th. Unless of course a simple way of freeing new Kindle books is discovered. The only problem I will have from that point on is those books that I want to read that are available only on Amazon.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

Not surprised. I have been anticipating this for a long time. For well over a year now, I have twice a month or at least once a month D&T books I bought since the last D&T into Calibre.

It is a shame. I love my newest Kindle (Colorsoft with no yellow, etc.) and use it more than my Libra Colour. For now, I will continue to do so. However, I will most likely buy books from Kobo only after the 26th. Unless of course a simple way of freeing new Kindle books is discovered. The only problem I will have from that point on is those books that I want to read that are available only on Amazon.

I agree. I think everyone here on Mobileread knew this was coming. I just went over to the dark side and purchased the Colorsoft, after BN disappointed me once again with the discontinuation of the Nook for Windows app.

I'm not sure what my future holds. I will certainly decrease my purchasing from Amazon, but there are some authors I like that are exclusive to Amazon. Since I was determined not to purchase a reader without buttons and then talked myself into the Colorsoft, I know better than to make concrete predictions of my future actions. LOL

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I have not talked myself into purchasing a Kobo. Maybe this will push me over the edge. Time will tell. I have more than enough books to last the rest of my life, so I'm OK.

[nabsltd]

By removing Download and Transfer from the website, Amazon no longer needs to support the "Transfer" part at all. They could update firmware to an MTP connection and hide access to the folders needed to sideload books.

Since "Send to Kindle" exists, Amazon doesn't have to provide direct access to the file system on a Kindle. I think it would be a very foolish move, but it would force Kindle owners to only buy books from Amazon.

I would be very careful with Kindle firmware updates after D&T is removed from the website.

[haertig]

I can foresee some people not buying from Amazon anymore because of this D&T move.

I can foresee the move might prompt some people to buy the eBook from Amazon so the author/publisher gets paid - ignore downloading the file from Amazon and DeDRM-ing it themselves - and instead download it DRM-free from elsewhere.

I can foresee some people will never notice any difference - they never heard of or used D&T before.

I predict that the majority of Amazon's customers will fall into the third group above.

[Quoth]

My original reason to buy a Kindle ereader was simply to read books from Project Gutenberg. For years we hardly bought ebooks.

I experimented with Send to Kindle, but I won't use it as it gives Amazon a copy and Amazon converts worse than I do. You can't send Kindle format ebooks with STK!

I now will only use my Kindle to fetch any bought Amazon titles, if I buy any. I'll only use my Kobo for reading.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

Just wondering, would it be possible to block the delivery of KFX on a jailbroken device to always receive KF8? Like spoof the firmware version?

You can deDRM KFX with latest firmware, KFX plugins and the alpha deDRM (which you should be using anyway).

You might want to jailbreak so you can downgrade if need arises in the future.

Or get a Kindle that won't get future updates.

[Hellmark]

Does anyone know of a grease monkey script or some other means of automating download on this? I have about 3000 books on Amazon, and I'd like to get local copies before this gets shut down, because it will take forever doing it on the device one by one.

[bustacap]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Does anyone know of a grease monkey script or some other means of automating download on this? I have about 3000 books on Amazon, and I'd like to get local copies before this gets shut down, because it will take forever doing it on the device one by one.

someone else already posted this earlier
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/com...mment/mcgr5mw/

https://github.com/chrishol/greasemo...indle-books.js

[Badcatalex]

With this change, this also means that there'll be no way to transfer bought books to a Kindle 1, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, and Kindle DX (Graphite).

You were able to still transfer books over USB (and SD for K1) despite them not being able to connect to the internet anymore, so long as you never deregistered the device from your account.
This is the final nail in their coffin.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Inquisitive_Ram

Out of interest, if you download a book from kobo as ASCM and then import into calibre it shows as an epub. But is that an epub or is it really a kepub?

If by default you have the kobo extended touch driver on to convert your epubs to kepubs when you sideload to kobo, and then you tried to side load THAT book to a kobo, would it not work because you are trying to turn what is a kepub already into another kepub?

This is all hypothetical because if you were to have a kobo and bought a book from the kobo store there would be no lead to download as an ASCM and sideload.

I'm just wondering

If you download a book from Kobo whether it is a DRMmed file which will deliver the .acsm file which is used to download the actual ePub (ADE, calibre with the ACSM plugin, etc.) or a non-DRMmed ePub which just downloads the ePub Almost all(*) the downloaded ePubs will be standard ePubs without the extra spans, etc. found in kepubs. OTOH, the spans, etc. in a kepub are null ops to most ereaders and will have no effect on reading.

The only books that Kobo does not offer a download for are books obtained from the Kobo Plus program where you need a Kobo device/app to read so they can track the reading time to pay the author or library loans since having the loan time is kinda necessary for library books.

I download books from Kobo to place them in my calibre library and I also create placeholder entries for library, Kobo Plus, etc. loans. This helps when you either looking at purchasing or borrowing a book and calibre tells you that you purchased/borrowed it 5 years ago.

Not certain about the KTE driver but kepubify will not add the spans, etc. if they are already present and I think KTE does the same. Personally, I prefer using RMSDK since it has better font handling but chacun à son goût.

* Oddly, some authors are sending their books to Kobo already in .kepub.epub format hence the almost all.

If you want to get into any further discussion, let's move to a new thread in the Kobo forum.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Badcatalex

With this change, this also means that there'll be no way to transfer bought books to a Kindle 1, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, and Kindle DX (Graphite).

You were able to still transfer books over USB (and SD for K1) despite them not being able to connect to the internet anymore, so long as you never deregistered the device from your account.
This is the final nail in their coffin.

In fairness those also only do mobi, no azw3 and only the DXG has a Pearl screen. The batteries also need replaced.
The K3/ K3-Keyboard is practically the minimal usable Kindle anyway and my 2nd battery has died on that. If a K3 doesn't do mobi, update the FW.