DRM workaround: Kindle for Android

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Allen20

It seems the books in Print Replica format don't work in this method and after removing DRM, the format isn't working properly. Any idea?

If you're using Calibre, try Kindle Unpack. Some print-replicas are PDF files inside a wrapper. (Some others are KFX-only, but they wouldn't have downloaded on Android.)

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Montana Harper

Even with the connection enabled and/or using the shortcut, the port still changes. Possibly it's the version of BS (5.11) I'm using? It doesn't matter if it's Nougat or Pie, though; I've tried both of them. I can't disable the various Win10 Pro VM features (Hyper-V, etc.) without breaking other necessary programs, or I'd be using BS 5.09 and BSTweaker.

Ah, well. I guess it'll just be a multi-step process for me each time. Thanks for helping me troubleshoot!

Solution to make it automatic, even with Hyper-V enabled. Simply run this batch file from the directory you want the "files" folder created. You have to verify that the BS config file is in the location indicated, BS open, and ADB option enabled before running the batch file. If installed in the C:\ drive, it should be where I set it. The instance will change. I have multiple Nougat64 machines from BS, so my personal machine is called "Nougat64_5" and not "Nougat64" as indicated in the batch file below. To find the name of the instance, look in the shortcut on desktop you can create in multi instance manager. Mine has the target: "C:\Program Files\BlueStacks_nxt\HD-Player.exe" --instance Nougat64_5. So I would need to change Nougat64 to Nougat64_5. It assumes that there is a path variable set for ADB. Either set one, or edit the batch file to add the location in front of it. Edit the red parts in the code.

@ECHO OFF
CLS
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=Nougat64


FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%F IN ('findstr ".%BS_instance%.status.adb_port=" %BS_config_file%') DO SET ADB_PORT=%%F
adb connect localhost:%ADB_PORT%
adb -s localhost:%ADB_PORT% -a pull /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files
adb disconnect localhost:%ADB_PORT%
@ECHO ON
@PAUSE

[archz2]

Originally Posted by archz2

Fantastic! This method really worked well! I found it little intimidating at first. Sharing a quick and dirty illustrated guide for using the 'backup.ab' file to make the process seem less intimidating and difficult.

The image is not showing up somehow
This is the image.


Can't see my posted pos as it has gone for approval. @admins and @moderators, I am enclosing the screenshot as an attachment in this instead of image url. Delete the one which is not working or the duplicate one.

[Montana Harper]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Solution to make it automatic, even with Hyper-V enabled.

One tiny tweak I had to do in order to get it working: add "status" between the instance and adb_port.

I'm not sure what the difference is between Nougat64.adb_port and Nougat64.status.adb_port, but the former seems to be static and not actually an open port, and the latter is the dynamic port assigned when I start up the BS instance.

Thanks so much for writing and posting the batch file! (My .bat writing days are long behind me; it would've taken me hours of googling to refresh my memory on syntax and I probably would've given up and continued to do it manually! )

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Montana Harper

One tiny tweak I had to do in order to get it working: add "status" between the instance and adb_port.

I'm not sure what the difference is between Nougat64.adb_port and Nougat64.status.adb_port, but the former seems to be static and not actually an open port, and the latter is the dynamic port assigned when I start up the BS instance.

Thanks so much for writing and posting the batch file! (My .bat writing days are long behind me; it would've taken me hours of googling to refresh my memory on syntax and I probably would've given up and continued to do it manually! )

Thanks, I will update it on my post. I didn't have an actual dynamic port, but used it on my static one, which has the same port number on both. I suppose one is the requested port, the other is the actual port.

[bizzybody]

I have an AQT80 tablet with Kindle 4.16.0.75. I have it working with Calibre 6.21 on Windows 10 x64.

I downloaded 12 books with the old Kindle app and was able to bring them into Calibre, save to disk then update the covers, metadata etc. then save them to my backup folder where they're safe from ever being remotely mismanaged.

The problem is I've bought a few more books, downloaded and opened them with Old Kindle but it's not putting them in
Internal Storage\Android\com.amazon.kindle\files\<individua l folder per book>

The initial 12 books are in there and those are the only ones Calibre can see on it. Having USB Debugging on or off changes nothing.

Where is this old version of Kindle hiding the book downloads?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by bizzybody

I have an AQT80 tablet with Kindle 4.16.0.75. I have it working with Calibre 6.21 on Windows 10 x64.

I downloaded 12 books with the old Kindle app and was able to bring them into Calibre, save to disk then update the covers, metadata etc. then save them to my backup folder where they're safe from ever being remotely mismanaged.

The problem is I've bought a few more books, downloaded and opened them with Old Kindle but it's not putting them in
Internal Storage\Android\com.amazon.kindle\files\<individua l folder per book>

The initial 12 books are in there and those are the only ones Calibre can see on it. Having USB Debugging on or off changes nothing.

Where is this old version of Kindle hiding the book downloads?

Some books are downloaded into the /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files/kindle folder. But that I have only seen for personal documents and they also have the .prc extension. The files folder is the only one where it can store anything. It may have created another folder besides files, which is very unlikely. To see if that is the case, try to get a fresh copy of the whole com.amazon.kindle folder with:

adb pull -a /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle

If you still cannot find it, maybe post a link to one of the books from the store.

[bizzybody]

I pulled a full backup of the kindle app. Then to extract the backup file I found Android Backup Extractor, abe.jar https://github.com/nelenkov/android-...063121-8fdfc5e

After banging my head against that rock for a while I found that abe.jar needed at least Java 11 yet for some reason Oracle has not released a JRE for Windows later than version 8.x while the JDK is at 20.something.

So I uninstalled JRE 8.x and installed JDK 20.x then I had to do some manual editing of environment / path to grab Windows by its nose and rub its digital face in the location of where Java.exe is now - since Oracle couldn't be bothered to have its installer do it properly. (Is oracle trying to completely kill off Java by having such terrible support for the largest software platform?)

FINALLY I could run
java -jar abe.jar unpack backup.ab backup.tar

in the directory where backup.ab was then use WinRAR to unpack backup.tar

And there, buried in a subfolder, were all the books, both the visible ones in Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files and the others it has squirreled away somewhere else.

Calibre can work with those. I'd previously pulled a Kindle backup from it to get the serial of it for DeDRM.

If someone wants to use any of this to add to how to work around Kindle PC DRMing everything (even books the author requested to not have any DRM) have at it.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by bizzybody

And there, buried in a subfolder, were all the books, both the visible ones in Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/files and the others it has squirreled away somewhere else.

It would help if you would say where it squirreled away the files. Bluestacks is very forthcoming in allowing root access. There is no need to do a backup and then unpacking it.

Very clever of Amazon to not store all books on the visible internal storage (/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.kindle/). Only the files folder is linked there. The rest of it, including the key, is in /data/data/com.amazon.kindle/ which requires root access. Easy enough to get root access on a ADB shell, or even easier to simply use ADB pull, which automatically gets root privileges (unlike other devices).

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

2. Follow these instructions to extract your Kindle key and import to DeDRM.
:

Hi..I hope you or some of you can help me. I have followed all the points you described. I have a windows 10 pc; I installed Bluestacks; I installed and connected ADB to Bluestacks. I think the connection succeeded because when I go to the Media Menager folder I find the downloaded ebook folders and I can then transfer them to windows. Only the files with DRM protection I can't open them, all the others can. The problem is that I couldn't extract the Kindle key. I installed Calibre, then the 7.2.1 plugin. In the plugins window I opened to the popup window and selected "Kindle for Android Ebooks," then clicked on the green + button and select "Choose backup file." Here I selected the file backup.ab. When I got to this point, however, nothing happens; it doesn't see anything. The backup.ab file is placed on a folder on the desktop where the adb-setup file is located. Yet in /data/data/com.amazon.kindle/ I found the key with "adbkey" and downloaded it to the pc. I tried to select "adbkey" directly from Calibre but it does not see it. Do you have any suggestions? Where could I have gone wrong?
Thanks

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Cheryl

The backup.ab file is placed on a folder on the desktop where the adb-setup file is located.

I forgot to mention that The file backup.ab scores 0 KB.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Cheryl

I forgot to mention that The file backup.ab scores 0 KB.

That means the backup has failed.

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That means the backup has failed.

Thank you! but how do I get it to work? I was watching this youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icb-yWQ_peU) explaining the process and I think I got a glitch at minute 1.51. On the video you can see that it writes something (but I can't figure out what: "clea..?") and right after that the string "C:\Users\TechSolutionZ\Downloads>" appears.
Here I didn't bring up the string that said downloads; "adb backup com.amazon.kindle" I wrote it where he in the video starts writing "clea..". In another explanation found on the net it said, in relation to the video, that next to downloads> I should have written "adb backup com.amazon.kindle." What is the exact command to make "C:\Users\TechSolutionZ\Downloads>" come out.
thank you

[Ma'am-I-Am]

Can I do this?
Here's a link which packages everything you need. Read the edited PDF and see the Addendum. https://mega.nz/file/8NhUSSJT#baQsCJ...EMnNOEPnDu1b7E
I only edited the PDF and added the Addendum. The original PDF and the rest is all from the extremely kind folks here.

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Ma'am-I-Am

Can I do this?
Here's a link which packages everything you need. Read the edited PDF and see the Addendum. https://mega.nz/file/8NhUSSJT#baQsCJ...EMnNOEPnDu1b7E
I only edited the PDF and added the Addendum. The original PDF and the rest is all from the extremely kind folks here.

Thank you! i will try to figure out where i went wrong