Importing Kindle Books into Calibre

[Jo69]

Originally Posted by jhowell

How long the older version of Kindle for PC will be allowed to work by Amazon is unknown. My best guess is sometime between a few weeks and a few months.

After that, as kovidgoyal wrote, unless something changes you will need to own an e-ink Kindle device to gain usable access to your book files.

As to why, Amazon has been gradually taking steps to keep their customers locked into their ecosystem. The shrinking of the e-book developer community over time makes it less likely that workarounds for these changes will be forthcoming in the future.

Am concerned about this happening. As have no wish to have a kindle.
I already have a Kobo which is ok, but not often used.
Am always having to reset it and its very slow. Also their books are dearer.
Do my reading on my android tablet, where I can read a bit, look at the news, play solitaire etc etc.
Hope to still do so in the future then.

[drdancm]

I have the exact same problem suddenly and have not tried to install an earlier version of Kindle for PC.

--------

Much later, I followed J Howell's advice and I'm happy to add that this solution did the job.
It sure beats having to download 1 book at a time.

Thanks a lot.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by drdancm

I have the exact same problem suddenly and have not tried to install an earlier version of Kindle for PC.

@drdancm - fyi: jhowell has written a detailed sticky thread on this issue. It's at the top of the main Calibre forum.

BR

[Jo69]

That worked really well. But can you help me understand why the books download in the old format, to still load into Calibre. But Amazon downloded them in a new format into the My kindle folder?
What makes it do that?
Just curious

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Jo69

But can you help me understand why the books download in the old format, to still load into Calibre. But Amazon downloded them in a new format into the My kindle folder?
What makes it do that?

Your question is not clear to me, but I will try to answer anyway.

A couple of years ago Amazon introduced a new e-book format, KFX. Since then they have been implementing new features in their reading software in conjunction with this format. This includes enhanced typesetting, page flip, fast manga reading, interactive textbooks, and kindle in motion. They deliver books in the new format to support these features.

KFX also has a new DRM scheme and even without DRM would be much more difficult to work with than the older formats due to its design. It can be rendered quickly, but will be difficult to convert to more standard formats. The added lock-in to Amazon that results is an advantage to them.

All of the e-book software, such as calibre, that allows you to work with your books outside of the Amazon kindle ecosystem makes use of Amazon's older and (relatively) more open e-book formats. Support for KFX may come some day, but it is best avoided as long as there is a way to do so.