Kindle Unlimited history

[mfm-ca]

I am considering adding Kindle Unlimited to my account. I don't have a Kindle, but there are numerous eBooks available on Kindle Unlimited that are exclusive to Kindle Unlimited (which I loathe). I figure to use a Kindle app for my PC.

My question has to do with reading history. If you "check out" a Kindle Unlimited title, then "return" it, does the fact you read this title show up anywhere in my account's history? I have inadvertently downloaded a couple of free Kindle eBooks over the years, and they still show up in my purchase history. Since the Kindle Unlimited titles are not actually purchased, I wondered how the reading history was retained, if at all.

[GlenBarrington]

There is a KU management page where you can return books you have borrowed. I don't know if EVERY book I've borrowed from KU is listed along with it's borrowed/Return status, I've never done an audit. But it sure looks like all of them!

The reason free books show up as purchased is that apparently Amazon considers a free book to have been "purchased" for $0.00. So it would show up as a purchase.

Prior to buying a kindle device, I used my android tablet and my smartphones with the Kindle app . KU KU worked just fine with them, I would be surprised if it didn't work on a Windows PC. Amazon hates turning away paying customers!

[mfm-ca]

Since it appears KU is limited to no more than 10 checked out eBooks at one time, it sure sounds like KU's management retains your borrowing history based on what you have observed.

Thanks for the response.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by mfm-ca

Since it appears KU is limited to no more than 10 checked out eBooks at one time, it sure sounds like KU's management retains your borrowing history based on what you have observed.

Thanks for the response.

Amazon also retains history of free sample downloads and library loans.

[haertig]

I don't have Kindle Unlimited, but I have access to the same books as KU via the "Lending Library" that comes as part of Prime membership. This Lending Library has the same array of books as KU, but you can only check out one per month. Once you return a book, you still can't get another one until the next month (this is where KU differs - return an eBook and you can immediately get another). When I return a book from the Lending Library, I do not have to do the delete sequence I describe below. It appears to be automatically deleted. This auto-deletion may or may not be the case with KU. You'd have to check this auto-delete behavior with somebody else who actually has KU - I don't.

When I check out eBooks from the library (using Overdrive), these books appear in the "Your Content" tab, and they are NOT auto-deleted when I return them. I have to follow the manual deletion sequence to get rid of them.

So the question is, does KU behave like the Lending Library, or does it behave like the Overdrive library for auto-deletion? That, I can't tell you. But I describe the manual deletion process below, if indeed you actually need that with KU.

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Login to Amazon from your PC web browser. On the top-ish, right-ish part of the Amazon webpage, you click on "Account & Lists". This displays a drop-down box of choices. Choose "Your Content and Devices" (which is on the right side of the drop-down, in the "Your Account" column). This will display a new webpage.

On this new webpage, you will see your eBook history in the "Your Content" tab (the default tab that displays on this "Manage My Content" webpage - other tabs that you don't need to look at are "Your Devices" and "Settings").

There is a checkbox (initially empty) next to each item. Click the checkbox to mark it (you can check multiple items). Then near the top-ish, left-ish of the webpage, click on "Delete". It will prompt you whether you really want to delete these things permanently. If you say yes, they are gone. At least they are gone from YOUR view. [ Cynical sarcasm: Chances are Amazon still keeps a view for the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. So if you are doing this to hide your history for some reason, don't assume it is hidden from anyone but yourself. ]

Note that if you delete something as described above, and decide you want it back later, too bad. You have to re-purchase it. Kindle Unlimited is "free" purchases, so not a big deal to re-purchase, since they're free. But if you delete other eBooks that you actually paid for, then you have to pay for them again if you want them back after deletion.

[Atunah]

Every single book I ever checked out from KU is on my kindle unlimited page.
That's the one you get to from the your account drop down and just go almost all the way down where it says "your kindle unlimited". There you can sort by all, returned or current. It even kept my record when I cancelled KU for a while and re-subscribed. But I did not see that list when I was not subscribed. I don't think I could as far as I remember. But when I re-joined, they were all there.

My history goes all the way back to the beginning of KU, July 2014,

[haertig]

I am not subscribed to KU. But even given this, there IS an entry under my account that says "Your Kindle Unlimited". However, when I click on that, it simply says something to the effect of "You don't have Kindle Unlimited, do you want to subscribe?"

So it looks like Amazon may keep a content list under "Your Kindle Unlimited" that is separate and distinct from the content list they keep "Your Content and Devices".

Bottom line: The process I described above to manually delete stuff from "Your Content and Devices" may or may not work for "Your Kindle Unlimited". These two lists MAY or may NOT be linked, and a manual deletion from "Your Content and Devices" MAY or may NOT affect "Your Kindle Unlimited".

In retrospect, my initial reply in this thread was premature, since when I wrote it I did not realize that there was a specific list for "Your Kindle Unlimited". I thought everything was under "Your Content and Devices". Had I known there were actually TWO lists of content, I would not have replied to this thread, since my reply is inherently incomplete, because I don't have Kindle Unlimited. My apologies for muddying the waters.

[GlenBarrington]

Please do not confuse Kindle unlimited with the Prime service. KU offers FAR MORE books for loan than does Prime. The Prime benefit is a very tiny subset of the KU library.

[haertig]

Please do not confuse Kindle unlimited with the Prime service.

Agreed. The "Prime Reading" (PR) service has a ridiculously small selection of not very desirable books. And Amazon rarely changes what is available via PR. The selection is rather fixed over time, with a few changes every now and then. By "few" I mean "half a dozen or so changes every 3 months".

But that is different than the "Kindle Owners Lending Library" (KOLL), which also comes as a benefit with Prime. It is KOLL that I was speaking of in my previous posts in this thread, not PR.

KOLL appears to have the exact same selection of books as "Kindle Unlimited" (KU), but with KOLL you only can check out one book per month. So KOLL is (apparently) the same as KU in content choice, but with severe limitations on how much you can borrow.

So we have three things in play here: PR (comes with Prime), KOLL (also comes with Prime), and KU (requires a separate paid subscription). None of these three distinct services has many (any?) books from the big name publishers/authors. You're just not going to typically find books by, say, Clive Cussler in PR, KOLL or KU.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by haertig

Agreed. The "Prime Reading" (PR) service has a ridiculously small selection of not very desirable books. And Amazon rarely changes what is available via PR. The selection is rather fixed over time, with a few changes every now and then. By "few" I mean "half a dozen or so changes every 3 months".

But that is different than the "Kindle Owners Lending Library" (KOLL), which also comes as a benefit with Prime. It is KOLL that I was speaking of in my previous posts in this thread, not PR.

KOLL appears to have the exact same selection of books as "Kindle Unlimited" (KU), but with KOLL you only can check out one book per month. So KOLL is (apparently) the same as KU in content choice, but with severe limitations on how much you can borrow.

So we have three things in play here: PR (comes with Prime), KOLL (also comes with Prime), and KU (requires a separate paid subscription). None of these three distinct services has many (any?) books from the big name publishers/authors. You're just not going to typically find books by, say, Clive Cussler in PR, KOLL or KU.

I would point out that there is in fact at least one title which is in KOLL and not in KU:

- “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, by Diane Ackerman (NOT the movie tie in edition)

“Guns, Germs, and Steel” used to be another, but it seems no longer. And KOLL borrows can only be read on Amazon devices.

It seems that as a Prime and KU member, one should be able to borrow 11 titles simultaneously (10 via KU, and 1 from KOLL) but with the above exception it seems not to be possible (last time I checked).