'Sync with Cloud Drive' to add Docs to your library

[tomsem]

On my Fire HD2, it lists 'Sync with Cloud Drive' as one of the ways to 'Add Docs to your library.'

I have a few books that are too large to send to Personal Documents service (limit is 50MB) and I thought I'd try the Cloud Drive option to see how that worked. I've used almost none of my storage there to date. So I uploaded one to the Documents folder, then did a Sync All Content on my Fire.

The Docs Cloud listing has a 'By Folder' option, and this shows my top-level Cloud Drive folders (Archived Music, Documents, Pictures, Videos), and I can navigate to their subfolders, but they all appear to be empty. I tried a PDF as well and it also does not show up.

The photo/video and music sync with Cloud Player seems to work.

For the Music and Photo/Video options there is extensive 'how to' detail, but all it says about Documents is is that 'Any documents added to your Cloud Drive will appear on this device'. Except that they don't.

Anybody figured this out?

[Blossom]

Books go into your Documents folder on your Cloud Drive and they auto show up in the documents tab on your KF you need to select cloud to see them.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Books go into your Documents folder on your Cloud Drive and they auto show up in the documents tab on your KF you need to select cloud to see them.

Yes. I'm seeing PDF files, but not mobi files. The photo sync works too.

The Cloud view in Docs has a By Folder view option, and when that's selected I see a mirror of the folder structure in my Cloud Drive, but the only items that show when I navigate these are PDF files. I would like Kindle native format(s) to show as well but that is not happening thus far (I've tried only one mobi file so far—hybrid mobi+kf8 to be precise—and it was just over 50MB).

I have downloaded similar files from DropBox and Google Drive, with just the usual problem of needing to move them to /Documents 'manually'. Was hoping ACD might be a cleaner way to handle these files.

Someone on the Kindle Help forum on amazon.com said that files put there (txt, doc, ?) would be converted to Kindle format which did not strike me as correct. But maybe it is true anyway.

I'll try some other things: 'vanilla' mobi, <50MB, txt, doc etc. Something must work...

[Blossom]

Ah! Mobi docs must be old mobi. Hybrids don't work. I only use old mobi and AZW3 books.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Ah! Mobi docs must be old mobi. Hybrids don't work. I only use old mobi and AZW3 books.

and azw3 (kf8) does work? That would be perfect. Though that is ironic, given you can't send those with Send To Kindle.

I'll try that thanks.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

and azw3 (kf8) does work? That would be perfect. Though that is ironic, given you can't send those with Send To Kindle.

I'll try that thanks.

I don't know now nothing seems to be working now. I think the latest firmware broke it. It worked fine with the HDX I had last month. I just went to the docs tab and look and nothing is showing but the pdfs I have on there.

[tomsem]

So at least the following file types appear: PDF, TXT, DOC, HTML.

I find that if I rename my mobi files with one of those file extensions, I can download them. The problem I have now is that I cannot find them (e.g. with ES File explorer) in order to rename them and open them properly with the Kindle app.

I'm going to try PDF extension. At least then I get a choice to use Kindle to open the file. But no: I select Kindle but it won't open it. Still cannot find where the downloaded file is.

Also there's the issue that deleting the downloaded file removes it from Cloud Drive as well.
Hmm, but I see in Settings / Device / Storage you can drill into each class of files and delete them there. That seems to leave Cloud unchanged.

Well, it isn't as straightforward as I had expected.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

So at least the following file types appear: PDF, TXT, DOC, HTML.

I find that if I rename my mobi files with one of those file extensions, I can download them. The problem I have now is that I cannot find them (e.g. with ES File explorer) in order to rename them and open them properly with the Kindle app.

I'm going to try PDF extension. At least then I get a choice to use Kindle to open the file. But no: I select Kindle but it won't open it. Still cannot find where the downloaded file is.

Also there's the issue that deleting the downloaded file removes it from Cloud Drive as well.
Hmm, but I see in Settings / Device / Storage you can drill into each class of files and delete them there. That seems to leave Cloud unchanged.

Well, it isn't as straightforward as I had expected.

It use to work with Mobi books. I suspect when they fixed the TOC issue they broke the other. I highly recommend going to use Help app on your KF and click Feedback and choose Documents and send them a message about it. This is the best way to get things fixed for the KF.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It use to work with Mobi books. I suspect when they fixed the TOC issue they broke the other. I highly recommend going to use Help app on your KF and click Feedback and choose Documents and send them a message about it. This is the best way to get things fixed for the KF.

I think they would consider this 'as designed'.

After more investigation, anything you download from Docs Cloud that originates in Amazon Cloud Drive ('ACD') gets saved in its own little folder off to the side:
/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.zico/files/... .

It seems to be designed primarily for 'documents' of the traditional type: PDF, .doc, .txt rather than Kindle content. After all there is the more full featured Personal Documents service for the latter. I'd rather they got rid of the file size limit on that, as I would not be banging my head over the failure of ACD to do what I want it to.

At any rate, I've come to the conclusion that if one wants to use ACD for extra Kindle storage, it will be better to use the web browser to access and download stuff, just as you would to access content from gutenberg, calibre server etc. Now of course _that_ could be more convenient: they should redirect Kindle files to /Documents instead of /Downloads.

Now the HDX comes with OfficeSuite, right? Does the HDX version explicitly store files in ACD?

I have OfficeSuite Pro (got it for my 1gen Fire but never used it), and I can point it at the ACD local storage area. Wonder if changes sync back to ACD.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Now the HDX comes with OfficeSuite, right? Does the HDX version explicitly store files in ACD?

I have OfficeSuite Pro (got it for my 1gen Fire but never used it), and I can point it at the ACD local storage area. Wonder if changes sync back to ACD.

Nope there is no office suite on the HDX. Whoever wrote that misunderstood that you have to use a app like the one you mention. I got mine for free a long time ago.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I think they would consider this 'as designed'.

After more investigation, anything you download from Docs Cloud that originates in Amazon Cloud Drive ('ACD') gets saved in its own little folder off to the side:
/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.zico/files/... .

It seems to be designed primarily for 'documents' of the traditional type: PDF, .doc, .txt rather than Kindle content. After all there is the more full featured Personal Documents service for the latter. I'd rather they got rid of the file size limit on that, as I would not be banging my head over the failure of ACD to do what I want it to.

At any rate, I've come to the conclusion that if one wants to use ACD for extra Kindle storage, it will be better to use the web browser to access and download stuff, just as you would to access content from gutenberg, calibre server etc. Now of course _that_ could be more convenient: they should redirect Kindle files to /Documents instead of /Downloads.

There is always Dropbox which lets you export the file to the folder of your choosing. I believe Copy.com's app does too.

They use to allow mobi but you may be right. I felt they have been trying move away from the mobi format on personal documents.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Nope there is no office suite on the HDX. Whoever wrote that misunderstood that you have to use a app like the one you mention. I got mine for free a long time ago.

It is mentioned on the product description for HDX:

Stay productive on the go with ultra-fast web browsing, built-in OfficeSuite, and updated e-mail and calendar support for Gmail, Outlook, and more

Actually even the HD has OfficeSuite of some sort even though its product page does not mention it. I think it is 'read only' for whatever that could possibly be worth (not much). It is there in case you want to preview a document (pdf, doc, ppt, xls) downloaded from ACD. But with Pro version on there, if you click Edit it will launch the pro version for that.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

It is mentioned on the product description for HDX:



Actually even the HD has OfficeSuite of some sort even though its product page does not mention it. I think it is 'read only' for whatever that could possibly be worth (not much). It is there in case you want to preview a document (pdf, doc, ppt, xls).

Yeah that's what the HDX has too. It not really a suite though it's more like a viewer. The HDX and HD2 are identical with the exception of Mayday that is the only software difference.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

There is always Dropbox which lets you export the file to the folder of your choosing. I believe Copy.com's app does too.

They use to allow mobi but you may be right. I felt they have been trying move away from the mobi format on personal documents.

Yes, I use Dropbox but don't have enough space for these big files, while my ACD storage is pretty much unused.

I think I'm just going with plan B, i.e. use Silk to download the files, after de-hybridizing them so they don't take so much space and download time.

It occurred to me that a simple shell script app could help move Kindle files from /Downloads to /Documents. Must be dozens in Google Play, but I cannot find any in Amazon Appstore. So it goes...I didn't buy a Fire for the Appstore, for sure.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes, I use Dropbox but don't have enough space for these big files, while my ACD storage is pretty much unused.

I think I'm just going with plan B, i.e. use Silk to download the files, after de-hybridizing them so they don't take so much space and download time.

It occurred to me that a simple shell script app could help move Kindle files from /Downloads to /Documents. Must be dozens in Google Play, but I cannot find any in Amazon Appstore. So it goes...I didn't buy a Fire for the Appstore, for sure.

Have you tried Copy.com? It's 20GB free if you sign up using someone's link and they have an android app. My link is in my sig or there are lots of others here that have one in their sig too. I get 500MB with each referral. It's free. I plan to move my Calibre library to it when it hits my Dropbox limit.