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Instructions on How to Transfer Kindle eBooks in 2021

One question that comes up somewhat regularly is how to transfer Kindle books to another place when getting a new device. Here are instructions on how to quickly transfer Kindle eBooks in 2021.

Part 1. Transfer kindle books to another account(kindle user)

Exactly speaking, it’s impossible to transfer kindle books to another kindle account. But you can share one book with one another by using Amazon’s Household feature. 

Head to the Manage Your Content and Devices section of your Amazon account. Under the Preferences tab, click the Households and Family Library section and “Learn more about Households”.

learn more about households

From there, hit the Add Adult/Add a Child/Add a Teen button and finish the setting step by step. 

Above steps will help you share your previous purchases with others. If you bought new Kindle books and you want to share them, you can “loan this title” or add them to your family library.

loan kindle title

Importance:

You cannot transfer books downloaded on one account to devices registered under another account. You’ll get some DRM errors unless you break the Kindle DRM.

Part 2. Transfer kindle books to another (popular) device

Transfer kindle books to another kindle

You may have owned 2 (or more) kindle devices, and you want to move all of your books from old or broken kindle to a new kindle, then you can use amazon “Content & Devices” service to deliver (transfer via USB) your books.

download transfer via usb

And there is another (easy) method you can use. Register with the same kindle account on your new device(kindle eInk, Kindle fire, computer, phone and tablet), then sync the cloud and your kindle library. Thanks for Amazon’s Whispersync feature, all of your bookmarks, notes and highlights get transferred as well. 

Note:

Those personal documents that you’ve sent to your device won’t be transferred to your new kindle. To transfer those files, please plug your Kindle via USB and copy those files from one Kindle to another Kindle drive. 

Absolutely, you can also send them to your Kindle through Amazon’s email or send-to-Kindle service. The difference is, to transfer notes and highlights from sideloaded books you’ll need to move the Clippings.txt file(located on the Kindle’s drive) from your old Kindle to the new one. 

Things to know before transferring a Kindle book

You can still transfer Kindle books to another non-Kindle device, but the process is a little different. Here’s what you need to know before you transfer a Kindle book.

Point 1. You can only transfer a Kindle book to another Kindle device or Kindle app. That’s to say, you’re not allowed to transfer Kindle books to Kobo, Apple Books, reMarkable tablets, pocketBook Reader, and so on.

Point 2. Nearly all of the purchased Kindle books are with Kindle DRM and kindle its own formats(kfx, azw, kcr, azw3, mobi), while those non-Kindle devices only recognize ePub and PDF format. It means that we must crack the kindle drm and convert kindle eBooks to ePUB/PDF format before transferring them to another place.

In a word, it’s possible to transfer Kindle books to Kobo/iBooks/Google Play/reMarkable, etc.. But we must convert Kindle DRM books to epub/pdf format so that those devices can recognize them. Here comes iSummersoft Kindle Converter tool. 

isummer kindle converter

More detailed info please read the following step-by-step guide.

  1. Download Kindle books to computer via the older version Kindle for PC/Mac app (v1.17).
  2. Start iSummersoft Kindle Converter to help detect those downloaded Kindle books.
  3. Drag Kindle books from the left to remove Kindle DRM.
  4. Choose the output format from the list (ePub, PDF, Mobi, AZW3, TXT, DOCX) and click on the “Convert to…” button.
  5. Find the converted well books from the output folder, and then copy them to your target device.

And maybe this guide will give you more tips. Steps on transferring kindle books are nearly all the same, if you have converted your kindle books to drm free epub, pdf, txt, mobi and word.

Part 3. Are there any other Kindle transfer software?

Besides the iSummersoft Kindle Converter, there are some pretty good kindle transfer software that you can get a try also.

#1. Amazon Send to Kindle Service

The official send to kindle service, which allows you to send personal documents to your Kindle from your PC or Mac computer.

send to kindle service

Available for: Windows, Mac, Android.

Price: Free.

Supported file types: Microsoft Word, PDF, images, Kindle format (.mobi, .azw).

Pros: Free; The quickest method to share one file to Kindle.

Cons: Only support transfer files to Kindle devices. 

#2. Epubor Kindle Transfer

The well-known kindle transfer tool which aimed at transferring eBooks between Kindle and Kobo devices. It detects our Kindle or Kobo drive automatically and recognizes all the downloaded eBook files. All you should do is to select the book you want to transfer and target it to your Kindle or Kobo device.

epubor kindle transfer

Available for: Windows, Mac.

Price: $17.99.

Supported file types: Kindle format(.mobi, .kfx, .azw), Kobo format (KEPUB, ePub)

Pros: The easiest method to transfer kindle books to kobo.

Cons: You can only use it to transfer kindle to computer/kindle/kobo, you are not allowed to transfer kindle books to reMarkable/google play/ apple books.

#3. Calibre.

Calibre, the one stop solution for all your eBook needs and comprehensive e-book software. So it’s absolutely possible that you can use Calibre to help transfer eBooks.

Add eBooks files that you downloaded to your local computer (.mobi, .epub, .pdf), and drag them to the Calibre library.

Then, connect your device (such as Kindle Paperwhite) to your computer using a USB cable. Once your Kindle is recognized by Calibre, you’ll see a new “Device” column next to the book title column.

calibre detect kindle

Now transfer eBooks to the Kindle’s memory. Select a book and then right-click the selected eBook. From the pop-up menu, click the “Send to Device” button and then choose the “Send to Main Memory” option.

send to main memory

If you’ve selected a MOBI eBook, the transfer will finish in just a second. If you’ve selected an ePub PDF eBook, Calibre will ask if you want to convert the book format before transferring. Here, click the “Yes” button.

no suitable formats calibre

Wait for Calibre to convert and transfer the eBook file.  Once completed, eject your device from Calibre.

Available for: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Price: Free.

Supported file types: kindle, epub, pdf and more.

Pros: Free; The easiest method to transfer kindle eBooks to Kindle device.

Cons: Calibre will detect Kindle device quickly, but it doesn’t mean Calibre will detect all the eReader machines. In my own opinion, calibre is good if we want to transfer files to Kindle device, but we may meet problems if we want to transfer Kindle books to non-Kindle devices.

Comparison and conclusion

Above 3 tools and iSummersoft will help you transfer Kindle books for different goals. But the key point is, to transfer Kindle books, we’d better strip the drm from our kindle books and convert them to common eBooks formats. Then, iSummersoft Kindle Converter is your best choice.

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