Amazon will cease the ability to download and transfer options for the Kindle e-reader on February 26th, 2025. No Kindle can use this functionality once the due date rolls around. Only the 12th generation Kindles never had this ability to begin with, but now no other model will either. Why is Amazon doing this? It’s a feature not many people use and those who do, commit e-book piracy.
Starting February 26, 2025, the “Download & Transfer via USB” option will no longer be available. You can still send Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled devices by selecting the “Deliver or Remove from Device” option.
The “download and transfer option” is located on the Amazon website when logged in. To get there, hover over the text to the right of the search bar that says “Hello, [Your Name] Account & Lists”, select “Orders” from the menu that appears, then select “Digital Orders” from the “Your Orders” page that appears after selecting. You’ll see a list of Digital Orders you’ve placed, including books. Click “Manage Content and Devices” next to one of the items, and a “Digital Content” page will appear. After clicking “More Actions,” you’ll see a list of actions, including “Download & Transfer via USB”. This is the option that is going away.
Download and Transfer via USB was launched over ten years ago and was created at a time, when WIFI was not prevalent, so this feature was the only way to send e-books to the Kindle. When you buy a Kindle book, it is automatically sent to any registered Kindle e-readers, Fire Tablets, or any Kindle apps for Android or iOS on your account.
Here are some essential facts to know.
- You can continue to use Calibre to send Kindle books to your Kindle
- Send to Kindle will con
23 Comments
scblock
"Why is Amazon doing this? It’s a feature not many people use and those who do, commit e-book piracy."
What one earth is wrong with the people who write this kind of garbage?
ChrisArchitect
Earlier: Amazon is closing a Kindle loophole that makes it easy to remove DRM https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43039924
m463
> Dear Customer,
>
> Thank you for being a loyal Kindle customer. We wanted to let you know about changes to the Download & Transfer via USB feature in the Manage Your Content and Devices page. Starting February 26, 2025, while you can continue reading books previously downloaded on your Kindle device, you will not be able to download and transfer via USB any Kindle content. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.
>
> You can, of course, continue to read Kindle content using Kindle for Web, or the free Kindle apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and PC as well as supported Kindle devices with WiFi capability. You may be eligible for a discount on the purchase of a new device, please visit http://amazon.com/tradein for more information.
>
> If you have any questions or require assistance, please visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> The Kindle Team
hiatus
Would keeping the device in airplane mode prevent this?
edit: commented before rtfa
> Here are some essential facts to know.
> You can continue to use Calibre to send Kindle books to your Kindle
> Send to Kindle will continue to work
> You can continue to sideload e-books on your Kindle via USB cable
tripplyons
Why does it say "You can continue to sideload e-books on your Kindle via USB cable" at the bottom? Isn't that contradictory?
barbazoo
> The “download and transfer option” is located on the Amazon website when logged in. To get there, hover over the text to the right of the search bar that says “Hello, [Your Name] Account & Lists”, select “Orders” from the menu that appears, then select “Digital Orders” from the “Your Orders” page that appears after selecting. You’ll see a list of Digital Orders you’ve placed, including books. Click “Manage Content and Devices” next to one of the items, and a “Digital Content” page will appear. After clicking “More Actions,” you’ll see a list of actions, including “Download & Transfer via USB”. This is the option that is going away.
Will this affect people downloading books that are already on the Kindle using tools like Calibre?
drtournier
<quietly turns airplane mode on for good>
mrdevlar
This is exactly why I didn't buy an Amazon product as an eink reader.
I want control over the things I own, I don't want them to exist locked up in a walled system where corporations can yank my ownership of something I paid for whenever they feel so inclined.
The people who were warning us about DRM back in the 90s exactly expected this future.
exe34
Ah that means I've bought my last book off Amazon already! It was a good run.
m463
For me, this means you can't get to the kindle ebook files to use on other e-readers.
also, all your reading telemetry will probably be available to amazon.
LorenDB
Hopefully they don't do the same to Amazon Music's "Purchase as MP3" option.
_peeley
I'm surprised that this is being dropped, but the "Send to Kindle"[0] feature is still supported. I would imagine that the email servers (and whatever other behind-the-scenes cruft it requires) to relay files to individual Kindle devices is a much bigger maintenance burden and "piracy" enabler than transferring via USB.
I'm a huge user of the Send to Kindle feature via my Calibre library too, so this has me pretty bummed and pessimistic for the future. I guess if the worst comes to pass, I can just look into jailbreaking or getting any of the zillion other Android-based eReaders from AliExpress.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/email
skwee357
The biggest implication of this is that you can no longer buy e-books in amazing and read them on a NON kindle device.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if it was possible due to DRM.
Anyway, things like this just piss me off. I kind of succumbed to the idea that I don’t own movies and music, but I just can’t contemplate the fact that they took books away from us (yea, I know that technically you didn’t own kindle books anyway).
42772827
The article includes a description of the feature that was copied wholesale from this HN comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41897425#41897573
memhole
One day something happened and all my books were gone. It's been sitting there since. I'm hoping one day I'll use it for a project and be able to flash a different os or harvest the e-ink display.
I wonder how hard it is to DIY your own reader?
https://www.waveshare.com/epaper
stevetron
It is confusing.
I've downloaded books off of Project Gutenberg, and some of them will not transfer-copy-move (pick your term) to my Kindle Paper-White. I've transferred other books before.
One book that won't transfer is "Stand By: The Story of a Boy's Achievement in Radio" by Hugh McAlister, January 1930. All that transfers is the front cover.
shironandonon_
Shame on you, Bezos. Hopefully my Kobo never dies (I’m on my third on e …)
iamdamian
I saw this coming and moved to Kobo recently. I haven't regretted the move once.
ikomrad
Removing DRM became essential after my Amazon account was compromised . After hours on the phone with Amazon customer support proving I was the account owner, I gave up and created a new account.
They didn’t give me any way to keep my digital assets.I lost over a decade of ebook and audiobook purchases!
Now I won’t buy anything unless I can remove the DRM
from it.
ngneer
BOOX: GOTO BOOX
rgovostes
Last year I met an elderly woman whose extraordinary life was the subject of a book. This book, which was inspiring to several friends of mine, was unfortunately only published in Japanese, which I cannot read. I wanted to try using an LLM to create a bootleg English edition (for my own use), but was stymied by recent upgrades to Kindle DRM.
Amazon has been poking publishers in the eye for a few years with Kindle features like text-to-speech (2009) and speech-to-text (2019, Chronicle v. Audible) that improve accessibility. But I don't hold out much hope for a translation feature that could unlock millions of books and the insights of other cultures.
beretguy
Check out PocketBook for an alternative.
Keegs
I almost purchased a Kindle Scribe this year but went with a Supernote Manta instead. I couldn’t be happier. It runs the Kindle app but also KOReader so I can read pdfs transferred from my computer. It’s awesome for papers and pdf copies of documentation.