Seamless Transfer: Expert Guide on Syncing Your Kindle Library with PC or Mac

How to Back up Your Kindle Books to Computer

Posted by Jonny Greenwood on 9/27/2023 10:54:01 AM.

Amazon has got a pretty thorough ecosystem for Kindle, especially in eBook buying, managing, publishing, and reading. So why should we back up Kindle books?

Believe it or not, your Kindle books are not really owned by you, Amazon would permanently delete your books from your Kindle library without saying a word. For example, your account got hacked, and Amazon decided to unilaterally close it, and you would lose all your purchased books.

So my advice is that do not trust any ebook seller. Please remember, you don’t really own the eBook even if you buy it, you just have the right to read it. This is really nonsense, right?

Fortunately, this article offers you two ways to back up your Kindle books in a place away from the Amazon Kindle, and truly own them. One is from Kindle for PC or Mac App, another is from your Kindle eReaders, such as Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Voyage.

Backing up Kindle books is not the same as backing up the “My Kindle Content” folder.

I have read many articles about backing up Kindle books, and the contents of these articles are often misleading. If you follow the steps outlined in these articles, which involve finding the “My Kindle Content” folder and transferring it to a safe location to store your Kindle books, you may still be unable to access your Kindle books if you have lost your Kindle credentials.

Please keep in mind that backing up the “My Kindle Content” folder does not provide a complete backup of your Kindle books.

When you purchase a Kindle book, it is associated with your Amazon account and stored in the cloud. When you download the book to a device, it is downloaded from the cloud and stored locally on the device in the “My Kindle Content” folder. If you backup this folder, you are backing up the downloaded copies of the books.

However, if you lose access to your Amazon account, you will not be able to re-download the books, even if you have the backup of the “My Kindle Content” folder. This is because the books are associated with your Amazon account and can only be accessed through it.

The Restriction to Backup Your Kindle Books

The only restriction to backup Kindle Books is Digital Rights Management (DRM). Why should we remove Kindle DRM to back up the books? Can we just copy the downloaded .azw files into a new folder directly?

No, we can’t. In fact, if Amazon wipes a book from your Kindle library, you are not allowed to read it even you have the .azw file because Amazon tells the content server that you are not the owner of the book any more. And the connection between you and the content server is the DRM. That’s why you need to remove DRM to back up Kindle books.

This tool helps you remove Kindle DRM and back up eBooks: Epubor Ultimate . Click the buttons below to download it for free. We will use it later.

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

1. Backup Kindle eBooks from Kindle for PC/MAC App

First, visit Amazon’s official website and download Kindle for PC/MAC app, register the Kindle for PC/Mac with your Amazon account, then all your purchased items will show up on the main screen.

As you see in the image, I’ve purchased 6 books on Amazon, but all of them are on my Kindle Cloud, which is not safe. Now double-click on the book cover to download the books you want to back up to your local drive.

To make an example, I download 3 of them to my computer for a safe backup.

Now running the Epubor Ultimate, it will automatically scan your Kindle content folder, all you need to do is drag and drop all the DRM books to the main interface. You will see all kindle books are decrypted. It is so easy to remove DRM from Kindle books with Epubor Ultimate, right?

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Now the books really belong to you, if have some readers like Kobo, or Nook, you can even convert Kindle books to pdf or epub with Epubor Ultimate. Then read your Kindle books on Kobo or Nook.

Click here

Solution on Windows [The latest solution to remove kindle drm on Windows](https://tools.techidaily.com/epubor/products/)

Solution on Mac The latest solution to remove kindle drm on Mac

Back up your Kindle books with this tool, free trial!

2. Backup Kindle Books from Kindle eReader

NoticeIf the firmware version of your Kindle e-reader is higher than 5.10.2, Epubor Ultimate cannot help you back up Kindle books from your Kindle devices. In this case, we suggest that you back up your Kindle books from Kindle for PC/Mac.

If you don’t use the Kindle for PC or Mac app and still want to back up your Kindle books, you can simply connect your Kindle eReader to your computer. Believe me, this won’t take more than five minutes.

First, connect your Kindle eReader to your computer using a USB cable.

Second, run Epubor Ultimate, which will automatically detect your device and display all your Kindle books in the left column. Simply drag them to the main window, and the DRM protection will be removed.

Third, after you have removed the DRM from all your Kindle books, you can right-click on the decrypted book and select “Explore Decrypted File” to find your cracked Kindle books. Alternatively, you can click on the output folder icon at the bottom right of Epubor Ultimate to locate them. You can then copy them to a new location on your computer or even back them up to Dropbox or a mobile hard drive for added safety.

Next time, if you accidentally delete books from your Kindle, or Amazon removes your books from your account, you can always find all your purchased Kindle books in the backup folder.

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I have more than 1000 kindle books in my account. Is there anyway to download all kindle books at once?

A: Yes, you can download all your Kindle books to one device or apps at one time no matter how many books in your account. Log in to your Amazon account and then find “Content & Devices “. Under the content tab, please click on the “Books -> Select All” button.

After all kindle books at your library have been selected, click on the “Delivery to Device” button to select which device do you want to deliver your Kindle books to.

Once it’s done, just open your kindle for PC, you will see all your Kindle books have been downloaded. This method also works well on Mac computers.

Back up your Kindle books to computer now with Epubor Ultimate now!

Download Epubor Ultimate for free:

TipsBesides these two solutions, you can also back up Kindle books from Amazon website. For more detailed instructions, you can follow this guide to liberate your Kindle books .

Jonny Greenwood joined Epubor since 2011, loves everything about eBooks and eReaders. He seeks the methods to read eBooks more freely and wants to share all he has got with you.

SHARING IS GREAT!

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12 Comments

Mike

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

10/8/2017 04:45:31

Thanks so much. I was looking for a way to backup my purchased books from amazon. I’ve got over $300 in books and they are reference books.

sillyman

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

01/14/2018 17:27:35

Once you save like this, can you send the file to others to read?

Andrew

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

01/2/2019 04:05:38

Man you saved us all. May God prosper you ;)

Epubor

Re:Andrew

01/2/2019 10:22:59

Glad to be helpful!

jas

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

01/23/2019 14:36:19

hi
great, works really well.
i used version 1.24 kindle app on my PC.
now i have the directory on my PC of my book, can i copy this to my kindle with has kindle version 1.25 using calibre?
what format should i convert the PC directory to get it to my kindle version 1.25?
i will try calibre to do this.
thanks!!

Lol

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

03/30/2019 11:19:53

I receive books from netgalley that I download to my Kindle OIS app, I can see them on this app and on Amazon as docs, but Amazon won’t let me download them to my pc. Is there a way to do this?

Mary

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

06/25/2021 10:24:17

Wow thanks you saved me a lot of time. I do research for my work with some of the Kindle books I have and I was not looking forward to downloading them one by one.

Roberto

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

07/20/2021 04:45:35

This process is better than downloading books one by one, but I have over a thousand Kindle books, and when I click on “Select All,” it only selects the 25 that are showing per page. There’s a message that states “Showing 1 to 25 of 1046 items | 25 selected”. You can then click to the second page of 25 and select all of those, as well, and you now have 50 selected. But you still have to select 25 at a time – which in my case, is 42 pages! There does not seem to be any way to truly “select all” in one click, assuming you have more than 25 Kindle books in your library.

Abra Sonnanstine

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

07/28/2022 01:57:23

Does this work on the new FX Amazon books yet?

Abra Sonnanstine

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

07/28/2022 01:57:26

Does this work on the new FX Amazon books yet?

Re:How to back up your Kindle books to computer

12/18/2023 03:58:13

I love your product and I would buy it, but I have chosen to leave Microsoft (after 30+ years) in favor of Qubes Linux due to the ever increasing privacy violations and every increasing identity theft due to our contact information appearing in so many tracker databases which are sold to every Tom, Dick, and Harry merchants who will spend the money. I have had identity theft, I will do anything to avoid it again!

Should you ever decide to support Linux, please, please contact me. I will buy.

Epubor

Re:AJ

12/18/2023 10:47:44

Hello,

I’m sorry that our software does not support Linux system currently.

If there are any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via support@epubor.com .

Best regards,
Epubor Team

Tech Recovery

Seamless Transfer: Expert Guide on Syncing Your Kindle Library with PC or Mac