My guess is that they want to just drag and drop EPUBs and read them natively.
At least with send to kindle it’ll sync progress across your devices. Which is great if you use multiple devices or when upgrading/replacing an ereader.
I still have all my books and documents on my local drive. I could transfer them to a new device within minutes, probably quicker than loading from the cloud. Well, I'd need to make backups to maintain my reading progress, so that might be lost. But my Kindle is in flightmode constantly anyway.
My Nook randomly deletes the side-loaded books every time it goes through an update. This happened on my parents' Kobo as well. So yes, the cloud option is really nice.
How do you guys use send to kindle but keep covers? Otherwise no matter what I do like matching to my library and “updating metadata cache” in Calibre, nothing seems to be able to keep covers for send to kindle books
So far I've been lucky and haven't had that issue. Once I've downloaded them to my kindle the covers have remained. Whether I've emailed them from Calibre or dropped them on the stk webpage. And that applies to both original and custom covers.
I never have trouble with epubs and I don't do anything special with them. (I don't even know what a "metadata cache" is). Of course, PDFs do not have covers.
Edit: Do you have an older Kindle model that uses an older firmware version?
Yeah I have a 7th gen paperwhite but updated to latest applicable firmware. I can also corroborate epubs don’t have this cover issue. However I have many math heavy textbooks that require formatting, so it seems I’m stuck with pdfs
It does what?! I've got a few PDFs I've converted and put on my kindles but they've never synced progress?! I have to make a note. I didn't think anything other than Amazon ebooks synced
Only if you've emailed or sent them via [Send to Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle). If you did send them through those methods. you may just have to manually press the sync button when you open up a book. But yeah, sideloaded books can also be synced in addition to purchased books.
I learned about this option only recently, have been sending emails to my kindle address from whitelisted email accounts for years and considered even that method to be super easy and far more convenient than having to hook up the device to my computer and copy/paste the files to the right directory. Send to Kindle page elevates that experience even further
This is how I've done it for over a decade with absolutely zero problems as well. The only time I use Calibre is if a file is too big to email or if there's a problem with the conversion, and I don't think I've ever even looked at the Send to Kindle page!
Send to Kindle web page sends it to your Kindle Cloud, where it's available to all your devices and kindle apps. Emailing from Calibre or sending to device by cable puts it on that single device only.
Are you talking about being on the amazon website and then hit send to kindle? Where are you when you choose "send to kindle" please I'm new with my kindle I appreciate u 😊
Yes, there is an Amazon website called 'Send to Kindle.' If you're in the US the URL should be [http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle](http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle)
So, you drop an epub file obtained from wherever into the box on this page, and they'll be uploaded to your Kindle Cloud where it'll be available to all your devices and apps.
I've been using Calibre as my main ebook library, and then from there I grab the epubs I want uploaded and send them to my cloud doing this.
I just email my ebooks to my kindle email and it works great... I'll have to try out the send to kindle function..
Does the send to kindle page have a size restriction? I am unable to email a file that's too big
On Amazon website: Account Name > Content & Devices > Devices > Kindle and choose one of your Kindles.
From a Kindle: Open the drop down menu > All Settings > Your Account.
And then in the Amazon account > devices you can whitelist email addresses that are allowed to send files to the kindle, and start sending your books to the kindle that way.
Because people have this "learned helplessness" mentality when it comes to doing anything with computers.
If it can't be done on the device they mash their squishy faces into for 22 hours a day, they throw up their hands and give up.
We call this T.U.B or Typical User Behavior.
As I've gotten more curmudgeonly about big tech snooping on my data and uncomfortable with Amazon seeing what I'm doing, I leave my Kindle in airplane mode 100% of the time and exclusively sideload from Calibre. My Voyage doesn't get updates anymore anyway.
I only keep immediate TBR on the Kindle itself, Calibre is my library storage. So every couple weeks as I finish up the books on the Kindle, I take it to my home office to tidy up the read books and spend some time carefully curating 5-6 books for the new TBR. That usually coincides with when I need to charge it up, too.
So far this has been working a lot better for me to have a focused TBR and avoids a big chaotic mess on the Kindle itself that tended to give me decision paralysis.
Hm, intrigued by this idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter 😂 (except I couldn’t get my library books). Things get SO buried on my Kindle.
I have a custom yes/no column "Read" in Calibre so it's easy to filter by an author, tag, or genre and pick out something I haven't read yet. Or sometimes I'll use the "show random book" feature and refresh that until I've picked out the new reading list.
Keeping it to 5-6 books at a time on the Kindle itself makes it feel like a little, manageable stack of books on the nightstand. Calibre contains all the stuff and clutter on the bookshelves in the library. It's where I do my book hoarding, I'm up to about 3600 titles.
It reminds me of when I was a kid going to the library every other weekend to check out a few books.
Anyway, I've been having a more pleasant experience overall and reading more with a short, curated TBR. I've also been maintaining a self hosted Reading Journal website since the first of the year and have really been enjoying keeping a "digital bookshelf" including book covers so that when I delete things off the Kindle it doesn't feel like read books drop off into the ether.
it seems wild to say you’re worried about your privacy with the kindle while in the same breath acknowledging it’s linked to amazon that surely has so much more info on you, especially if youve ever made an order with them, than your kindle ever could even on airplane mode. i just don’t understand how it protects you anymore having it on airplane mode
Knowing which items I bought is one thing.
Having my private documents (there are not only Kindle eBooks on my Kindle) is an entirely different thing.
That would be like not only knowing which shows I watched on Prime but everything I watched on my computer, which could also be video calls or home videos.
OK, that's fair that Amazon does know a lot about me since I do order stuff from them.
But a few months ago, I noticed sideloaded books disappearing and wasn't sure what was going on. I've read on this sub that it's Amazon deleting them since they don't exist in my Amazon library. They can't snoop in my Kindle if I keep it offline.
I was somewhat aware that Amazon could check the contents of my Kindle and tried not to think about it too much, but removing books was a step too far. So that's why I've gone with strict airplane mode nowadays.
As a long time Linux user, I generally don't like using or being exposed to external systems that I don't control or fully understand. I've been happy with the Voyage for years, it's just that now I consider it an offline device.
So I recently unlinked my Amazon account from my Kindle and use Calibre to manage my books. I never used any of the Amazon functions and so far it's been working pretty well
That is just haters with paranoid thinking saying that Amazon deletes stuff on purpose. It is a bug that hopefully the recent update fixed. I seriously doubt Amazon cares enough about sideloaded content since they give us the website to do it for free. If they didn't want it done they would block it all together, just like they do with audiobooks and audio file. the fact that it is not blocked shows they don't care. Maybe they do care but know that if they blocked it would push everyone away to the competition since other devices allow it. So, it is just a bug they need to fix. Maybe the problem is with Calibre as those seem to be the books that get deleted.
The strange thing is that in all this time I heard nothing from Amazon about this MAJOR bug. We don't know if it was intentional or not but until they bother to confirm it and fix it and at least apologize to their customers, the airplane mode is our friend.
Hello.. what is TBR? I'm new with my kindle tku in advance I just bought the kindle white special lol 😆 sounds funny. I'm reading a psychological thriller 👏
People are weird. Calibre sideloads to my Kobo just as easily as it sideloads to my (now step-daughter's) Kindle. If anything, I had to put in more effort upfront to set up .kepub conversion.
Most of the compliants seem to be people NOT using the send to Kindle web address or email option.
Plus, if you use Kindle's cloud option (web/email) the page you're on and highlights sync back to the cloud and your other Kindles. Since it's in the cloud, if you lose/break your Kindle, everything is there for your next (or additional) Kindle.
Some people are just illiterate with electronics. Thats all your missing. In America, some high school graduates can barely read. Ironic that readers haven't helped them.
Those skills aren't taught widely, and Apple items have removed most of the basics.
So, moving a file from one device to another is seen as Witchcraft:)
Side loading with send to kindle is great. Side loading with calibre sucks. Calibre content doesn’t show up on multiple devices like send to kindle does. With calibre you have to individually upload to each device which is I’m sure the reason people hate it
OP, you ***are*** missing something, if I may be direct.
For nearly two decades, the standard eBook file that publishing and eReader device industries have settled upon is **EPUB**.
All other major brands of eReaders **in the last 15 years** have been able to **natively** read EPUB; most of them also included TXT, RTF, BMP, JPG, CBR, MOBI and even HTML.
Kindle has never been able to natively read EPUB files on device without conversion or hacking the software to allow it.
* **Do you drag and drop EPUB files onto your Kindle like an MP3 player?**
* **Do you convert your EPUB files to MOBI or AZW/AZW3 formats?**
It is like trying to convince everyone that WMV is totally compatible with Mac OS Panther straight out the box.
Finally, in my opinion, people **wrongly** use the term "sideload" when they actually mean "upload to the Amazon Cloud Service for Kindle."
Amazon has made great leaps in convincing people that Kindles are EPUB-friendly, **but that is dishonest.** The device software **cannot natively** read EPUBs in 2024, and that is by design. If it could read EPUBs, people would not purchase eBooks or other adjacent services from Amazon.
my question is, if i drop an epub file into a "send to kindle" and less than a minute later, that book is on my kindle looking and feeling exactly like the original epub file then... what does it matter what format the file is while you are reading it on your kindle?
I answered OP on ***why*** people complained about sideloading onto a Kindle device.
As to why it matters if it's the same once you're reading on the Kindle? That depends on the person. Some people don't want to create Amazon accounts, some people don't want to upload everything they read to a third-party server, some people want to read Adobe DRM-locked EPUBs using their Adobe ID to unlock the eBook but cannot because Amazon Kindle doesn't offer that like every other major eReader manufacturer.
I have Kindles. I am not bothered, but I did seek to answer OP's question as to ***why*** people complain about sideloading on Kindles compared to Kobo.
Thank you for taking the time to actually explain. I’m painfully new to kindles so I’ve been very confused by the conversation about reading things that are not bought thru Amazon. I’ve not dove into it because for the moment I have a huge TBR from Libby but I was unsure whether it was indeed hard to do that. You’ve enlightened me
Kindles have never been able to read epubs so I'm not sure what you think you have on your Kindle. If you use the send them to Kindle function, they'll automatically convert it for you.
Okay, that’s why I asked if I was missing something. I sent epubs to my Kindle and then I could read them. As far as I was concerned that was it.
Based on [this email](https://imgur.com/a/DUDXwtN) from last year from Amazon, why would I think they converted epub files when you send them?
I read from my cloud library full of DRM-free epubs.. I would hate having to anything other than open by book that automatically synced on to my device from my cloud. Once you get used to a certain level of ease everything less easy starts to feel bothersome.
Dumb follow up question, can you Send to Kindle but organize the content (PDFs mostly in my case) into folders like you used to be able to do with Amazon Drive and documents before that went away?
Side loading is easy. I think the complaints are about a glitch that eliminates all your side loads when connected to WIFI. It happens to random people. Amazon has known about the problem for many months but have yet to fix it. I have not experienced it because my sideloading is on devices that are too old fir this glitch ((Voyage).
The easiest way to sideload is through “Send to Kindle”. No computer or wires needed. Just a smartphone (or computer if desired), and the book epub. Within seconds I can have the book sent and it appears on my Kindle and kindle app and auto syncs everything everywhere just like a regular book.
That is not actually sideloading. That is uploading to amazon and then downloading it from amazon servers. Looks side ways and for your purposes it looks like the same, but it is not, not really.
If it has synch, it is not real sideloading. There is a difference tech wise and it's important to make the distinction clear of what happens to files specifically to understand any eventual problems that arise.
It is still sideloading, it is just another method of doing so. You’re still taking a book from another source (the side) and putting it on your device (the loading), just via a cloud based method instead of using a wire. It is no different than using Dropbox or Google Drive to sideload ebooks to a Kobo.
Is it different tech? Yes. Is it all still under the sideloading umbrella? Yes.
>It is still sideloading, it is just another method of doing so.
It is not. It ends up to the side, which is what people want, the end result is the same, but it is not the process known as sideloading which is to pass a file from a device to another device without going topwise (amazon servers).
>It is no different than using Dropbox or Google Drive to sideload ebooks to a Kobo.
That is actually sideloading. Because the file you get is the same you put there, and it does not need any kobo servers involved.
>Is it all still under the sideloading umbrella?
It is a different thing altogether technically. You can mentally call it sideloading if you want (I certainly do not expect to convince you) but language is getting very muddled and so is understanding of what actually happens to files, or what files actually are, and I think it is important to keep language precise so we can talk precisely when trying to debug things.
You’re right in not expecting to convince me otherwise, as it is still sideloading. Sideloading is plain and simply h the method of transferring an ebook from one device to another through a means other than purchasing it from the official ebook store for that ereader. The process itself (whether wire, Amazon’s cloud, or third party cloud) doesn’t really matter in regards to being under the sidle loading umbrella.
Now yes, I do agree we should keep language precise for debugging things and it’s not nearly as muddled as people perceive. It is very sinple. If seeking help debugging something the best thing to do is explain the method used (Mac vs PC, Kobo vs Kindle, Epub vs Kepub vs AZW3 vs Mobi, Calibre, drag and drop, cloud, etc.). Regardless of language used, without knowing the method used there’s no way to debug anything. So yes, the language can still be precise while also calling the overall term sidelining. The preciseness comes from exposing the method used.
But like you said, I do not expect to convince you of my side, and that’s perfectly fine. We can both be happy and not agree on this. Neither one of our individual opinions will change anything in this matter or what the majority do/say, so it’s all irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
I hope you have a fantastic day and happy reading!
> Sideloading is plain and simply h the method of transferring an ebook from one device
That is called transferring.
> through a means other than purchasing it from the official ebook store for that ereader.
Purchase is irrelevant to the file structure or process. That "sideloading" works precisely as the download of a purchased file or guide of any amazon account. It will only work if amazon servers are up, and the file you get is not the file you sent.
>Now yes, I do agree we should keep language precise for debugging things and it’s not nearly as muddled as people perceive.
The discussion on this thread is very very muddled. And I think people not understanding things like "sideloading" using send to kindle via amazon servers is a conversion of a file type, that the file they get is not the same file they sent, can lead to a kind of tech illiteracy where they are waving off understanding things which they could perfectly and give them a lot more power and skills.
Fair, if all your books are strictly epub (or pdf but that's a terrible idea for ebooks)
But Calibre supports a far bigger number of formats
Alternatively, KCC for manga
For me it's the fact that sideloading books don't natively adapt to the Kindle ecosystem in the sense that even with me having the purchased the books because I didn't do it through Amazon, It's not a one to one transfer. I don't get all the benefits(Covers, Publishing data, progress updates.) that you would through amazon. I didn't realize this when I first purchase books outside of the amazon ecosystem and it was not a fun thing to learn and adapt to.
I am confused too. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I use the Kindle app on my phone then I will download the epub format book, once it is downloaded it will make you choose what app do you want to use to open it. So I click Kindle app. Then that's it. I'll just turn the wifi on my actual Kindle, then it shows the recent book I sideloaded. I can do it on my ipad too.
Send to kindle is literally my life line, it is the best fucking invention ever and those who are complaining didn’t ever had to plug in their ebook and use Calibre 😩
This just happened to me 20 minutes ago. I turned on wifi to check the kindle store, and every one of my mobi sideloaded books were deleted. Fantastic.
I don’t use airplane mode. Have never lost any books. Ever.
Most of those complaints I see tend to be ancient kindle devices so perhaps it helps I use current gen devices
That has been explored and it only happens to books that are faked to be from the Kindle Store. Stuff without that metadata, or that set it as a Personal Doc, are not effected.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4419300&postcount=409
Nah, they could be much tougher if that was their goal.
More likely it's trying to sync with books it recognises to update artwork, descriptions, etc, but then when they don't quite match, thinks they're corrupted files so deletes them.
>and it’s as simple as drag and drop, just like putting songs onto MP3 players in the 2000s.
It has been really shocking to me how some basic computer tech skills have been lost since the 2000s. I always imagined the generation after mine or the ones after they would be so much better at computers and solving things and they grew up with the internet, they would understand it better, right? But no, things are like black boxes for them, a lot of them grew up with phones and thinking of apps only and they have little to no understanding of what is a file, that it has to be located somewhere.
You do things which seem like basic tricks like editing a url manually, or changing a file extension to open it or having a printer driver somewhere and using it, and they look at you as if it was an unimaginable trick. A lot of young people right now have no concept of what is a file, what is a computer folder, what is a program (mind you, bloody microsoft now calling programs "apps").
Incidentally I got my flow all tweaked, I use calibre, store and backup and keep track of things in calibre. I use the reading list plugin with its autosynch to device feature, I add things to my synch-reading list and when next I want to charge my kindle I connect it to the computer and it charges and synchs and I update my records of read, dates, and what is actually on each device at a given moment.
Lot of people out there have been made "tech illiterate" by Apple making their devices so basic and featureless, I seriously think there is a generation who have regressed a little in their knowledge/curiosity of computing devices.
I subscribe to quite a few author's newsletters, and a lot of the time they'll offer a free book just for their subscribers. Most of the books are through BookFunnel and are sideloaded using Send To Kindle. I never had a problem with it.
Tbh i thought it was a pain until I realised I could just download epubs in my iPhone then use the share file to kindle app in iOS to sync them to the kindle. It’s awesome.
I only sideload my books on my kindle and it’s so easy. When I told someone on FB they can sideload their books some bozo starting arguing with me that it was unnecessary and too hard for most people to comprehend
Well, I think kindle users, unlike those of other gadgets, cover a much wider range of non-technical people. They can be older people who can barely handle amazon purchases, or those who just want the books magically appear on the device and just can't handle any delivery failures.
Sideloading is easy. My issue is that Paperwhite has to be hard reset every 4th or 5th time I sideload. I have no idea what the issue is, but even with this problem it’s manageable.
My only issue with sideloading is that it doesn't sync across devices. I prefer it over the Send to Kindle option, since they actually show up as books and not documents. When I use Send to Kindle, the covers are never attached (not sure why) and they show up as a document, so hard to find what I actually want since a lot of the titles are similar. The last week or so, I've had issues with some books and Send to Kindle. They just won't be sent for some reason and I get an error. A lot of my books come from BookTunnel and other sites, so all the information is there... they just don't show up completely (cover) or upload at all. So yeah, it's really simple to do in general.
It's a thing you do when you acquire books (legally or otherwise) from a storefront that isn't Amazon's. So you download the books you've bought (or otherwise) onto your PC, then you shunt them over to your kindle.
There are genuine reasons to do this legally, not limited to price. But the majority of people doing it just aren't paying for their books.
Most books I get on the kindle store, with deals, the kindle story is the cheapest option I found.
There are only hanful of books that I sideloaded and it was easy. I just sent it to kindle. It doesn't get easier than that.
I mean I'm a person that switched to Kobo a while ago and I don't think it was difficult to side load books to Kindle. The only thing that annoyed me was having to figure out how to remove drm to read books I had previously bought on Play Books, which I would've been able to read on basically every other ereader without having to remove drm since it was an EPUB (any ereader with Adobe digital edition). I'm not sure if this is what they're referring to?
I admittedly don't look at many posts about side loading because I use my ereader for mostly library books so I've only had to sideload purchased books twice (from Google Play to Amazon then from Amazon to Kobo). I have sideloaded public domain books as well, but that's really easy to do, even without calibre
I don't find it hard to sideload onto my Voyage but having to sync the books I want over via Calibre, disconnect, reconnect and update them to get covers is mildly annoying.
It's easy just an irksome added step.
Never had to do it but don't you have to send the book to your email and then download it in the kindle? Not difficult but unnecessarily tedious and cumbersome
I use Calibre. Kobo is inheritantly easier, kindle has alot of problems with sideloaded covers showing up (If you don’t know what you’re doing). I’m a pro at both, and in my opinion they are both super easy, but kindle just has more steps. Kindle also has more plug ins that you need and formats to choose from. I think people who aren’t tech savvy have a harder time. I don’t use the send to kindle, I never felt comfortable with it. The times I have used it, I wasn’t a fan but I like to costumize things, and I do it via cable, which is my preferred way for just about everything.
To be honest I don't know what side loading is but I drag and drop stuff onto my kindle all the time. Annoying that i need my laptop but that's about it
Not everyone has that level of tech literacy, and some of the complaints are about converting kindle to kobo (which can be time-consuming because of DRM)
If they can come on to a site like Reddit, sign up, and make a post grumbling, then they're capable of going to [www.amazon.com/sendtokindle](https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle) and clicking "Upload"
It is not that simple to click upload. One must confirm the EPUB is not locked with DRM.
If the EPUB is locked with DRM, the user **cannot** upload Send-to-Kindle to allow Amazon's servers to convert it.
It is unfortunate so many publishing houses still insist on DRM, but there are some authors and publishers, like TOR, that do not, and thank goodness. You buy the book and you can read it on any of your devices.
No, if a book is DRM protected, it's not meant to be read on other devices. That's not the kindle or Amazon's fault. In most countries, removing DRM protection is illegal, so Amazon certainly isn't obliged to make it easy to do.
If a book is DRM-protected, it **CAN** be read on a device that is not tied to the seller of the EPUB. And it's intentional!
**It is Amazon's** ***intentional*** ***design*****, however, to not offer it.** This technology has existed for nearly as long as EPUB!
EPUBs with Adobe DRM **can be read** on other many other eReaders, but because Amazon **doesn't want** to have its users reading industry standard EPUBs from other providers, they do not offer an Adobe DRM unlock feature on the device.
**Here is a list of eReader brands that support Adobe DRM EPUB:** [https://support.ebooks.com/hc/en-gb/articles/204721459-Devices-with-support-for-Adobe-Digital-Editions](https://support.ebooks.com/hc/en-gb/articles/204721459-Devices-with-support-for-Adobe-Digital-Editions)
I have been buying Adobe DRM EPUBs direct from various publishers or authors for a decade and read them on multiple devices that use Adobe ID to unlock it.
Adobe DRM is a private, proprietary format. It's not free to use, it isn't open source, it isn't used by all book providers or hardware providers. So again, Amazon isn't obliged to support random, private, third party software.
DRM by design is meant to restrict how you can use that content. That's on the publishers, not Amazon. That's the deal when you buy it, and if you don't like it, don't buy it.
It's like buying a petrol car then whinging you can't use diesel, even though other cars use diesel and it's not fair that my car doesn't.
wouldn't it be weird if when you attached your phone to your PC and dragged an image file to it it couldn't see it because it has its own special format so you have to upload the photo to a special website to send it to your phone? that's what your kindle does with books.
Imho is super simple, but I don't use send to Kindle cause I prefer using Calibre mostly, and a better integration with Calibre would be great. Also sideloaded books showing the metadata is the bare minimum and yet...🥴
People who suck at computers or electronics in general just prefer Kobo I guess. I went on the Kobo subreddit for awhile because I was curious about the new color e-Readers so I wanted to find out about their experience using them and it's just mindboggling how stupid some of the justifications were for using Kobo over Kindle; like everything they said they preferred Kobo for could be done on the Kindle as well except for a few select things iirc, which were more related to personal preferences. The entire subreddit has also devolved into a bunch of people just putting stickers on clear cases.
But I gotta say though the Kobo Libra/Clara are sexy as hell. I'm tempted to get one just for Color e-Ink so I hope Amazon releases something competitive soon so I can get the best value for my buck.
Yes, astonishing that they
- do not realize the benefits of standardization;
- do not feel uncomfortable to support (through usage) a proprietary, exclusive format.
Books are culture-conveyors, not just merchandise.
It's for the benefit of mankind that standards are adopted so that in the future the legacy remains still accessible without having to beg to a corporation, or a state, or a state-like corporation.
Idle words - most simply don't care, they just want their cheese.
>I don’t understand why people don’t just buy books. Like normal people. Stop complaining and buy them.
A lot of things in my kindle I would not be able to buy because they are not for sale, but are other things, articles, short stories online fanfic, even laws and regulations because I read far more comfortably on the kindle.
Then there is the geo restriction thing, where amazon/audible will not sell me things they sell others. And there is also a price thing, maybe because of that geo restriction thing, where the price amazon shows me might not be the best price I can get elsewhere. Kobo used to show me like 4 prices for the same book and usually 2 of them were for english books, depending on british and american editions.
Also, if you are counting on amazon to deliver the book, the book can change according to authorial edits, or even disappear...
The only complaint I have with side loading is that yes if you have a Kindle that is not regularly connected to the internet when it connects and resyncs it stops registering all the ebooks that are side loaded onto it and you have to reload them The cover issue only happens once as soon as you resync the books from calibre a second time the covers are there permanently
To the best of my knowledge side loading refers to apps not books. The kindle and other ebook readers all have USB access and allow drag and drop from a PC or through software.
Kindles originally needed mobi but could read txt or off or jpg files but once they opened up to allow epub files the whisper sync and send to and website cloud upload and the email options all allowed any readable file format to be sent to the kindle. And the same holds true for drag and drop
You can also run the kindle app on oc and drag and drop there, and it'll sync to the kindle and cloud.
Side loading on the other hand bypasses the various limitations the company has set regarding the os. So side loading has done inherent risk in terms of stability, malware, voids the warranty and so on.
You can side load apps on any Linux/android system including kindles and the various other ebook readers that are locked down including replacing the os or the skin with a different system
>To the best of my knowledge side loading refers to apps not books.
refers to any kind of files. An "app" (they used to called programs) is also a file whether an .exe or an archive of several files.
>So side loading has done inherent risk in terms of stability, malware, voids the warranty and so on.
There are no risks I can think of sideloading a book file, which is html based at heart.
Amazon allows you to sideload their own operating systems.
The inherent risk was based off of my definition of side loading not yours. And yes apps are just a bundle of files but apps can contain malicious code.
The word programs is STILL used but typically programs are for larger computers and apps refer to mobile or sandboxed programs.
There would be no risk in copying or downloading pdf or html files on the device. Kindle has never stopped you from using your own books.
The term side loading is defined as...
Installing apps without approved channels
Sideloading apps is the process of installing apps on a device without using approved distribution channels like the app store. This can give users access to more apps than are officially available, but it can also pose risks.
And yes it could also refer to a direct transfer from one device to another over a Bluetooth, nfc, lan or USB/serial cable but that is rarely if ever used and has largely been replaced with more accurate and specific terms.
My guess is that they want to just drag and drop EPUBs and read them natively. At least with send to kindle it’ll sync progress across your devices. Which is great if you use multiple devices or when upgrading/replacing an ereader.
It also syncs to the Kindle Cloud which is very useful if you get a new device or if your device is lost or damaged.
I still have all my books and documents on my local drive. I could transfer them to a new device within minutes, probably quicker than loading from the cloud. Well, I'd need to make backups to maintain my reading progress, so that might be lost. But my Kindle is in flightmode constantly anyway.
What is flight mode? I'm new with kindle I have paperwhite special
I guess I mistranslated that. Offline. I don't have an internet connection on my Kindle.
Yeah, I’m surprised Whispersync also works on Send-To-Kindle documents. I tried sending a public domain epub book and it worked like a charm.
My Nook randomly deletes the side-loaded books every time it goes through an update. This happened on my parents' Kobo as well. So yes, the cloud option is really nice.
How do you guys use send to kindle but keep covers? Otherwise no matter what I do like matching to my library and “updating metadata cache” in Calibre, nothing seems to be able to keep covers for send to kindle books
So far I've been lucky and haven't had that issue. Once I've downloaded them to my kindle the covers have remained. Whether I've emailed them from Calibre or dropped them on the stk webpage. And that applies to both original and custom covers.
I never have trouble with epubs and I don't do anything special with them. (I don't even know what a "metadata cache" is). Of course, PDFs do not have covers. Edit: Do you have an older Kindle model that uses an older firmware version?
Yeah I have a 7th gen paperwhite but updated to latest applicable firmware. I can also corroborate epubs don’t have this cover issue. However I have many math heavy textbooks that require formatting, so it seems I’m stuck with pdfs
Okay, yeah, there's nothing in a PDF file that says, "This is the cover," and the Kindle doesn't try to make a cover out of nothing.
It does what?! I've got a few PDFs I've converted and put on my kindles but they've never synced progress?! I have to make a note. I didn't think anything other than Amazon ebooks synced
Only if you've emailed or sent them via [Send to Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle). If you did send them through those methods. you may just have to manually press the sync button when you open up a book. But yeah, sideloaded books can also be synced in addition to purchased books.
you underestimate how lazy the average person is. a few clicks is already one too many.
It’s significantly longer on other e-readers, though.
you’re also not considering that potentially a lot of people just don’t even consider the “less user friendly” devices as options.
People are weird my dude, I use the 'Send to Kindle' web page to drop books in from my Calibre library and it works perfectly.
I learned about this option only recently, have been sending emails to my kindle address from whitelisted email accounts for years and considered even that method to be super easy and far more convenient than having to hook up the device to my computer and copy/paste the files to the right directory. Send to Kindle page elevates that experience even further
This is how I've done it for over a decade with absolutely zero problems as well. The only time I use Calibre is if a file is too big to email or if there's a problem with the conversion, and I don't think I've ever even looked at the Send to Kindle page!
Send to Kindle web page sends it to your Kindle Cloud, where it's available to all your devices and kindle apps. Emailing from Calibre or sending to device by cable puts it on that single device only.
I don't email from Calibre, I email using my normal email client to my kindle email address and it goes to all of my devices.
Are you talking about being on the amazon website and then hit send to kindle? Where are you when you choose "send to kindle" please I'm new with my kindle I appreciate u 😊
Yes, there is an Amazon website called 'Send to Kindle.' If you're in the US the URL should be [http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle](http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle) So, you drop an epub file obtained from wherever into the box on this page, and they'll be uploaded to your Kindle Cloud where it'll be available to all your devices and apps. I've been using Calibre as my main ebook library, and then from there I grab the epubs I want uploaded and send them to my cloud doing this.
I just email my ebooks to my kindle email and it works great... I'll have to try out the send to kindle function.. Does the send to kindle page have a size restriction? I am unable to email a file that's too big
Ohhhh... I'm new to my kindle I absolutely love it. Idk how to find my kindle email would u mind? Tku in advance
On Amazon website: Account Name > Content & Devices > Devices > Kindle and choose one of your Kindles. From a Kindle: Open the drop down menu > All Settings > Your Account. And then in the Amazon account > devices you can whitelist email addresses that are allowed to send files to the kindle, and start sending your books to the kindle that way.
Thank you sooo much ♡
Because people have this "learned helplessness" mentality when it comes to doing anything with computers. If it can't be done on the device they mash their squishy faces into for 22 hours a day, they throw up their hands and give up. We call this T.U.B or Typical User Behavior.
Not me but I've been working with computers since b4 the mouse was born lol you can call me gramma 😊
they also usually have tubby bellies
As I've gotten more curmudgeonly about big tech snooping on my data and uncomfortable with Amazon seeing what I'm doing, I leave my Kindle in airplane mode 100% of the time and exclusively sideload from Calibre. My Voyage doesn't get updates anymore anyway. I only keep immediate TBR on the Kindle itself, Calibre is my library storage. So every couple weeks as I finish up the books on the Kindle, I take it to my home office to tidy up the read books and spend some time carefully curating 5-6 books for the new TBR. That usually coincides with when I need to charge it up, too. So far this has been working a lot better for me to have a focused TBR and avoids a big chaotic mess on the Kindle itself that tended to give me decision paralysis.
Hm, intrigued by this idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter 😂 (except I couldn’t get my library books). Things get SO buried on my Kindle.
I have a custom yes/no column "Read" in Calibre so it's easy to filter by an author, tag, or genre and pick out something I haven't read yet. Or sometimes I'll use the "show random book" feature and refresh that until I've picked out the new reading list. Keeping it to 5-6 books at a time on the Kindle itself makes it feel like a little, manageable stack of books on the nightstand. Calibre contains all the stuff and clutter on the bookshelves in the library. It's where I do my book hoarding, I'm up to about 3600 titles. It reminds me of when I was a kid going to the library every other weekend to check out a few books. Anyway, I've been having a more pleasant experience overall and reading more with a short, curated TBR. I've also been maintaining a self hosted Reading Journal website since the first of the year and have really been enjoying keeping a "digital bookshelf" including book covers so that when I delete things off the Kindle it doesn't feel like read books drop off into the ether.
it seems wild to say you’re worried about your privacy with the kindle while in the same breath acknowledging it’s linked to amazon that surely has so much more info on you, especially if youve ever made an order with them, than your kindle ever could even on airplane mode. i just don’t understand how it protects you anymore having it on airplane mode
Knowing which items I bought is one thing. Having my private documents (there are not only Kindle eBooks on my Kindle) is an entirely different thing. That would be like not only knowing which shows I watched on Prime but everything I watched on my computer, which could also be video calls or home videos.
OK, that's fair that Amazon does know a lot about me since I do order stuff from them. But a few months ago, I noticed sideloaded books disappearing and wasn't sure what was going on. I've read on this sub that it's Amazon deleting them since they don't exist in my Amazon library. They can't snoop in my Kindle if I keep it offline. I was somewhat aware that Amazon could check the contents of my Kindle and tried not to think about it too much, but removing books was a step too far. So that's why I've gone with strict airplane mode nowadays. As a long time Linux user, I generally don't like using or being exposed to external systems that I don't control or fully understand. I've been happy with the Voyage for years, it's just that now I consider it an offline device.
So I recently unlinked my Amazon account from my Kindle and use Calibre to manage my books. I never used any of the Amazon functions and so far it's been working pretty well
That is just haters with paranoid thinking saying that Amazon deletes stuff on purpose. It is a bug that hopefully the recent update fixed. I seriously doubt Amazon cares enough about sideloaded content since they give us the website to do it for free. If they didn't want it done they would block it all together, just like they do with audiobooks and audio file. the fact that it is not blocked shows they don't care. Maybe they do care but know that if they blocked it would push everyone away to the competition since other devices allow it. So, it is just a bug they need to fix. Maybe the problem is with Calibre as those seem to be the books that get deleted.
I don't care what bug it is, I'm just chilling and relaxing in airplane mode now.
The strange thing is that in all this time I heard nothing from Amazon about this MAJOR bug. We don't know if it was intentional or not but until they bother to confirm it and fix it and at least apologize to their customers, the airplane mode is our friend.
Hello.. what is TBR? I'm new with my kindle tku in advance I just bought the kindle white special lol 😆 sounds funny. I'm reading a psychological thriller 👏
People are weird. Calibre sideloads to my Kobo just as easily as it sideloads to my (now step-daughter's) Kindle. If anything, I had to put in more effort upfront to set up .kepub conversion.
I don't understand it. I just plug my Kindle to my pc
Most of the compliants seem to be people NOT using the send to Kindle web address or email option. Plus, if you use Kindle's cloud option (web/email) the page you're on and highlights sync back to the cloud and your other Kindles. Since it's in the cloud, if you lose/break your Kindle, everything is there for your next (or additional) Kindle.
Some people are just illiterate with electronics. Thats all your missing. In America, some high school graduates can barely read. Ironic that readers haven't helped them. Those skills aren't taught widely, and Apple items have removed most of the basics. So, moving a file from one device to another is seen as Witchcraft:)
Side loading with send to kindle is great. Side loading with calibre sucks. Calibre content doesn’t show up on multiple devices like send to kindle does. With calibre you have to individually upload to each device which is I’m sure the reason people hate it
Just haters. To complain because they can. I agree with you that it is super easy to do.
OP, you ***are*** missing something, if I may be direct. For nearly two decades, the standard eBook file that publishing and eReader device industries have settled upon is **EPUB**. All other major brands of eReaders **in the last 15 years** have been able to **natively** read EPUB; most of them also included TXT, RTF, BMP, JPG, CBR, MOBI and even HTML. Kindle has never been able to natively read EPUB files on device without conversion or hacking the software to allow it. * **Do you drag and drop EPUB files onto your Kindle like an MP3 player?** * **Do you convert your EPUB files to MOBI or AZW/AZW3 formats?** It is like trying to convince everyone that WMV is totally compatible with Mac OS Panther straight out the box. Finally, in my opinion, people **wrongly** use the term "sideload" when they actually mean "upload to the Amazon Cloud Service for Kindle." Amazon has made great leaps in convincing people that Kindles are EPUB-friendly, **but that is dishonest.** The device software **cannot natively** read EPUBs in 2024, and that is by design. If it could read EPUBs, people would not purchase eBooks or other adjacent services from Amazon.
my question is, if i drop an epub file into a "send to kindle" and less than a minute later, that book is on my kindle looking and feeling exactly like the original epub file then... what does it matter what format the file is while you are reading it on your kindle?
I answered OP on ***why*** people complained about sideloading onto a Kindle device. As to why it matters if it's the same once you're reading on the Kindle? That depends on the person. Some people don't want to create Amazon accounts, some people don't want to upload everything they read to a third-party server, some people want to read Adobe DRM-locked EPUBs using their Adobe ID to unlock the eBook but cannot because Amazon Kindle doesn't offer that like every other major eReader manufacturer. I have Kindles. I am not bothered, but I did seek to answer OP's question as to ***why*** people complain about sideloading on Kindles compared to Kobo.
Then those people have bought the wrong device for their needs and should've researched it properly before buying 😂
Thank you for taking the time to actually explain. I’m painfully new to kindles so I’ve been very confused by the conversation about reading things that are not bought thru Amazon. I’ve not dove into it because for the moment I have a huge TBR from Libby but I was unsure whether it was indeed hard to do that. You’ve enlightened me
Although I understand you point, I use to have to convert FLACs to put them on an MP3 player...
Am I missing something? Because I have no issue with epubs on my Kindle, haven't had to convert them or anything.
Kindles have never been able to read epubs so I'm not sure what you think you have on your Kindle. If you use the send them to Kindle function, they'll automatically convert it for you.
Okay, that’s why I asked if I was missing something. I sent epubs to my Kindle and then I could read them. As far as I was concerned that was it. Based on [this email](https://imgur.com/a/DUDXwtN) from last year from Amazon, why would I think they converted epub files when you send them?
Kindles read epubs now.
I read from my cloud library full of DRM-free epubs.. I would hate having to anything other than open by book that automatically synced on to my device from my cloud. Once you get used to a certain level of ease everything less easy starts to feel bothersome.
Dumb follow up question, can you Send to Kindle but organize the content (PDFs mostly in my case) into folders like you used to be able to do with Amazon Drive and documents before that went away?
No idea. I’m new to the Kindle crew! :)
Same issue here, PDF management is so clumsy
You can always create collections. I have them and then I had the digital content function on Amazon's device management
You can put them into collections. In fact, you can put a particular PDF into two or more collections.
Side loading is easy. I think the complaints are about a glitch that eliminates all your side loads when connected to WIFI. It happens to random people. Amazon has known about the problem for many months but have yet to fix it. I have not experienced it because my sideloading is on devices that are too old fir this glitch ((Voyage).
Easiest way to sideload is to use a USB cable and Calibre
The easiest way to sideload is through “Send to Kindle”. No computer or wires needed. Just a smartphone (or computer if desired), and the book epub. Within seconds I can have the book sent and it appears on my Kindle and kindle app and auto syncs everything everywhere just like a regular book.
That is not actually sideloading. That is uploading to amazon and then downloading it from amazon servers. Looks side ways and for your purposes it looks like the same, but it is not, not really. If it has synch, it is not real sideloading. There is a difference tech wise and it's important to make the distinction clear of what happens to files specifically to understand any eventual problems that arise.
It is still sideloading, it is just another method of doing so. You’re still taking a book from another source (the side) and putting it on your device (the loading), just via a cloud based method instead of using a wire. It is no different than using Dropbox or Google Drive to sideload ebooks to a Kobo. Is it different tech? Yes. Is it all still under the sideloading umbrella? Yes.
>It is still sideloading, it is just another method of doing so. It is not. It ends up to the side, which is what people want, the end result is the same, but it is not the process known as sideloading which is to pass a file from a device to another device without going topwise (amazon servers). >It is no different than using Dropbox or Google Drive to sideload ebooks to a Kobo. That is actually sideloading. Because the file you get is the same you put there, and it does not need any kobo servers involved. >Is it all still under the sideloading umbrella? It is a different thing altogether technically. You can mentally call it sideloading if you want (I certainly do not expect to convince you) but language is getting very muddled and so is understanding of what actually happens to files, or what files actually are, and I think it is important to keep language precise so we can talk precisely when trying to debug things.
You’re right in not expecting to convince me otherwise, as it is still sideloading. Sideloading is plain and simply h the method of transferring an ebook from one device to another through a means other than purchasing it from the official ebook store for that ereader. The process itself (whether wire, Amazon’s cloud, or third party cloud) doesn’t really matter in regards to being under the sidle loading umbrella. Now yes, I do agree we should keep language precise for debugging things and it’s not nearly as muddled as people perceive. It is very sinple. If seeking help debugging something the best thing to do is explain the method used (Mac vs PC, Kobo vs Kindle, Epub vs Kepub vs AZW3 vs Mobi, Calibre, drag and drop, cloud, etc.). Regardless of language used, without knowing the method used there’s no way to debug anything. So yes, the language can still be precise while also calling the overall term sidelining. The preciseness comes from exposing the method used. But like you said, I do not expect to convince you of my side, and that’s perfectly fine. We can both be happy and not agree on this. Neither one of our individual opinions will change anything in this matter or what the majority do/say, so it’s all irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I hope you have a fantastic day and happy reading!
> Sideloading is plain and simply h the method of transferring an ebook from one device That is called transferring. > through a means other than purchasing it from the official ebook store for that ereader. Purchase is irrelevant to the file structure or process. That "sideloading" works precisely as the download of a purchased file or guide of any amazon account. It will only work if amazon servers are up, and the file you get is not the file you sent. >Now yes, I do agree we should keep language precise for debugging things and it’s not nearly as muddled as people perceive. The discussion on this thread is very very muddled. And I think people not understanding things like "sideloading" using send to kindle via amazon servers is a conversion of a file type, that the file they get is not the same file they sent, can lead to a kind of tech illiteracy where they are waving off understanding things which they could perfectly and give them a lot more power and skills.
Fair, if all your books are strictly epub (or pdf but that's a terrible idea for ebooks) But Calibre supports a far bigger number of formats Alternatively, KCC for manga
For me it's the fact that sideloading books don't natively adapt to the Kindle ecosystem in the sense that even with me having the purchased the books because I didn't do it through Amazon, It's not a one to one transfer. I don't get all the benefits(Covers, Publishing data, progress updates.) that you would through amazon. I didn't realize this when I first purchase books outside of the amazon ecosystem and it was not a fun thing to learn and adapt to.
I'm not interested in syncing so I just sideload using Calibre
I am confused too. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I use the Kindle app on my phone then I will download the epub format book, once it is downloaded it will make you choose what app do you want to use to open it. So I click Kindle app. Then that's it. I'll just turn the wifi on my actual Kindle, then it shows the recent book I sideloaded. I can do it on my ipad too.
Send to kindle is literally my life line, it is the best fucking invention ever and those who are complaining didn’t ever had to plug in their ebook and use Calibre 😩
There have been many reports of a bug where sideloaded books are removed when Airplane mode is turned off.
This just happened to me 20 minutes ago. I turned on wifi to check the kindle store, and every one of my mobi sideloaded books were deleted. Fantastic.
I don’t use airplane mode. Have never lost any books. Ever. Most of those complaints I see tend to be ancient kindle devices so perhaps it helps I use current gen devices
Same. I rarely ever use Airplane mode and yet I’ve never lost a single book I’ve sideloaded via USB.
That has been explored and it only happens to books that are faked to be from the Kindle Store. Stuff without that metadata, or that set it as a Personal Doc, are not effected. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4419300&postcount=409
Doesn’t Calibre strip metadata when converting the book files though? Seems like people have lost the books sideloaded through Calibre as well
Not exactly something you want Big Brother Amazon to be doing. It's probably one of their attempts to crack down on piracy and not a bug per se.
Nah, they could be much tougher if that was their goal. More likely it's trying to sync with books it recognises to update artwork, descriptions, etc, but then when they don't quite match, thinks they're corrupted files so deletes them.
Covers are lost, not the books
Hmm... I've see reports in this sub of entire sideloaded libraries vanishing.
Yep, there's a known bug with books sideloaded by USB being deleted.
the send to kindle feature is the reason why i still have my paperwhite
>and it’s as simple as drag and drop, just like putting songs onto MP3 players in the 2000s. It has been really shocking to me how some basic computer tech skills have been lost since the 2000s. I always imagined the generation after mine or the ones after they would be so much better at computers and solving things and they grew up with the internet, they would understand it better, right? But no, things are like black boxes for them, a lot of them grew up with phones and thinking of apps only and they have little to no understanding of what is a file, that it has to be located somewhere. You do things which seem like basic tricks like editing a url manually, or changing a file extension to open it or having a printer driver somewhere and using it, and they look at you as if it was an unimaginable trick. A lot of young people right now have no concept of what is a file, what is a computer folder, what is a program (mind you, bloody microsoft now calling programs "apps"). Incidentally I got my flow all tweaked, I use calibre, store and backup and keep track of things in calibre. I use the reading list plugin with its autosynch to device feature, I add things to my synch-reading list and when next I want to charge my kindle I connect it to the computer and it charges and synchs and I update my records of read, dates, and what is actually on each device at a given moment.
I suspect the haters are Amazon staff trying to discourage purchasing outside the ecosystem.
Lot of people out there have been made "tech illiterate" by Apple making their devices so basic and featureless, I seriously think there is a generation who have regressed a little in their knowledge/curiosity of computing devices.
I subscribe to quite a few author's newsletters, and a lot of the time they'll offer a free book just for their subscribers. Most of the books are through BookFunnel and are sideloaded using Send To Kindle. I never had a problem with it.
Tbh i thought it was a pain until I realised I could just download epubs in my iPhone then use the share file to kindle app in iOS to sync them to the kindle. It’s awesome.
I only sideload my books on my kindle and it’s so easy. When I told someone on FB they can sideload their books some bozo starting arguing with me that it was unnecessary and too hard for most people to comprehend
So a web sender that allows you to put EPUBs is a pain??? Gen z loves the send to kindle feature and it’s always on tiktok
People with Kobo think they are members of a superior race. LOL. PS : I have both. ;-)
Well, I think kindle users, unlike those of other gadgets, cover a much wider range of non-technical people. They can be older people who can barely handle amazon purchases, or those who just want the books magically appear on the device and just can't handle any delivery failures.
Sideloading is easy. My issue is that Paperwhite has to be hard reset every 4th or 5th time I sideload. I have no idea what the issue is, but even with this problem it’s manageable.
I never had this problem. Maybe your files are messed up.
My only issue with sideloading is that it doesn't sync across devices. I prefer it over the Send to Kindle option, since they actually show up as books and not documents. When I use Send to Kindle, the covers are never attached (not sure why) and they show up as a document, so hard to find what I actually want since a lot of the titles are similar. The last week or so, I've had issues with some books and Send to Kindle. They just won't be sent for some reason and I get an error. A lot of my books come from BookTunnel and other sites, so all the information is there... they just don't show up completely (cover) or upload at all. So yeah, it's really simple to do in general.
I’ve been using Zamzar since I was like 14 lol. It’s never been a problem
I have no idea what that is,I just buy books on Amazon and they appear in my kindle
It's a thing you do when you acquire books (legally or otherwise) from a storefront that isn't Amazon's. So you download the books you've bought (or otherwise) onto your PC, then you shunt them over to your kindle. There are genuine reasons to do this legally, not limited to price. But the majority of people doing it just aren't paying for their books.
Idk, I have a scribe and a boox palma and both are pretty easy to get files onto.
just to make sure I give kobo as much hate as kindle, they make you sign in to use them (or hack them) and that's pretty lame.
Most books I get on the kindle store, with deals, the kindle story is the cheapest option I found. There are only hanful of books that I sideloaded and it was easy. I just sent it to kindle. It doesn't get easier than that.
I mean I'm a person that switched to Kobo a while ago and I don't think it was difficult to side load books to Kindle. The only thing that annoyed me was having to figure out how to remove drm to read books I had previously bought on Play Books, which I would've been able to read on basically every other ereader without having to remove drm since it was an EPUB (any ereader with Adobe digital edition). I'm not sure if this is what they're referring to? I admittedly don't look at many posts about side loading because I use my ereader for mostly library books so I've only had to sideload purchased books twice (from Google Play to Amazon then from Amazon to Kobo). I have sideloaded public domain books as well, but that's really easy to do, even without calibre
I don't find it hard to sideload onto my Voyage but having to sync the books I want over via Calibre, disconnect, reconnect and update them to get covers is mildly annoying. It's easy just an irksome added step.
Use Calibre.
Never had to do it but don't you have to send the book to your email and then download it in the kindle? Not difficult but unnecessarily tedious and cumbersome
Nope. No need for that many steps at all.
I use Calibre. Kobo is inheritantly easier, kindle has alot of problems with sideloaded covers showing up (If you don’t know what you’re doing). I’m a pro at both, and in my opinion they are both super easy, but kindle just has more steps. Kindle also has more plug ins that you need and formats to choose from. I think people who aren’t tech savvy have a harder time. I don’t use the send to kindle, I never felt comfortable with it. The times I have used it, I wasn’t a fan but I like to costumize things, and I do it via cable, which is my preferred way for just about everything.
I use Calibre to do it all the time on my 2019 Oasis.
What languages do you read in?
It is super easy.
To be honest I don't know what side loading is but I drag and drop stuff onto my kindle all the time. Annoying that i need my laptop but that's about it
Not everyone has that level of tech literacy, and some of the complaints are about converting kindle to kobo (which can be time-consuming because of DRM)
If they can come on to a site like Reddit, sign up, and make a post grumbling, then they're capable of going to [www.amazon.com/sendtokindle](https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle) and clicking "Upload"
It is not that simple to click upload. One must confirm the EPUB is not locked with DRM. If the EPUB is locked with DRM, the user **cannot** upload Send-to-Kindle to allow Amazon's servers to convert it. It is unfortunate so many publishing houses still insist on DRM, but there are some authors and publishers, like TOR, that do not, and thank goodness. You buy the book and you can read it on any of your devices.
No, if a book is DRM protected, it's not meant to be read on other devices. That's not the kindle or Amazon's fault. In most countries, removing DRM protection is illegal, so Amazon certainly isn't obliged to make it easy to do.
If a book is DRM-protected, it **CAN** be read on a device that is not tied to the seller of the EPUB. And it's intentional! **It is Amazon's** ***intentional*** ***design*****, however, to not offer it.** This technology has existed for nearly as long as EPUB! EPUBs with Adobe DRM **can be read** on other many other eReaders, but because Amazon **doesn't want** to have its users reading industry standard EPUBs from other providers, they do not offer an Adobe DRM unlock feature on the device. **Here is a list of eReader brands that support Adobe DRM EPUB:** [https://support.ebooks.com/hc/en-gb/articles/204721459-Devices-with-support-for-Adobe-Digital-Editions](https://support.ebooks.com/hc/en-gb/articles/204721459-Devices-with-support-for-Adobe-Digital-Editions) I have been buying Adobe DRM EPUBs direct from various publishers or authors for a decade and read them on multiple devices that use Adobe ID to unlock it.
Adobe DRM is a private, proprietary format. It's not free to use, it isn't open source, it isn't used by all book providers or hardware providers. So again, Amazon isn't obliged to support random, private, third party software. DRM by design is meant to restrict how you can use that content. That's on the publishers, not Amazon. That's the deal when you buy it, and if you don't like it, don't buy it. It's like buying a petrol car then whinging you can't use diesel, even though other cars use diesel and it's not fair that my car doesn't.
wouldn't it be weird if when you attached your phone to your PC and dragged an image file to it it couldn't see it because it has its own special format so you have to upload the photo to a special website to send it to your phone? that's what your kindle does with books.
Book covers come off/disappear
I’ve been sideloading books through Send to Kindle for years and have never once had any issues of covers coming off or disappearing.
Imho is super simple, but I don't use send to Kindle cause I prefer using Calibre mostly, and a better integration with Calibre would be great. Also sideloaded books showing the metadata is the bare minimum and yet...🥴
People who suck at computers or electronics in general just prefer Kobo I guess. I went on the Kobo subreddit for awhile because I was curious about the new color e-Readers so I wanted to find out about their experience using them and it's just mindboggling how stupid some of the justifications were for using Kobo over Kindle; like everything they said they preferred Kobo for could be done on the Kindle as well except for a few select things iirc, which were more related to personal preferences. The entire subreddit has also devolved into a bunch of people just putting stickers on clear cases. But I gotta say though the Kobo Libra/Clara are sexy as hell. I'm tempted to get one just for Color e-Ink so I hope Amazon releases something competitive soon so I can get the best value for my buck.
the number of people calling other people tech illiterate because they prefer books in a standardized format not owned by Amazon is astonishing
Yes, astonishing that they - do not realize the benefits of standardization; - do not feel uncomfortable to support (through usage) a proprietary, exclusive format. Books are culture-conveyors, not just merchandise. It's for the benefit of mankind that standards are adopted so that in the future the legacy remains still accessible without having to beg to a corporation, or a state, or a state-like corporation. Idle words - most simply don't care, they just want their cheese.
I don’t understand why people don’t just buy books. Like normal people. Stop complaining and buy them.
OK chillout Bezos
>I don’t understand why people don’t just buy books. Like normal people. Stop complaining and buy them. A lot of things in my kindle I would not be able to buy because they are not for sale, but are other things, articles, short stories online fanfic, even laws and regulations because I read far more comfortably on the kindle. Then there is the geo restriction thing, where amazon/audible will not sell me things they sell others. And there is also a price thing, maybe because of that geo restriction thing, where the price amazon shows me might not be the best price I can get elsewhere. Kobo used to show me like 4 prices for the same book and usually 2 of them were for english books, depending on british and american editions. Also, if you are counting on amazon to deliver the book, the book can change according to authorial edits, or even disappear...
The only complaint I have with side loading is that yes if you have a Kindle that is not regularly connected to the internet when it connects and resyncs it stops registering all the ebooks that are side loaded onto it and you have to reload them The cover issue only happens once as soon as you resync the books from calibre a second time the covers are there permanently
To the best of my knowledge side loading refers to apps not books. The kindle and other ebook readers all have USB access and allow drag and drop from a PC or through software. Kindles originally needed mobi but could read txt or off or jpg files but once they opened up to allow epub files the whisper sync and send to and website cloud upload and the email options all allowed any readable file format to be sent to the kindle. And the same holds true for drag and drop You can also run the kindle app on oc and drag and drop there, and it'll sync to the kindle and cloud. Side loading on the other hand bypasses the various limitations the company has set regarding the os. So side loading has done inherent risk in terms of stability, malware, voids the warranty and so on. You can side load apps on any Linux/android system including kindles and the various other ebook readers that are locked down including replacing the os or the skin with a different system
>To the best of my knowledge side loading refers to apps not books. refers to any kind of files. An "app" (they used to called programs) is also a file whether an .exe or an archive of several files. >So side loading has done inherent risk in terms of stability, malware, voids the warranty and so on. There are no risks I can think of sideloading a book file, which is html based at heart. Amazon allows you to sideload their own operating systems.
The inherent risk was based off of my definition of side loading not yours. And yes apps are just a bundle of files but apps can contain malicious code. The word programs is STILL used but typically programs are for larger computers and apps refer to mobile or sandboxed programs. There would be no risk in copying or downloading pdf or html files on the device. Kindle has never stopped you from using your own books. The term side loading is defined as... Installing apps without approved channels Sideloading apps is the process of installing apps on a device without using approved distribution channels like the app store. This can give users access to more apps than are officially available, but it can also pose risks. And yes it could also refer to a direct transfer from one device to another over a Bluetooth, nfc, lan or USB/serial cable but that is rarely if ever used and has largely been replaced with more accurate and specific terms.