One question that comes up somewhat regularly is how to transfer your ebooks from one Kindle to another when getting a new Kindle.
The fact is you really don’t need to do anything. All of your purchased Kindle ebooks will automatically be available from your new Kindle once you register it to your Amazon account.
Then all you have to do is go to the “All” tab from your Kindle’s homescreen to download your ebooks.
All of your bookmarks, notes and highlights get transferred as well, so no need to worry about losing those either.
That’s what Amazon’s Whispersync feature does, it keeps everything in sync no matter what Kindle or app you are using.
The one exception, of course, is if you sideloaded personal ebooks or documents onto your Kindle via USB. Unless you sent them to your Kindle through Amazon’s email or send-to-Kindle service, then you’ll have to manually load them onto your new Kindle.
To do so you just have to plug your Kindle into your computer with the USB cable and move the files that way.
To transfer notes and highlights from sideloaded ebooks you’ll also need to move the Clippings.txt file from your old Kindle to the new one. It’s located on the Kindle’s drive alongside your ebooks.
You’ll also need to move the Clippings.txt file to your new Kindle if for some reason you never use wireless on your old Kindle because then it can’t sync them using Whispersync.
However if you own a Kindle that is older than a Paperwhite, this doesn’t work. You will have to talk with Kindle CS to have them create a problem ticket so that one of their technicians does a one-time sync. (Basically this is what Amazon had done with the Paperwhites automatically that had irked so many people that they turned off this automatic sync.) I think it’s basically because the older devices’ collections weren’t stored in the cloud like they are now. I had to do this for my dad when he upgraded to the Paperwhite 2 from his Kindle keyboard.
I need my library from my old kindle transferred to my new paper white. How is this done?
Me too. Have read the guidance but it hasn’t made sense.
My Kindle purchased 9 years ago has broken. I have a new device and want to transfer Ll my books from the old to the new device. Can’t figure out how to do this. Please help.
If you can connect your old kindle to a pc or laptop with the usb cable, you should be able to drag and drop them the way you would from a flash drive
I have over 1,000 books on my old kindle. When I touched home I could touch “library” and see a list of my books On my new paperwhite I cannot see my library, and I think it has only transferred 280 books. Also, I have trouble getting rid of the wallpaper screen to turn on and off the power.
I am having trouble transferring my books from a Gen 2 kindle to my new Paperwhite. Cannot register my new device to my existing account.
how long do I have to wait ?
Dear Amazon or whoever, I reluctantly recently had to buy a new kindle paperwhite reader. My problem is: I cannot transfer several unread books from my old kindle to the new one. Seems my first kindle has different register name to my new one, my email address has changed and so has computer that was used for the first kindle. Anybody got any answers to help me solve this dilemma? I ready would like my books from old kindle to my new one.
The only way to get access to your old books is to register your new Kindle to the same account. Either that or download the ebooks to your computer and remove the DRM to sideload them if you have to use a new account. All your purchased books are tied to your account, not any specific device.
I hate my new Paperwhite…I hate the fact that if I want to read a book from my old device I have to download it. So each one of my 300+ books must be individually downloaded before I can read them.
The battery doesn’t last nearly as long as the old one.
Instead of opening directly to my library I have and additional step to get there.
I want to go back to my old Kindle but the books I have on my new kindle of course are not in my library on my old Kindle. How can I get them onto my old device?
I reluctantly have to buy a new kindle I know the name of my old one and would be using the same email but the credit card info would be different would my books be able to go over to my new kindle because I can’t access the old one at all
Kindle books are tied to your Amazon account so the credit card used is irrelevant.
When you buy a new Kindle, your titles should sync to your new Kindle. Unfortunately the content doesn’t automatically sync and each has to be downloaded or you can do this in batches of 10 from the Amazon website. There is as far as I can see no way to download all your content to your new device in one go. When I tried to publish a review stating this on the Amazon website, they phoned me to discuss it then refused to publish the review.
I guess it may be possible to make sure all your books are downloaded to your Kindle then sync to something like Calibre on your Mac/PC then sync to your new device but I’m not sure. I’m not interested in removing the DRM but just to be easily able to move from one Kindle to another.
I have about 800 books on my device, it has used very little of the on-board memory but already the battery is starting to fail (the device is an Oasis and appears to have a non-replaceable battery) and I dread having to get another device and go through the downloading process again.
Why am I bothered? Just because I like to be able to go back to a book at any time and sometimes on holiday I don[t have internet access and I don’t want to choose to read a book on my Kindle only to find that it isn’t actually downloaded…
I agree – I have the books that are “to be read” downloaded on my kindle. I am looking to upgrade my kindle, but have to go through the PAIN of downloading my to be read list all over again 🙁 I upgrade about every 3 years – this was my complaint three years ago and still nothing has happened to make this easier.
You can use the Manage Your Content and Devices page at Amazon to mass select a bunch of titles to send to your Kindle. You still have to click each title but it’s faster than doing it on a Kindle.
I think you can only select a maximum of 10 titles to download at a time
I just replaced my kindle paper white with a new one and my downloaded books have not been synced!
Just bought a new Paperwhite Kindle for my mother to upgrade her 9 year old Kindle. Both Kindles show on Amazon but do NOT sync and we cannot download purchased books to her new Kindle. She has many books on the older Kindle and we’ve spent hours trying to get the synchronization to work but without any luck. Amazon appears to have made this deliberately difficult, if not impossible.