Some folks over at the Nook subreddit have discovered that Nook ereaders and Nook apps can now sync sideloaded ebooks between devices and apps.
Who knows how long this has been possible or exactly which models support it and which models don’t, but given B&N’s history with sideloading ebooks, it’s surprising syncing sideloaded content works at all. In fact, it would almost be easier to believe this was some kind of bug than an intended feature.
There’s no mention of syncing non-B&N content anywhere on the Barnes and Noble website or anywhere in the help section for Nooks (at least not anywhere that I can find).
Apparently, all you have to do is sideload the same ebook file on Nook devices and Nooks apps to automatically sync the reading position between them. It works with EPUBs, and it might work with PDFs as well but I’m not sure (if you try, let us know in the comments below).
It’s weird that B&N would add this feature and then not bother to mention it anywhere. Why would they sync sideloaded books and not tell Nook customers about it?
This is something that Kobo customers have been asking for for years, but Kobo still doesn’t offer any way to sync non-Kobo books. Kindles have supported syncing non-Amazon content for a long time, but you have to use Send-to-Kindle; they won’t sync books sideloaded over USB.
So now Nooks have something going for them that some other major brands don’t offer, and yet nobody at B&N thought it was worth mentioning? I wonder if this means they’re up to something. I could see Barnes and Noble releasing a Nook with a color E Ink screen at some point later this year, and maybe they’re waiting for that to make an announcement of some added new features.
I saw this and it surprises me, because Nook is so rarely improving their experience. This is rather different, as Kindle only syncs side-loaded ebooks through their CLOUD service, and Pocketbook (I recently acquired a lightly-used Era.) also uses a cloud service for sync of side-loaded content.
If Nook has found a way to sync without uploading an ebook to a cloud, that’s *interesting*!
What I’m wondering, is if any annotations sync?
If not, then I could see Nook somehow figuring out how to access the reading position via Adobe page numbering, and then transfer that data as needed. Adobe page numbering stays consistent from epub to epub, because it’s based on character count, so font re-sizing does not affect it.
If that is what BN/Nook somehow did, then I doubt Kobo would take the same approach, because they use two different rendering engines for epub/kepub, with different page numbering systems.
Hey, I’m ChristianBk, one of the NOOK subreddit users who discovered this.
I just tested it out between my GlowLight 4 Plus and regular GlowLight 4 and yes, annotations did sync with the sideloaded epub on both devices. I also double-checked and again, the sync worked, telling me I was on a different page on another NOOK device appropriately.
Nathan – I don’t think B&N are cooking up anything. They just released their Lenovo tablet, which is great because their 2021 one was horribly slow. They seemingly are having stock issues with the GlowLight 4e coming in and out of stock and then the multi-month fulfillment issue with the GL4 Plus. I think they are such minor players in the eReader space that they get bumped in terms of eink screen hardware priority… almost like a Christopher Ruicchio situation with Brandon Sanderson pretty much taking all of the special edition book bandwidth up. But I guess we’ll see!
Thanks for letting us know. I was wondering about that too.
I guess my speculation is toast then, LOL! That’s cool if B&N has cooked up a way to sync BOTH reading position and annotations! FAR more useful than just reading position only.
I still won’t go back to Nook, simply because of not being able to download my purchases. That was the deal breaker for me, even though I started my e-reading journey with a Nook device, and, until they removed the download ability, made a point of buying ebooks from them.
Insofar as it goes, I’m not sure this ability will pull in a lot of new Nook customers, but it will certainly give existing customers a good reason to stay with Nook. Overall, I hope it’s a boost for B&N’s Nook, they could use one. I’m all for competition in the e-reader space!
Actually Nathan, randomly popped into my head: Lenovo had mistakenly leaked (or was confused, though seems like a big blunder if so) a subscription service for NOOK around the time they announced the new Lenovo tablet: https://www.reddit.com/r/nook/s/jim4wGUtbW
The glossary entry is now deleted, but I verified that it did indeed mention a “NOOK Unlimited” subscription. Checked the Wayback Machine to see if they have an archived version of the URL but it wasn’t crawled and indexed at the time.
Maybe the syncing has something to do with preparing to announce that? Perhaps its functionality they would offer as part of the subscription? I did recently receive an update (version 8.1.4.102(G) / 6.6.7.11:) that was “bug fixed and performance improvements”…