Amazon’s ongoing battle against letting people download and backup purchased Kindle ebooks has taken another step in the wrong direction.
There are discussions on MobileRead about how newer Kindle ebooks published after April 22nd, 2025 cannot be downloaded using the Kindle for PC 2.4.0 method, thus making it harder to create backups and convert purchased ebooks to other formats to read on non-Kindle devices and apps (to be clear, you can still download ebooks to the latest version of Kindle for PC to read on a PC).
Earlier this year Amazon removed the ability to download purchased ebooks from their website for USB transfer, which closed off one of the ways to get Kindle ebooks for backup, and now they’ve closed off one of the few workarounds as well.
Apparently you can still get newer ebooks published after April 22nd off of E Ink Kindles for backup and DRM removal, and there’s also a complicated Android emulator workaround that still works, but using an older version of Kindle for PC is no longer an option for newer ebooks.
If recent history is any indication, once social media and the reddit crowd gets wind of this change it’ll turn into another mass misinformation event with all kinds of erroneous takes and downright lies, so don’t fall for it. In the grand scheme of things this is a minor change that will affect a small percentage of Kindle users, those that like to remove the DRM from their purchased ebooks.
If you have an E Ink Kindle you’ll still be able to do that, but if Amazon takes steps to lock down that option next, which they probably will at some point, then it will be a lot harder to get your purchased ebooks away from Amazon. They want to keep everything locked into their ecosystem so customers can’t leave for another platform without losing their purchased content.
Amazon wants control over your purchases—it’s as simple as that. The only sure way to avoid that is to buy ebooks from other companies, ones that still allow you to download your purchases for use outside of their devices and apps.
I’ve been having trouble downloading books published in the last 10 years via Kindle for PC 2.40, nevermind books published in April 2025. Always the same error message, “requires Version X.XX.” This problem was ongoing for me for the past couple of years.
I stopped speculating about Amazon’s motives a long time ago. What on the one hand closes you off, on the other hand opens you up (Send to Kindle). In the end I have come to the opposite conclusion to the rest of the users angry with Amazon: with a Kindle you have access to the same books you can get with any other brand (let’s cite Kobo as a paradigm of an antagonistic brand) and, moreover, you have Amazon’s ecosystem at your disposal. As long as that’s the case, I’m not worried about what Amazon does with DRM on their books. Non-exclusive books I will continue to buy from my favourite bookstore, and those that are exclusive to Amazon (as well as Kindle Unlimited) I will still read them on my Kindle via WIFI download. I don’t think there is an alternative that offers me anything better (in terms of books, not e-reader features).
In any case, as you rightly say, neither I (who like Kindle e-readers, but don’t buy books from Amazon), nor those who transfer their books via USB, are the prototypical Kindle user. The noise generated around D&T and Amazon’s DRM is something completely alien to most Kindle users, who buy their books on Amazon and download them directly to their devices via WIFI. All this controversy generated in the e-reader forums does not affect them at all.
I agree. I’m one of those users that is not upset about the removal of D&T, since it was not something I have used since the first paper white came out. Because I’ve been in the kindle/Amazon ecosystem pretty consistently since 2009, I’m pretty well locked in. Any books that I want more than a license to, I will buy a hard copy of. For me, I don’t mind paying for a license; except for the 1984 book however many years ago, I have never had a book disappear from my account or device. Maybe I’m just sheep, but the ecosystem gives me convenience and variety that other bookstores do not. Now, if Amazon could bring back page buttons on both sides of the kindle like the 2010 Kindle, that would be great!
I always remove the DRM and keep my ebooks stored in Calibre for safe keeping.
Same. I don’t want to be part of any ecosystem, thank you very much. Nor do I want to buy a hard copy, which will only gather dust on a shelf, because I no longer like to read paper books.
That said, I’m not that much upset about Amazon’s antics. I already have far more ebooks in my calibre library than I can read in several lifetimes, and if I want to buy new ebooks, I’ll usually buy them elsewhere. I’m not tied to Amazon or to anyone else, and never have been.