Advertised Storage Space on Kindles is Exaggerated – Real Numbers Revealed

I often see people complaining about how Kindles have less onboard storage space than what Amazon advertises, so I thought I’d put together a post with the real storage space numbers for each Kindle model.

Apparently some people still don’t know that the advertised storage space of Kindles isn’t accurate. It’s like that across all manner of electronics; it’s not just an Amazon thing. Phones, tablets, ereaders—they all have less usable storage space than advertised.

They advertise the full amount of storage space on a device, but what most companies fail to mention is the fact that the operating system takes up some of the advertised space, and some space might be reserved for software updates and such.

You have to look for “usable” or “user” storage space to get the real number for available storage. Some companies advertise this openly, but most don’t. Personally, I think they should be required to advertise the real numbers, but you can usually find the real numbers with a little research.

Amazon doesn’t show the actual user available storage space on the product pages for most Kindles (they did start doing this for the new Kindle Scribes), but they do show the real numbers for all Kindles on this how to identify your Kindle page.

Here are the real storage space numbers in parentheses for each current Kindle model that Amazon sells. Keep in mind the numbers might change slightly in the future with software updates.

Kindles Usable Storage Space

Kindle Scribe Colorsoft 32GB – (21.18 GB)
Kindle Scribe Colorsoft 64GB – (49.94 GB)

Kindle Scribe 3 32GB – (23.43 GB)
Kindle Scribe 3 64GB – (52.19 GB)

Kindle Scribe without frontlight 16GB – (10 GB)

Kindle Colorsoft 16GB – (11.5 GB)
Kindle Colorsoft 32GB – (25 GB)

Kindle Scribe 2 16GB – (11.2 GB)
Kindle Scribe 2 32GB – (25.1 GB)
Kindle Scribe 2 64GB – (54 GB)

Kindle Paperwhite 16GB – (11.5 GB)
Kindle Paperwhite 32GB – (25 GB)

Kindle 16GB (2022/2024) – (11.5 GB)

Check the how to identify your Kindle page on Amazon for usable storage space numbers for previous gen models.