Amazon is killing Kindle's Download and Transfer feature

[silversea]

In case you haven't seen the news yet, Amazon will officially stop their Kindle's Download and Transfer feature on February 26th, further locking people in the Kindle ecosystem.

As a longtime Kindle user, I'm very frustrated with this change. I already had thoughts about the locked in ecosystem of Kindle before, but now I'll be looking for alternatives.

Anyway, if you're planning to download and backup your Kindle collection, a wonderful Bluesky user made a Tampermonkey userscript to quickly download your Kindle collection. All you need to do is install the userscript then go to your Kindle library on Amazon's website, and it'll do the job of downloading all your books. It can't download everything in one go, but it'll save you from the tedious task of manually clicking everything.

Edit: There's an updated script that's also fully automated, so I'd recommend using it.

Comments

[vampiricprose]

that is so frustrating! i'm so glad I made the jump from kindle to kobo this year, and this only affirms that feeling for me. my thoughts are with you, kindle users.

[silversea]

How is the Kobo experience compared to Kindle? It's the biggest alternative so I'm interested.

[mucky]

Not OP, but I have the Kobo Clara HD (bought refurbished for $100 USD) and one of the factors that went into the purchase was how many formats it supported (far surpassing that of Kindle or Nook). That plus the ease with which you can sideload e-books through a USB cable sealed the deal for me.

It's an older model, so perhaps doesn't apply to other, newer ones, but in my experience, the worst part is that loading PDFs takes forever and can freeze the system for 2-10 seconds per page. Also that I have to regularly back up the files on my Kobo because it bricked itself once and needed a hard reset. But, well, refurbished, slightly older item, so I've accepted that it has some quirks.

[silversea]

That's unfortunate about the PDFs, but hopefully they've fixed it in the newer models. My Kindle's on the newer side so I won't have to replace it for a while (fingers crossed), but it looks like I may start buying ebooks from Kobo's storefront now.

[vampiricprose]

I have a Kobo Libra Color that I got as a Christmas gift from my boyfriend brand new and I use Calibre to sideload, and I haven't had any problems with PDF crashes or hard system resets. However, when I try to return a library book through my Kobo, it takes fucking forevvvverrrrrrrrrrr and I can't exit without restarting my device, so I've resigned myself to returning them through the Libby app on my phone :)

I'm sorry that you've had the problems with your device :(

[vampiricprose]

So I have a Kobo Libra Color (KLC) and it's UI (and price point) are a bit different to even other Kobo devices, let alone Kindle (yes, even the colorsoft). A big thing for me is that on my KLC I can write in color on the book file, as if I were annotating a real book. On top of this, my KLC has in-device Libby/Overdrive support, meaning I can reserve or take out a library book without having to open my phone or laptop. Any company who does those two things has my attention lol.

Another thing I enjoy about Kobo is that there's no lockscreen ads. It's just the book cover and from my understanding, it's also customizable (I have no desire to change it so I'm unsure of how that process works).

I'm unsure if Kindle has this, but my Kobo can also change orientations, which I love.

Finally, when you unlock or open your Kobo, it opens to your library, not the Kobo store. I didn't realize how much that bothered me until I didn't have to deal with it anymore.

A drawback is that sometimes when you tap the screen to change the page, it doesn't register my finger (this might just be a me thing because this also happened with my Kindle sometimes), but the Kobo has page turning buttons.

Another drawback is that if you have a passcode on your Kobo and you want to change orientation, (a) you can't change the lockscreen orientation and (b), it takes a second for Kobo to load in and you might have to twist it a couple times to realize that you want it to change orientation.

My final drawback is that sometimes dog and cat hair gets caught in the corners of the screen, but it is usually really easy to remove.

For me, Kobo has more benefits than drawbacks and I really love my KLC! I hope I helped you, and please do let me know if you have any more questions!!! :)

PS, sorry for the extremely late reply, lol.

PPS I accidentally replied like 3 times because slow internet. rip ur notifs.