Guide: Accessing and Reading Kindle AZW3 Ebooks on iOS Devices

How to Read Kindle AZW3 Books on iPad/iPhone

Posted by Sisi Liu on 8/11/2023 10:44:03 AM.

Amazon rolled out AZW3 format in late 2011 along with the release of Kindle Fire Tablet. As the enhanced version of the standard AZW format, AZW3 format supports HTML5, CSS3 and some other advanced formatting capabilities. A large number of Kindle books purchased from Amazon are in AZW3 format. In our previous articles we’ve introduced Top 5 AZW3 readers for Android and How to Read AZW3 Books on PC and Mac . Here in this article I’m going to illustrate how to read AZW3 books on iPad/iPhone and introduce the best AZW3 readers for iOS if your AZW3 books are DRM free.

It’s universally known that AZW3 is the Amazon proprietary format and all AZW3 books delivered by Amazon have DRM encryption. Hence, the DRMed AZW3 books can only be read on Kindle related devices or apps. However, Kindle for iOS is not an option when it comes to reading AZW3 books on an iOS device. We’ve tested and found that AZW3 files cannot be read on Kindle for iOS but can be read on Kindle for Android.

Then what apps on earth can read AZW3 books on an iPad or iPhone? To put it simply, there’re two ways to read AZW3 books on an iPad or iPhone. You can either install some 3rd party reader apps on your iOS device or read them with iBooks (now called Apple Books). I’ll elaborate the two ways in details in the following parts of the article.

Prerequisites of reading AZW3 books on an iOS device

AZW3 is a format for Kindle eBooks that are downloaded from Kindle eReader devices (the firmware is not higher than 5.6.x.x) or downloaded directly from the Amazon website for the Kindle eReader.

Traditionally AZW3 files do not work on Apple devices. But I can tell you some solutions to bypass the limitation, liberate your purchased AZW3 books, and allow you to read them on an Apple device. The only prerequisite is you must remove the DRM from the AZW3 books . Without stripping DRM, the AZW3 books are locked by Amazon and are confined to be read on Kindle eInk readers, Kindle desktop app, and Kindle for Android.

I don’t want to brag about the magic tool, Epubor Ultimate , but it does work like a charm!

As the most easy-to-use eBook DRM Removal and Format Converter, Epubor Ultimate only requires one-click to get things done.

Method 1. Read AZW3 books with iBooks (Now Called Books)

After removing DRM from your AZW3 books, you need to convert their formats to ePub or PDF which are compatible with iOS device, import the converted books into your iPhone or iPad, then you can read the epub or pdf files with iBooks.

The following are the steps of decrypting AZW3 books and converting AZW3 to EPUB/PDF:

Step 1. Install Epubor Ultimate on your computer

Download Epubor Ultimate for free

Step 2. Launch Epubor Ultimate to convert AZW3 to EPUB

Add your AZW3 files to Epubor Ultimate, and then on the bottom part, choose the output conversion format as EPUB, click “Convert to EPUB button, and the program starts to convert the books to EPUB format simultaneously. Once the conversion is done, you can see “Succeeded” at the end of the book tile. You can click “Succeeded” to open the output folder or click the “Folder” icon to open it.

Heads up: Please ensure the AZW3 books are purchased via your own Amazon account. The books must be associated with your Amazon account. Loaned books or books obtained from other sources cannot be supported by the program.

Method 2. Read AZW3 books with a 3rd Party Reading Apps

After removing DRM from your purchased AZW3 books with Epubor Ultimate, you can also install some 3rd party reading apps on your iPad/iPhone to read the DRM-free AZW3 books directly without converting the format.

Please take a look at the Best AZW3 Readers for iOS:

TotalReader Rating 4.5 points (according to 57 reviews in Apple App Store).

Wide range of supported formats (fb2, epub, mobi, azw, prc, chm, fbz, rtf, txt, djvu, pdf, xps, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, pages, numbers, key, cbr, cbz, cb7, cbt)
Compatible with all popular archive formats (rar, zip, 7z, gz, tar…)
Speech synthesizer
Integration with popular cloud services(Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Yandex.Disk)
Integration with popular network services(SMB, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, DLNA)

KyBook Rating 4.3 points (according to 199 reviews in Apple App Store).

Supports eBooks in EPUB, FictionBook (fb2, fbz, fb2.zip), TXT, RTF, PDF, DJVU, CHM, Comic Book (cbr, cbz) and Audio Book (mp3, m4a, m4b) formats.
Online book catalogs(OPDS) and network folders
Integrated with Google Books, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Yandex Disc
Integrated with social networking services (Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte)
Flexible reading mode settings
DJVU, CHM, Tor Network and ‘Speed Reading’ requires in-app purchase “Upgrade to Pro Version”.

Mobi Reader Rating 4.6 points (according to 27 reviews in Apple App Store).

Wi-Fi Transfer allows user to download/upload few media files with one click
Integrated with cloud services (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Yandex.Disk)
Integrated with network services (SMB, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, DLNA)
Maximal support OPDS standards
Users can contact technical support and leave a comment without quitting the application

Librairie Rating 4.3 points (according to 199 reviews in Apple App Store).

iOS Cloud Ebook Reader – works with DRM FREE EPUB, MOBI and AZW3 files
Automatically scans your cloud accounts (Dropbox, OneDrive or Goole Drive) to find your ebooks and presents them in a nice looking library
Stream your ebooks from the cloud - No space taken on your device
Convert your ebooks in ePub, MOBI and PDF file formats and export them to any compatible app on your device.
Clean and elegant typography - support for hyphenation and dynamic page numbers

As what I mentioned previously in the article, Kindle for iOS doesn’t support AZW3 files, you can pick one of the reading apps that suits your taste from above to install it on your iPad/iPhone.

Click here

Epilogue

Whether you want to read AZW3 books with iBooks or 3rd party reading apps on your iOS device, removing DRM from the AZW3 books is inevitable. You can download Epubor Ultimate for free by clicking the links below. The trial version of Epubor Ultimate handles DRM removal and format conversion of 20% contents of your original eBooks. If you want to get 100% contents of eBooks decrypted and convert their formats losslessly, you need to upgrade Epubor Ultimate to the paid version.

Download Epubor Ultimate for free

Sisi Liu Sisi is a newbie who joined Epubor in November 2017. She’s a bookworm her whole life and has taken great interest in eBooks recently. She learns professional knowledge about ebooks in Epubor and loves to share her know-how to all the ebook lovers!

SHARING IS GREAT!

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Guide: Accessing and Reading Kindle AZW3 Ebooks on iOS Devices