Guide: Effortlessly Moving Your Kindle eBooks From PC to MAC

How to Transfer Kindle Books on Mac

Posted by Jonny Greenwood on 11/23/2018 4:29:58 PM.

When I talk about “transfer books to Kindle” in this article, I mean copy the downloaded/DRM-free books to Kindle. If you have other needs about tranfering Kindle books, please read this comprehensive Kindle transfer guide.

What kind of books can be transferred to Kindle?

At first you need to understand if a book is directly downloaded from your E-ink Kindle eReader (means you login with Amazon account, and download a book purchased via your own account), then this book can’t be read on any other Kindle nor computer because those books have DRM protection.

So, we must confirm the books we want to transfer are DRM-free.

Then comes to the format. Kindle supports many formats, on their official website, it says “Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively”.

Among all these formats, I recommend you convert the book to Mobi. Yes, this format is a bit out of date, but it is 100% supported by all generations of Kindle, even Kindle Fire tablets.

OK, I have Mobi books ready, what’s the next?

1. Make sure the book is Mobi format.

2. Plug Kindle to computer with USB cable.

3. Copy the Mobi file and paste it to “documents” folder, which is under Kindle’s root path.

If you are using Kindle Fire, you can transfer the Mobi file to “Books” folder instead of “Documents”.

Wait… If you need to transfer to Kindle Fire HD/HDX

Kindle Fire tablet is slightly different with E-Ink Kindle eReader. There are “Books” and “Documents” folders under the root path, for the latest version, Kindle Fire HDX, there is also a “Kindle” folder under root path.

In theory, you can copy Mobi files to any of these folders. I always copy to “Books” folder, and it works well all the time.

Tips: If your Mac computer doesn’t recognize your Kindle Fire, you need to install a free application called “Android File Transfer”. Here to download: https://www.android.com/filetransfer/

If still doesn’t work, try another USB port, re-connect Kindle Fire, or reboot computer.

Frequently Asked Qustions:

Q: Why the book doesn’t show up in my Kindle after being transferred?
A: It takes time for Kindle to react, and it depends on the storage usage situation and Kindle generation.

Q: Why there is no cover in home screen?
A: This is how Kindle works. Amazon only wants Kindle to display paid Amazon books in Kindle home screen. (By manually uploading a thumbnail image to Kindle you can fix this)

Q: Why the book doesn’t show up in my Kindle Fire after being transferred?
A: By default the Mobi books won’t show up in “Books” tab, you can find the book in “Docs” tab. Amazon thinks a Mobi file is a document rather than a book.

Q: Why there is no cover in Kindle Fire’s home carousel?
A: You need to make sure the cover image is higher than 1000PX in width. Amazon doesn’t want to show a low resolution image on the home screen. [Guide about changing Kindle book’s cover image ]

Jonny Greenwood joined Epubor since 2011, loves everything about eBooks and eReaders. He seeks the methods to read eBooks more freely and wants to share all he has got with you.

SHARING IS GREAT!

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Guide: Effortlessly Moving Your Kindle eBooks From PC to MAC