The Amazon Kindle is a great ebook reader, but it’s tightly tied to Amazon’s ecosystem. If you have a Fire tablet or a smartphone, you can download other e-reading apps to beef up your library, but with the Kindle hardware, you’re pretty much tied to getting your content directly from Amazon. Well, sort of. Using a bit of free software, you can take ebooks in a variety of formats and zap them over to my Kindle. Here’s how to do it.
PCMag-Recommended Amazon Kindles
Upload Via ‘Send to Kindle’
Amazon offers a Send to Kindle page where you can upload ebook files saved on your device. At amazon.com/sendtokindle, click Select files from device and select the book you want on your Kindle. This tool supports PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG, JPEG, BMP, and EPUB formats on ebooks up to 200MB in size. (Amazon no longer supports sending new Mobi files.) A status bar will appear, letting you keep tabs on the upload. When it’s ready, there will be a checkmark and an In library notice.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Amazon also has an app for Windows and macOS that lets you do the same thing, as does a Chrome extension, though results are mixed on the latter. Keep in mind that Amazon has discontinued the ability to download ebooks to your computer.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Send Ebooks to the Kindle From Your Phone
If you have the Kindle app installed on your iPhone or Android device, you can add ebooks to your library with a few taps. In the example below, I downloaded an ebook from Project Gutenberg on my iPhone, which saved it to the Files app. I then long-pressed on the ebook, selected Share, and picked the Kindle app in the menu. It then appeared in my library in the Kindle app as well as on my Kindle Paperwhite. The process is similar on Android.
Sending an ebook to the Kindle on iOS (Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Find Your Kindle Email
Amazon also lets you email ebooks to your Kindle account via a specially crafted email address. To find your Kindle’s email address, go to amazon.com/myk on the web (or Account & Lists > Content Library > Devices). Find the relevant Kindle device, click it, and select your ereader.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
On the next page, you’ll find a Device Summary that lists your @kindle.com email address. (It’s set to a default address, but you can change it by clicking Edit.) Back up top, click the Preferences tab and scroll down to Personal Document Settings. Click the down arrow on the right and scroll to Approved Personal Document E-mail List. The email attached to your Amazon account should be listed here. If that’s the email address you’ll be using to send ebooks to your Kindle, you’re all set. To use a different email, click Add a new approved e-mail address and enter the address you want to use.
Get Our Best Stories!
Get the Most Out of Your Technology
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
The Best eReader Deals This Week*
*Deals are selected by our commerce team
Send a PDF to Your Kindle
Amazon can automatically convert PDFs into the Kindle format, but you get two formatting choices. If I want my Kindle to display every page in the PDF as if it were a graphic, I can just email the file to my Kindle’s address (without a subject line), upload it via Send to Kindle, or drag and drop the file onto my Kindle if it’s attached to my PC with a USB cable. It’ll appear on my Kindle like it would on a laptop, maintaining the formatting and graphics, though the font size may be too small to read.
Recommended by Our Editors
Your other option is to attach the PDF file to an email, and make the subject line “convert”—just that word. If I send it to my Kindle email address, the file will be converted into a Kindle version that will let me mark it up and change the formatting. The graphics will still be in there, though you’ll lose the layout of the original PDF.
An unaltered PDF (left) and converted PDF (right) on the Kindle (Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Where Do My Ebooks Show Up?
Once you’ve emailed a book, go Home > From Your Library on your Kindle. It might take a few minutes, but it should update automatically and the ebook will appear—as long as you’re connected to Wi-Fi. Want to get rid of the ebook? Tap the three dots on the bottom right of your ebook in Your Library and select Remove download to remove it from your Kindle or Permanently Delete to remove it from your Amazon account.
Where Do I Get Free Ebooks?
-
Amazon hosts periodic Stuff Your Kindle Days, where select ebooks are free for a 24-hour period (or more). They’re usually grouped by theme. Next up is romance books on July 19 and 22, cozy mysteries on July 24, and historical fiction Aug. 10-12.
-
To hook into public library catalogs and send ebooks to your Kindle, check out the Libby app from OverDrive. (Hoopla offers a similar service.)
-
If you want classics, Project Gutenberg has 70,000+ copyright-free ebooks.
-
For historical and academic texts, check out archive.org.
-
ManyBooks.net has a mix of free and paid classics and self-published titles.
-
Free-Ebooks.net has a large collection of self-published ebooks and classics; provide your email address to get five free ebooks per month.
-
If you like science fiction, the publisher Baen also has a set of free ebooks.
-
BookBub has a free ebook section filled with romance novels and other casual reads.
Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo Clara Colour: Which one is better?
About Chloe Albanesius
Executive Editor for News
