31 ms·

Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

354 points by bumbledraven 4y ago

pseingatl 4y ago
This is proof that we are still in the digital incunabula.
helpfulmandrill 4y ago
Still not buying a kindle until they retire the DRM too.
glenngillen 4y ago
If, like me, Amazon dropping support for the MOBI for at was news to you then here is an article discussing the announcement: https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping-mobi-support-on-send-to-kindle-apps/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping...
- lvass 4y ago
  This is just a transfer feature, the deprecation is older as I was already unable to source the official CLI converter a few years ago.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    The CLI is still shipped with Kindle Previewer 3 software. It's still used internally by Amazon.
paxys 4y ago
I'm very confused about what file format(s) Kindle actually supports. * They are dropping support for MOBI from their Send to Kindle website and apps. * They are adding support for ePub in their Send to Kindle website and apps, but apparently they will be converted to Kindle format (MOBI? AZW?) under the hood. * Several sites mention AZW3 as the official Kindle format. Is that the same as MOBI? * It is unclear whether ePub and/or MOBI are natively supported by Kindle. If I connect my Kindle and (1) drag an ePub to its local storage and (2) drag a MOBI to its local storage, will either of them work or not?
- julianlam 4y ago
  Short of a software update, I don't imagine older Kindles would magically be able to read ePub files. It sounds like sideloading a .mobi file will still work.
  - iou 4y ago
    I did a sideload of .mobi today after being rejected by email, no issues.
  - jorgesborges 4y ago
    My paperwhite did an update a month or so ago around the time I started getting emails about this. It’s been nice not converting to .mobi before transferring (sorry Calibre, I don’t need you anymore) but there are still a few glitches reading the format, especially with special characters. Nothing too annoying.
    - skrause 4y ago
      My 4th generation Kindle from 2011 didn't get a software update.
- banana_giraffe 4y ago
  Mobi and AZW3 (aka KF8) are both at their core Palm DB files. AZW3 are basically Mobi files for backwards compatibility purposes, with an added compiled ePub file for improved layout options. Kindles can read both formats, with newer Kindles using the HTML/CSS from AZW3 files. As far as I know, the only options to get an ePub onto a Kindle convert to an AZW3 before putting sending it to the Kindle (or manually convert to a Mobi file before sideloading it). And those conversions aren't perfect, I've absolutely had technically correct ePubs end up as a confused mess when sent to a Kindle. Though, these days most publishers seem to be targeting whatever subset of ePubs Amazon supports in their conversion pipeline.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    AZW3 is itself one of their "old" formats. Their new hotness is KFX which is some proprietary binary ever-shifting always-DRM'd even when "DRM-free" format. This is the only format that supports the enhanced typesetting feature. The best way I've found to get ePubs onto Kindles is to use Amazon's Kindlegen. It does the least damage.
iou 4y ago
Also send-to-kindle today rejected a mobi I sent by email with: >>> Send to Kindle supports the following document formats: Adobe PDF (.pdf) Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) Rich Text Format (.rtf) HTML (.htm, .html) Text (.txt) documents Archived documents (zip , x-zip) and compressed archived documents MOBI (.azw, .mobi) (will not support the most up-to-date Kindle features for documents) JPEG (.jpg), GIF (.gif), Bitmap (.bmp), and PNG (.png) images. Additionally, Send to Kindle emails now supports EPUB (.epub). Later this year, we’ll also be adding EPUB support to the free Kindle app for iOS and Android devices and the Send to Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac.
- iou 4y ago
  I thought the response was a bad thing, but if it just means we’re finally accepting epub as a common default that’s pretty great, right?
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    Does Amazon still strip metadata and cover art from user-provided epubs? If they're still intentionally gimping the implementation, IMO it's a step backwards
    - alexott 4y ago
      At least author title and cover is kept - I’ve sent few books few days ago. There was a period when it didn’t handle them well when sent via email, but they fixed it few months ago
    - kemayo 4y ago
      Not sure about metadata, but cover art persists through the email-to-kindle process at least.
    - ComputerGuru 4y ago
      It does on first web sync after the ebook is transferred. It can be fixed (by transferring again) and then it won’t be removed on subsequent sync.
longrod 4y ago
Finally! Amazon should have done this long ago. ePub v3 supports everything MOBI does and it has really extensive support across platforms. This is HUGE for people with a big eBook collection.
- teraflop 4y ago
  Note that the Kindle devices themselves still do not support ePub files. (EDIT: as of the last time I checked a month or two ago, but maybe this has changed?) Previously, you could send a MOBI file to your Kindle email address, and it would be delivered to your Kindle. Now, you have to send them an ePub file, and Amazon will convert it to an AZW3 file (which is structurally very similar to MOBI) and send that to your Kindle. If you have an ePub file and you want to read it on your Kindle without going through Amazon's servers, you have to convert it to AZW3 (or MOBI) yourself, either using Amazon's Kindle Previewer GUI software (only available for Windows/Mac) or by using a third-party tool like Calibre.
  - captn3m0 4y ago
    Hasn't changed. Amazon has demonstrated some intent to do this in the future though, by deprecating MOBI and enabling the EPUB-over-email thing. The Pearson post mentions: > Amazon has announced the retirement of its proprietary MOBI file format for eBooks, and a transition to the EPUB format for use on Kindle devices and apps. which makes me wonder if they know more than we do?
  - qumpis 4y ago
    Does this mean that the formatting due to conversation might change? Aren't the features of azw3 lacking compared to mobi: can this also result in unwanted changes?
- Markoff 4y ago
  Yup, less options is win for users! Why not just add more supported formats instead doing mess with removing and ading formats?
- moffkalast 4y ago
cable2600 4y ago
Amazon chose MOBL because it was compatible with the PRC format the old Palm Pilots used. The Palm Pilot was the original eBook reader.
- banana_giraffe 4y ago
  I still miss Peanut Reader and peanutpress.com Simpler times.
- dmitrygr 4y ago
  yup, and the original app to read these was MobiPocket reader. Curiously, the pdb wrapper is completely pointless on all non-palmOS platforms, but since it only adds a negligibly-small header (0x4e + (dataSize / 0xff00) * 8) bytes, nobody cared and it allowed using all original tools
- wyldfire 4y ago
  I actually read a bunch of novels on the palm. It seems bonkers to imagine straining my eyes that way these days. But I found it pretty enjoyable at the time.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    Worked fine if you enlarged the font. You ended up with 1/4 or lesss of a page on screen at one time, but who cared. Weeks worth of reading in your pocket!
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    > It seems bonkers to imagine straining my eyes that way these days. But I found it pretty enjoyable at the time. Haha yeah! Similar story here. When I was in high school I had a Sony Ericsson W810i. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_W810 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_W810 I read multiple full books, hundreds of pages long, on this tiny screen.
  - themadturk 4y ago
    The Palm was certainly my first ereader. I didn't use it for very long before my sister sent me her Kindle 1 (which she was replacing with a Kindle 2), but my eyes were much better in those days than they are now! I still miss the auto-scrolling feature of the Palm's ereading software.
debugnik 4y ago
Is this to stop users from downloading MOBI files with old versions of the Kindle app and export them with Calibre? Or was that already over?
- innocenat 4y ago
  That process has been being done with AZW3 for a long, long time already. It's not related.
  - debugnik 4y ago
    Last time I checked, removing the AZW3 DRM required third party plugins that many people had trouble making work, while the MOBI downloads were easy and DRM-free. But that was long ago, so maybe it's easier now.
DavidWoof 4y ago
This is a welcome move, but I keep trying to figure out how this is going to effect Libby users (which is probably 80% of my kindle usage these day) and I can't find any info at all. Does anyone have any idea?
- teraflop 4y ago
  This particular page is only talking about a change to Microsoft's ebook store. On Amazon's side, they've been updating their docs to talk about how MOBI is "deprecated", but the only actual change announced is that MOBI support has been removed from the "Send to Kindle" (via email) feature. So if you're not using that, you should be unaffected.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Barrin92 4y ago
I'm extremely confused about this. I have an older Kindle Paperwhite (PW 3/ 7th gen I think?) and when I used the 'email sent' feature I got that mail about dropping mobi support in favor of epub, but when sending an actual epub I got an error for sending a wrong file, ostensibly because the Kindle only supports mobi. Are they going to ship a software update? Would be a shame if that service doesn't work any more in the future.
- innocenat 4y ago
  Probably because the EPUB file has some problem. Amazon is very strict about EPUB validity.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > Amazon is very strict about EPUB validity. They're also bad at converting perfectly valid epubs to their own format.
    - innocenat 4y ago
      EPUB3, yes. I don't think I have seen any EPUB2 having problem (except if it's missing encoding declaration)
      - drittich 4y ago
        How are you getting them onto your Kindle? Send to Kindle using EPUB does not work at all for me.
        thaumasiotes 4y ago
        Amazon provides a tool that will convert epubs to kindle documents. (Poorly.) https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Previewer/b?ie=UTF8&node=21381691011 https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Previewer/b?ie=UTF8&node=21381... They do this because the normal flow involved in publishing a kindle book is that you write an epub and submit it to Amazon.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Interesting, I thought piracy might’ve had something to do with it.
twerh34fasdfa 4y ago
On a side-note: I'm surprised devices like Kindle survive where superior ones like those from Sony perish simply because of the software walled garden. Not a good outlook for humanity.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  One word: Betamax
- lvass 4y ago
  What walled garden are you talking about? I never even connected my ~8 year old kindle to the internet, only send files that I own via USB.
  - Markoff 4y ago
    good luck transferring files if you forget cable, see my other lengthy post here
    - Shorel 4y ago
      As long as they have Wi-Fi, Calibre has a nice web server for this.
      - Markoff 4y ago
        TIL GTK thanks
    - liveoneggs 4y ago
      How often are you recycling books on these devices?
- nicolas_t 4y ago
  So far the kindle oasis is the best ereader in term of hardware and ergonomy I've used and that's comparing to a kobo sage I also have and to all the ereaders I've had over the years (never had sony but I used to purposefully avoid amazon)
nicolas_t 4y ago
Has anyone had any success sending epub with send to kindle via email? So far since the announcement of them dropping support, I've tried but every time I get a message saying the epub I sent is not in the correct format.
- vzaliva 4y ago
  I tried 2 days ago and it worked.
- longnguyen 4y ago
  I build a tool to send articles and newsletters to Kindle[0]. I’ve been sending EPUB for a few months and it’s tricky. Amazon still use the old Kindlegen software and to check if your epub has issues, you need to download their Kindlepreview app and open your epub. [0]: https://ktool.io https://ktool.io
- colomon 4y ago
  It's worked about 90% of the time for me. Basically everything I've sent to kindle the last two months I've sent as EPUB, and most of it worked. A lot of them were the "Compatible EPUB" version from Standard EBooks. (Even though it says they're not for Kindle, that appears to be out-of-date.) So I just tried Man and Superman this way -- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-bernard-shaw/man-and-superman https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-bernard-shaw/man-an... -- and it worked just fine. I guess I don't know if the formatting is completely correct, but I haven't had any difficulty reading books loaded this way -- pretty sure they look significantly better than the Project Gutenberg equivalents.
  - acabal 4y ago
    AFAIK when you use "send to Kindle", Amazon takes your epub and runs it through Kindlegen (or whatever Amazon's current equivalent is) to create an azw3 on their end. They are not rendering the raw epub - it goes through a black-box conversion before you see it. Thus, all bets are off as to how the "epub" will look on your Kindle. (Indeed, Calibre does a better job converting to azw3 than Kindlegen! That's why we use Calibre when creating azw3 files at Standard Ebooks.) I won't believe Kindle supports epub until I can transfer an epub via USB cable and have it available to for immediate reading. Anything else is Amazon "supporting" epub with very big air quotes.
Thorentis 4y ago
I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.
- hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 4y ago
- jfim 4y ago
  > Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is. Easy purchasing of ebooks from Amazon, combined with their large selection of ebooks.
  - nucleardog 4y ago
    Yeah like, I don't wanna point out the typical HN problem but... Imagine explaining this to someone's grandma. "Click this Amazon shortcut, type your book name up here, click on it down below, press 'buy now'. If it doesn't show up right away, wait 5 minutes and check again." Versus... something to do with trying to download mobi files (from where?), starting calibre, starting an import process, locating said files (this is seriously harder than you think for most people), plugging your reader into your PC, running a sync process...
    - anakaine 4y ago
      1. Turn on the reader. 2. Go to "Kobo Store". 3. Look for a book. 4. Click "Buy". 5. Click the book to open it. Thats about my workflow in the kobo, assuming I didn't drop a file on there via usb.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      99% of this difficulty goes away if Grandma uses her phone or tablets browser to download unlimited free books from zlibrary and reads them on the same device. Honestly the grandma example is starting to feel dated. When I was born in 1980 a 50 year old grandma was born in 1930 and probably didn't own a TV until they were raising their own family. The same 50 year old today was born in 1972 and would have been 5 when the Apple II hit the scene. At what point do we realize that eventually old folks will be those that only grew up with iphones and stop assuming that anyone with grey hear needs to be assumed to be technically incompetent.
wyldfire 4y ago
Aside: what's the best e-reader device (ignoring cost)? I'd like to invest in one soon, something robust and durable, good contrast. I kinda like the idea of running open source software on an ereader but I'd probably consider it merely nice-to-have.
- innocenat 4y ago
  Kindle Paperwhite (2021) is one of the fastest E-reader available right now (in term of responsive ness). Kindle device have excellent dictionary too, especially for non-latin language. (Japanese dictionary implementation on Kobo is not very good). Kobo is more open and is price competitively with Kindle. It's also much more customizable if you are into that. There are also a lot of Android e-ink tablet like BOOX. These are more expensive but a much, much more customizable as it's basically an Android reader. Contrast shouldn't be a problem with any recent device. But anything release in past 1-2 years are excellent.
  - addingnumbers 4y ago
    What about battery replacement? Seems like no matter how good the display and build quality, all eBook readers are bound to stop holding a charge after 3-4 years. I feel like the ongoing availability of newly-produced replacement batteries and the difficulty of replacing them are the primary factors in choosing an ebook reader. My 2015 Paperwhite barely lasts 20 minutes after I pull the charging cable, even back in 2018 it was down from two weeks to two days per charge. It's not like you can avoid the problem by loading up on extra batteries. A replacement battery manufactured shortly after the reader is going to be as bad as the one that came installed by the time I need it. All the other problems I worry about like responsiveness, display quality and defects apply early on when a refund or warranty replacement is a solution.
    - innocenat 4y ago
      > What about battery replacement? I don't think any e-readers are designed to be user-replaceable except the very first Kindle. As for DIY replacement, I don't really know, sorry. > A replacement battery manufactured shortly after the reader is going to be as bad as the one that came installed by the time I need it. Is it? I was under impression that battery mostly degrade with cycle count. At least, there are plenty of people still use Kindle from 10 years ago. > [...] warranty replacement is a solution. Then I think you are mostly limited to Kindle or Kobo. Most other e-reader or e-ink tablet are mostly shipped from China so warranty and replacement are going to not be as good.
CallMeJim 4y ago
I wrote myself a tool to monitor the RSS feeds of a bunch of web serials, and send any new chapters to Kindle. Using Calibre CLI, adapting to send EPUBs instead of MOBIs was as easy as changing from: ebook-convert chapter.html chapter.mobi To: ebook-convert chapter.html chapter.epub Calibre is incredibly powerful.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Yep, it’s the ffmpeg of reading!
- LeafItAlone 4y ago
  I am interested in which web serials you follow and what you tool looks like, if you are willing to share!
xvilka 4y ago
It's sad that leaner and better designed FB2 format (or helped to improve it) didn't gain support from vendors. ePub format is just a bunch of HTML without meaningful semantics.
powersnail 4y ago
My biggest confusion about Send-to-kindle, is that you can't send an `AZW3` file. It's the format that Amazon uses; it works if you transfer it by USB; for some reason, you just can't send it by email. Makes no sense to me.
- innocenat 4y ago
  AFAIK iOS Kindle App can't read AZW3. It's converted to AZK. Amazon probably don't have AZW3->AZK pipeline.
  - powersnail 4y ago
    That just sounds even more curious to me. How can a company make an app that doesn't read a format it invented? AZW3 has been around for years. There's got to be enough time for them to implement it.
    - innocenat 4y ago
      I heard that it's because Amazon don't want to use WebKit for HTML rendering. AZW3 is mostly EPUB in different package. Don't quote me on this though.
      - wtallis 4y ago
        Why would Amazon have to use WebKit for HTML rendering? Does Apple have rules about that which apply to more than just web browsers? (IIRC there's also some restriction against JIT, but that would only matter for JS-heavy stuff, which the web is but ebooks definitely aren't.)
    - brewdad 4y ago
      I honestly think that Amazon can't fathom a world where you could end up with an AZW3 file that wasn't purchased, and therefore directly downloadable from, their store.
Rufhfhs3747rhe7 4y ago
~8" foldable phones have eliminated the need for a separate eReader in my opinion. OLED screens are comfortable enough to read on and open source apps on Android can open any format and integrate with any dictionary. And most importantly, it's already always with me.
- Markoff 4y ago
  How many weeks of reading they last on one charge? Also OLED screens ae horrible for reading compared to e-ink.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I disagree that reading on OLED is the same as e-ink, and I disagree with the idea that I would want to read on my phone instead of on a dedicated device. For me, part of the experience is getting away from the phone.
frown_away 4y ago
Removing support for a file format must be one of the dumbest things you can do in software. Congratulations!
Markoff 4y ago
getting files to kindle for me this summer vacation 2-3 weeks ago was major PITA, I took kindle for kid and first USB cable in drawer unaware that this particular USB cable is only for charging and can't do data transfer, since i use only USB C and kindle doesn't support it my kindle has no amazon account, because I am sideloading everything offline, prety much not using anything online on kindle so when I figured out the problem is USB cable and registering amazon account would be too troublesome I discovered you can't send files to kindle simply over wifi direct or bluetooth or other simple way and I end up downloading legally obtained books from my library first to my laptop from where I connected to FTP server launched in Mixplorer in my Android phone, transferred through there books to phone, then again launched in mixplorer in phone HTTP server since kindle doesn't support FTP connection, typed IP address in experimental kindle browser and et voila I could finally see files I wanted to read on Kindle, only problem was despite the format supposedly supported by Kindle, when I tapped on file it shown me error the file is not supported for download through kindle browser (despite supported if you sideload it through data cable), so I had again convert these PDF/EPUB/AZW or whatever files in calibre to MOBI, again transfer to phone, then again transfer to kindle, where finally after tapping files were downloaded and I could finally read story to my kid, can't imagine how regular user would be able to transfer books to kindle without data cable and amazon account and if their transfer service stops supporting certain format then only option for regular user is data cable
- Markoff 4y ago
  TIL Calibre has own web/content server which should be accessible from Kindle experimental browser, so could save myself trouble transferring files back and forth through mobile
evolve2k 4y ago
Umm does this mean I can now “borrow” ebooks from the library? From the point of view that the library borrow systems never supported MOBI but seemed to support other formats.
- nikau 4y ago
  There is software that can strip out the DRM, but its piracy either way so if that's your preference just go to library genesis and get the book already converted.
physicsguy 4y ago
Is this just trying to frustrate people pirating e-books and e-mailing themselves them via AWS servers?
- jhbadger 4y ago
  Probably not. Most ebooks "floating out there" are already in epub format. If anything, this makes it easier because they don't have to be converted to mobi.
- sanjayts 4y ago
  Why would someone do this? Isn't it basically asking to get the account deactivated due to piracy concerns esp given that now Amazon has the whole trail of things you have pirated?
  - physicsguy 4y ago
    People do it because documents that go through the e-mail thing sync across devices like Amazon purchased books.
- ryanmercer 4y ago
  As has been said lots of books are already out there as epub, there are many that are already in Amazon's file format too. I'd guess that most people torrenting books are using calibre anyway.
leotaku 4y ago
This is great news! MOBI and especially KF8 (Amazon flavour of XHTML on MOBI) are horribly complex by virtue of them being additional layers over the PalmDB format, which on it's own is actually quite elegant. I've spent quite some time on building a fully featured MOBI library[1]. A bit sad that my work will become obsolete this quickly, but definitely good in the long run. [1]: https://github.com/leotaku/mobi https://github.com/leotaku/mobi
- mariusor 4y ago
  I was just looking for a replacement library for go to build documents for the Kindle. I have a little service that converts RSS feeds articles into content for ebook readers and currently for them I was converting to mobi. It's great to see that there's an "easy" way to switch to AZW.
hbossy 4y ago
That's too bad. I used it a lot to produce epub fitting on my old Sony PRS-300. It couldn't parse pirated epubs with tables of contents, diacritical signs and illustrations, so it was easier to download mobi and convert it in Calibre to epub. It worked nine times out of ten, compared to maybe 10% with epub->epub conversion.
clementmas 4y ago
From a user perspective that seems like great news. Now I don't have to worry about file extensions. I just keep ePub files in my library.
anilakar 4y ago
I can only find mentions about Amazon's "Send to Kindle" feature doing internal .epub to AZW coversion and I really don't consider that as proper support for the format.
tmd83 4y ago
One of my favourite kindle feature :) it fits in most of my back pockets. I like to read while on the road, when waiting etc and not having to carry it on my hand which is a hassle and not forgetting in random place is a big feature for me.
notdarkyet 4y ago
Are there any good ebook services that sell books in epub formats? Typically I will try and buy from the publishers website to load onto the Kobo but ideally I can buy the epubs themselves without being locked into a service like Amazon/Kobo.
- hiidrew 4y ago
  library genesis is a wonderful site :)
varispeed 4y ago
On topic, how does the eReader world look today? I tried one a couple of years ago, and as a person with ADHD I was constantly frustrated how bad the experience was in terms of responsiveness. I can see it could work for a book that you access linearly, but for technical books, where you often need to switch between pages it was a chore and I couldn't focus my attention on reading. So I still buy paper books, because I can quickly flick between the pages and access my bookmarks. The downside is that they use a ton of space in my room and I am hoping that one day someone makes an eReader that I can flick through pages as fast as a real book (or faster).
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I have a 2014 model an I only use it for narrative reading. I'm not sure the UX has caught up with the need to quickly go between different areas of a book. But I hear the new Kindle Paperwhite has a really fast refresh.
- AlanYx 4y ago
  Full page refresh is still slow, but the interfaces have gotten better to mitigate that a little. I've never used a Kindle, but on Kobos there's a scrubbing interface that appears that shows pages about 1/8th size so you can flip through them visually a lot faster (due to partial refresh), and the page location scrollbar places enlarged dots around places you've been recently, so it's not hard to flip back and forth between a few places (e.g., your current reading location and an endnotes section).
NoboruWataya 4y ago
I have a very old Kindle (3rd gen, ~12 years old) and I am unsure how it will be impacted by this. My understanding was that Kindles didn't support EPUB files. It seems that Amazon now intend to roll out support for EPUB, but I highly doubt a model as old as mine will get an update. So it seems that for now, while Amazon are just converting EPUBs to MOBI behind the scenes, everything will continue working. But if down the line they update their more modern devices to support EPUB and then stop converting to MOBI, I won't be able to email devices to my Kindle anymore and will have to sideload them via USB. Is there anyone else in a similar situation who can tell me if this is true?
- Elidrake42 4y ago
  I personally use `ebook-convert` (comes with Calibre) with a simple script that'll capture anything in a drop dir, convert it, and email it off.
- loeg 4y ago
  You can always convert EPUB to MOBI yourself using Calibre. I often have to convert the other way (EPUB to AZW3) with a newer kindle.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  My understanding is that Amazon already crossed into that "mixed" state you are worried about: after a certain OS version Kindles natively understand EPUB (and can be sideloaded via USB, not just emailed). This was rolled out relatively quietly and the Send to Kindle tools have been taking a lot longer to update to support the .epub file extension even when the devices support it. We have something of an idea of when it rolled out in that it is noticeable the current "modern" KFX (?) format is a light tweak of EPUB. But there are indications that there are probably still active kindle devices which Amazon is converting AZW3, KFX, and EPUB behind the scenes still. I still have a 3rd gen kindle keyboard myself that I use rarely and the outward differences between its OS and the OS on my other two more recent kindles are growing increasingly stark (and not entirely for the better, Amazon's recent cover focus even in list views have made the device's library a much bigger chore to navigate with no more than 6 books displayed at a time in either grid or list views). Easy to imagine nearly as many inward differences, including format support, between the OS versions. So far, Amazon seems to want to support any active kindles for the long haul and I would be surprised if any behind the scenes converters get "turned off" without notice, but because they don't tell us where the exact lines are in which devices support which OS versions and which OS versions introduce which feature support, it's a strange gamble with not enough information.
atlgator 4y ago
My understanding is that Amazon supports conversions of EPUB to MOBI through their "email to your kindle" feature. Is there a firmware update planned for Kindles to support EPUB natively?
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  My understanding is that there was OS version years back that added EPUB native support, but Amazon never properly announced it, it just quietly happened. It's taken a while longer for the Send to Kindle tool to update to add .epub file format support, but people have been sideloading EPUBs over USB for some time now.
unethical_ban 4y ago
I asked about whether DeDRM will still work for me to truly own the books I legally purchased on /r/kindle, and my post was removed. It is infuriating there are communities of readers who are so in the pocket of Amazon they block conversations about DRM stripping.
- themadturk 4y ago
  I feel your pain, but it is still highly illegal to do strip DRM in the U.S. (five years in prison, $500k fine) Sometimes it's a matter of self-preservation, not being in Amazon's pocket.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
God Mobi is so frustrating to deal with. I batch add books to my old kindle paperwhite once a year. It's a nightmare everytime. Sometimes emails to my kindle works. Sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes their official app works. Sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes Everything needs to be mobi. Sometimes other formats will be accepted but then look like shit. I love the hardware of my paperwhite and its by far the best ~$115 I've ever spent on a device but getting books onto it, other than buying through the amazon kindle store, is the worst.
- shuntress 4y ago
  I know you and everyone else reading knows this but this is by design. Amazon wants it to be as difficult as possible (if not impossible) to buy _anything_ (not just digital books) from anywhere other than Amazon.
- deaddodo 4y ago
  I’m confused, my Voyage just accepts PDF files, no issue. For anything non-Amazon purchased, that’s the format I use. It is annoying that other common formats (epub, particularly) are unsupported though.
neves 4y ago
Would I be able to just copy a epub to my Kindle Paperwhite 7th Generation? Or it will work just using "Send to Kindle"? I've just generated a personal e-book in epub and it was really annoying to convert it to Kindle to load in the device.
drittich 4y ago
I'm confused, because Send to Kindle does not support sending EPUB files as of yet. Does this mean a future release will?

354 points by bumbledraven 4y ago

pseingatl 4y ago

This is proof that we are still in the digital incunabula.

helpfulmandrill 4y ago

Still not buying a kindle until they retire the DRM too.

glenngillen 4y ago

If, like me, Amazon dropping support for the MOBI for at was news to you then here is an article discussing the announcement: https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping-mobi-support-on-send-to-kindle-apps/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping...

lvass 4y ago
This is just a transfer feature, the deprecation is older as I was already unable to source the official CLI converter a few years ago.
- innocenat 4y ago
  The CLI is still shipped with Kindle Previewer 3 software. It's still used internally by Amazon.

paxys 4y ago

I'm very confused about what file format(s) Kindle actually supports. * They are dropping support for MOBI from their Send to Kindle website and apps. * They are adding support for ePub in their Send to Kindle website and apps, but apparently they will be converted to Kindle format (MOBI? AZW?) under the hood. * Several sites mention AZW3 as the official Kindle format. Is that the same as MOBI? * It is unclear whether ePub and/or MOBI are natively supported by Kindle. If I connect my Kindle and (1) drag an ePub to its local storage and (2) drag a MOBI to its local storage, will either of them work or not?

julianlam 4y ago
Short of a software update, I don't imagine older Kindles would magically be able to read ePub files. It sounds like sideloading a .mobi file will still work.
- iou 4y ago
  I did a sideload of .mobi today after being rejected by email, no issues.
- jorgesborges 4y ago
  My paperwhite did an update a month or so ago around the time I started getting emails about this. It’s been nice not converting to .mobi before transferring (sorry Calibre, I don’t need you anymore) but there are still a few glitches reading the format, especially with special characters. Nothing too annoying.
  - skrause 4y ago
    My 4th generation Kindle from 2011 didn't get a software update.
banana_giraffe 4y ago
Mobi and AZW3 (aka KF8) are both at their core Palm DB files. AZW3 are basically Mobi files for backwards compatibility purposes, with an added compiled ePub file for improved layout options. Kindles can read both formats, with newer Kindles using the HTML/CSS from AZW3 files. As far as I know, the only options to get an ePub onto a Kindle convert to an AZW3 before putting sending it to the Kindle (or manually convert to a Mobi file before sideloading it). And those conversions aren't perfect, I've absolutely had technically correct ePubs end up as a confused mess when sent to a Kindle. Though, these days most publishers seem to be targeting whatever subset of ePubs Amazon supports in their conversion pipeline.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  AZW3 is itself one of their "old" formats. Their new hotness is KFX which is some proprietary binary ever-shifting always-DRM'd even when "DRM-free" format. This is the only format that supports the enhanced typesetting feature. The best way I've found to get ePubs onto Kindles is to use Amazon's Kindlegen. It does the least damage.

iou 4y ago

Also send-to-kindle today rejected a mobi I sent by email with: >>> Send to Kindle supports the following document formats: Adobe PDF (.pdf) Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) Rich Text Format (.rtf) HTML (.htm, .html) Text (.txt) documents Archived documents (zip , x-zip) and compressed archived documents MOBI (.azw, .mobi) (will not support the most up-to-date Kindle features for documents) JPEG (.jpg), GIF (.gif), Bitmap (.bmp), and PNG (.png) images. Additionally, Send to Kindle emails now supports EPUB (.epub). Later this year, we’ll also be adding EPUB support to the free Kindle app for iOS and Android devices and the Send to Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac.

iou 4y ago
I thought the response was a bad thing, but if it just means we’re finally accepting epub as a common default that’s pretty great, right?
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Does Amazon still strip metadata and cover art from user-provided epubs? If they're still intentionally gimping the implementation, IMO it's a step backwards
  - alexott 4y ago
    At least author title and cover is kept - I’ve sent few books few days ago. There was a period when it didn’t handle them well when sent via email, but they fixed it few months ago
  - kemayo 4y ago
    Not sure about metadata, but cover art persists through the email-to-kindle process at least.
  - ComputerGuru 4y ago
    It does on first web sync after the ebook is transferred. It can be fixed (by transferring again) and then it won’t be removed on subsequent sync.

longrod 4y ago

Finally! Amazon should have done this long ago. ePub v3 supports everything MOBI does and it has really extensive support across platforms. This is HUGE for people with a big eBook collection.

teraflop 4y ago
Note that the Kindle devices themselves still do not support ePub files. (EDIT: as of the last time I checked a month or two ago, but maybe this has changed?) Previously, you could send a MOBI file to your Kindle email address, and it would be delivered to your Kindle. Now, you have to send them an ePub file, and Amazon will convert it to an AZW3 file (which is structurally very similar to MOBI) and send that to your Kindle. If you have an ePub file and you want to read it on your Kindle without going through Amazon's servers, you have to convert it to AZW3 (or MOBI) yourself, either using Amazon's Kindle Previewer GUI software (only available for Windows/Mac) or by using a third-party tool like Calibre.
- captn3m0 4y ago
  Hasn't changed. Amazon has demonstrated some intent to do this in the future though, by deprecating MOBI and enabling the EPUB-over-email thing. The Pearson post mentions: > Amazon has announced the retirement of its proprietary MOBI file format for eBooks, and a transition to the EPUB format for use on Kindle devices and apps. which makes me wonder if they know more than we do?
- qumpis 4y ago
  Does this mean that the formatting due to conversation might change? Aren't the features of azw3 lacking compared to mobi: can this also result in unwanted changes?
Markoff 4y ago
Yup, less options is win for users! Why not just add more supported formats instead doing mess with removing and ading formats?
moffkalast 4y ago

cable2600 4y ago

Amazon chose MOBL because it was compatible with the PRC format the old Palm Pilots used. The Palm Pilot was the original eBook reader.

banana_giraffe 4y ago
I still miss Peanut Reader and peanutpress.com Simpler times.
dmitrygr 4y ago
yup, and the original app to read these was MobiPocket reader. Curiously, the pdb wrapper is completely pointless on all non-palmOS platforms, but since it only adds a negligibly-small header (0x4e + (dataSize / 0xff00) * 8) bytes, nobody cared and it allowed using all original tools
wyldfire 4y ago
I actually read a bunch of novels on the palm. It seems bonkers to imagine straining my eyes that way these days. But I found it pretty enjoyable at the time.
- nottorp 4y ago
  Worked fine if you enlarged the font. You ended up with 1/4 or lesss of a page on screen at one time, but who cared. Weeks worth of reading in your pocket!
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > It seems bonkers to imagine straining my eyes that way these days. But I found it pretty enjoyable at the time. Haha yeah! Similar story here. When I was in high school I had a Sony Ericsson W810i. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_W810 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_W810 I read multiple full books, hundreds of pages long, on this tiny screen.
- themadturk 4y ago
  The Palm was certainly my first ereader. I didn't use it for very long before my sister sent me her Kindle 1 (which she was replacing with a Kindle 2), but my eyes were much better in those days than they are now! I still miss the auto-scrolling feature of the Palm's ereading software.

debugnik 4y ago

Is this to stop users from downloading MOBI files with old versions of the Kindle app and export them with Calibre? Or was that already over?

innocenat 4y ago
That process has been being done with AZW3 for a long, long time already. It's not related.
- debugnik 4y ago
  Last time I checked, removing the AZW3 DRM required third party plugins that many people had trouble making work, while the MOBI downloads were easy and DRM-free. But that was long ago, so maybe it's easier now.

DavidWoof 4y ago

This is a welcome move, but I keep trying to figure out how this is going to effect Libby users (which is probably 80% of my kindle usage these day) and I can't find any info at all. Does anyone have any idea?

teraflop 4y ago
This particular page is only talking about a change to Microsoft's ebook store. On Amazon's side, they've been updating their docs to talk about how MOBI is "deprecated", but the only actual change announced is that MOBI support has been removed from the "Send to Kindle" (via email) feature. So if you're not using that, you should be unaffected.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Barrin92 4y ago

I'm extremely confused about this. I have an older Kindle Paperwhite (PW 3/ 7th gen I think?) and when I used the 'email sent' feature I got that mail about dropping mobi support in favor of epub, but when sending an actual epub I got an error for sending a wrong file, ostensibly because the Kindle only supports mobi. Are they going to ship a software update? Would be a shame if that service doesn't work any more in the future.

innocenat 4y ago
Probably because the EPUB file has some problem. Amazon is very strict about EPUB validity.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Amazon is very strict about EPUB validity. They're also bad at converting perfectly valid epubs to their own format.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    EPUB3, yes. I don't think I have seen any EPUB2 having problem (except if it's missing encoding declaration)
    - drittich 4y ago
      How are you getting them onto your Kindle? Send to Kindle using EPUB does not work at all for me.
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        Amazon provides a tool that will convert epubs to kindle documents. (Poorly.) https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Previewer/b?ie=UTF8&node=21381691011 https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Previewer/b?ie=UTF8&node=21381... They do this because the normal flow involved in publishing a kindle book is that you write an epub and submit it to Amazon.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Interesting, I thought piracy might’ve had something to do with it.

twerh34fasdfa 4y ago

On a side-note: I'm surprised devices like Kindle survive where superior ones like those from Sony perish simply because of the software walled garden. Not a good outlook for humanity.

cratermoon 4y ago
One word: Betamax
lvass 4y ago
What walled garden are you talking about? I never even connected my ~8 year old kindle to the internet, only send files that I own via USB.
- Markoff 4y ago
  good luck transferring files if you forget cable, see my other lengthy post here
  - Shorel 4y ago
    As long as they have Wi-Fi, Calibre has a nice web server for this.
    - Markoff 4y ago
      TIL GTK thanks
  - liveoneggs 4y ago
    How often are you recycling books on these devices?
nicolas_t 4y ago
So far the kindle oasis is the best ereader in term of hardware and ergonomy I've used and that's comparing to a kobo sage I also have and to all the ereaders I've had over the years (never had sony but I used to purposefully avoid amazon)

nicolas_t 4y ago

Has anyone had any success sending epub with send to kindle via email? So far since the announcement of them dropping support, I've tried but every time I get a message saying the epub I sent is not in the correct format.

vzaliva 4y ago
I tried 2 days ago and it worked.
longnguyen 4y ago
I build a tool to send articles and newsletters to Kindle[0]. I’ve been sending EPUB for a few months and it’s tricky. Amazon still use the old Kindlegen software and to check if your epub has issues, you need to download their Kindlepreview app and open your epub. [0]: https://ktool.io https://ktool.io
colomon 4y ago
It's worked about 90% of the time for me. Basically everything I've sent to kindle the last two months I've sent as EPUB, and most of it worked. A lot of them were the "Compatible EPUB" version from Standard EBooks. (Even though it says they're not for Kindle, that appears to be out-of-date.) So I just tried Man and Superman this way -- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-bernard-shaw/man-and-superman https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-bernard-shaw/man-an... -- and it worked just fine. I guess I don't know if the formatting is completely correct, but I haven't had any difficulty reading books loaded this way -- pretty sure they look significantly better than the Project Gutenberg equivalents.
- acabal 4y ago
  AFAIK when you use "send to Kindle", Amazon takes your epub and runs it through Kindlegen (or whatever Amazon's current equivalent is) to create an azw3 on their end. They are not rendering the raw epub - it goes through a black-box conversion before you see it. Thus, all bets are off as to how the "epub" will look on your Kindle. (Indeed, Calibre does a better job converting to azw3 than Kindlegen! That's why we use Calibre when creating azw3 files at Standard Ebooks.) I won't believe Kindle supports epub until I can transfer an epub via USB cable and have it available to for immediate reading. Anything else is Amazon "supporting" epub with very big air quotes.

Thorentis 4y ago

I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.

hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 4y ago
jfim 4y ago
> Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is. Easy purchasing of ebooks from Amazon, combined with their large selection of ebooks.
- nucleardog 4y ago
  Yeah like, I don't wanna point out the typical HN problem but... Imagine explaining this to someone's grandma. "Click this Amazon shortcut, type your book name up here, click on it down below, press 'buy now'. If it doesn't show up right away, wait 5 minutes and check again." Versus... something to do with trying to download mobi files (from where?), starting calibre, starting an import process, locating said files (this is seriously harder than you think for most people), plugging your reader into your PC, running a sync process...
  - anakaine 4y ago
    1. Turn on the reader. 2. Go to "Kobo Store". 3. Look for a book. 4. Click "Buy". 5. Click the book to open it. Thats about my workflow in the kobo, assuming I didn't drop a file on there via usb.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    99% of this difficulty goes away if Grandma uses her phone or tablets browser to download unlimited free books from zlibrary and reads them on the same device. Honestly the grandma example is starting to feel dated. When I was born in 1980 a 50 year old grandma was born in 1930 and probably didn't own a TV until they were raising their own family. The same 50 year old today was born in 1972 and would have been 5 when the Apple II hit the scene. At what point do we realize that eventually old folks will be those that only grew up with iphones and stop assuming that anyone with grey hear needs to be assumed to be technically incompetent.

wyldfire 4y ago

Aside: what's the best e-reader device (ignoring cost)? I'd like to invest in one soon, something robust and durable, good contrast. I kinda like the idea of running open source software on an ereader but I'd probably consider it merely nice-to-have.

innocenat 4y ago
Kindle Paperwhite (2021) is one of the fastest E-reader available right now (in term of responsive ness). Kindle device have excellent dictionary too, especially for non-latin language. (Japanese dictionary implementation on Kobo is not very good). Kobo is more open and is price competitively with Kindle. It's also much more customizable if you are into that. There are also a lot of Android e-ink tablet like BOOX. These are more expensive but a much, much more customizable as it's basically an Android reader. Contrast shouldn't be a problem with any recent device. But anything release in past 1-2 years are excellent.
- addingnumbers 4y ago
  What about battery replacement? Seems like no matter how good the display and build quality, all eBook readers are bound to stop holding a charge after 3-4 years. I feel like the ongoing availability of newly-produced replacement batteries and the difficulty of replacing them are the primary factors in choosing an ebook reader. My 2015 Paperwhite barely lasts 20 minutes after I pull the charging cable, even back in 2018 it was down from two weeks to two days per charge. It's not like you can avoid the problem by loading up on extra batteries. A replacement battery manufactured shortly after the reader is going to be as bad as the one that came installed by the time I need it. All the other problems I worry about like responsiveness, display quality and defects apply early on when a refund or warranty replacement is a solution.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    > What about battery replacement? I don't think any e-readers are designed to be user-replaceable except the very first Kindle. As for DIY replacement, I don't really know, sorry. > A replacement battery manufactured shortly after the reader is going to be as bad as the one that came installed by the time I need it. Is it? I was under impression that battery mostly degrade with cycle count. At least, there are plenty of people still use Kindle from 10 years ago. > [...] warranty replacement is a solution. Then I think you are mostly limited to Kindle or Kobo. Most other e-reader or e-ink tablet are mostly shipped from China so warranty and replacement are going to not be as good.

CallMeJim 4y ago

I wrote myself a tool to monitor the RSS feeds of a bunch of web serials, and send any new chapters to Kindle. Using Calibre CLI, adapting to send EPUBs instead of MOBIs was as easy as changing from: ebook-convert chapter.html chapter.mobi To: ebook-convert chapter.html chapter.epub Calibre is incredibly powerful.

jamiek88 4y ago
Yep, it’s the ffmpeg of reading!
LeafItAlone 4y ago
I am interested in which web serials you follow and what you tool looks like, if you are willing to share!

xvilka 4y ago

It's sad that leaner and better designed FB2 format (or helped to improve it) didn't gain support from vendors. ePub format is just a bunch of HTML without meaningful semantics.

powersnail 4y ago

My biggest confusion about Send-to-kindle, is that you can't send an `AZW3` file. It's the format that Amazon uses; it works if you transfer it by USB; for some reason, you just can't send it by email. Makes no sense to me.

innocenat 4y ago
AFAIK iOS Kindle App can't read AZW3. It's converted to AZK. Amazon probably don't have AZW3->AZK pipeline.
- powersnail 4y ago
  That just sounds even more curious to me. How can a company make an app that doesn't read a format it invented? AZW3 has been around for years. There's got to be enough time for them to implement it.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    I heard that it's because Amazon don't want to use WebKit for HTML rendering. AZW3 is mostly EPUB in different package. Don't quote me on this though.
    - wtallis 4y ago
      Why would Amazon have to use WebKit for HTML rendering? Does Apple have rules about that which apply to more than just web browsers? (IIRC there's also some restriction against JIT, but that would only matter for JS-heavy stuff, which the web is but ebooks definitely aren't.)
  - brewdad 4y ago
    I honestly think that Amazon can't fathom a world where you could end up with an AZW3 file that wasn't purchased, and therefore directly downloadable from, their store.

Rufhfhs3747rhe7 4y ago

~8" foldable phones have eliminated the need for a separate eReader in my opinion. OLED screens are comfortable enough to read on and open source apps on Android can open any format and integrate with any dictionary. And most importantly, it's already always with me.

Markoff 4y ago
How many weeks of reading they last on one charge? Also OLED screens ae horrible for reading compared to e-ink.
unethical_ban 4y ago
I disagree that reading on OLED is the same as e-ink, and I disagree with the idea that I would want to read on my phone instead of on a dedicated device. For me, part of the experience is getting away from the phone.

frown_away 4y ago

Removing support for a file format must be one of the dumbest things you can do in software. Congratulations!

Markoff 4y ago

getting files to kindle for me this summer vacation 2-3 weeks ago was major PITA, I took kindle for kid and first USB cable in drawer unaware that this particular USB cable is only for charging and can't do data transfer, since i use only USB C and kindle doesn't support it my kindle has no amazon account, because I am sideloading everything offline, prety much not using anything online on kindle so when I figured out the problem is USB cable and registering amazon account would be too troublesome I discovered you can't send files to kindle simply over wifi direct or bluetooth or other simple way and I end up downloading legally obtained books from my library first to my laptop from where I connected to FTP server launched in Mixplorer in my Android phone, transferred through there books to phone, then again launched in mixplorer in phone HTTP server since kindle doesn't support FTP connection, typed IP address in experimental kindle browser and et voila I could finally see files I wanted to read on Kindle, only problem was despite the format supposedly supported by Kindle, when I tapped on file it shown me error the file is not supported for download through kindle browser (despite supported if you sideload it through data cable), so I had again convert these PDF/EPUB/AZW or whatever files in calibre to MOBI, again transfer to phone, then again transfer to kindle, where finally after tapping files were downloaded and I could finally read story to my kid, can't imagine how regular user would be able to transfer books to kindle without data cable and amazon account and if their transfer service stops supporting certain format then only option for regular user is data cable

Markoff 4y ago
TIL Calibre has own web/content server which should be accessible from Kindle experimental browser, so could save myself trouble transferring files back and forth through mobile

evolve2k 4y ago

Umm does this mean I can now “borrow” ebooks from the library? From the point of view that the library borrow systems never supported MOBI but seemed to support other formats.

nikau 4y ago
There is software that can strip out the DRM, but its piracy either way so if that's your preference just go to library genesis and get the book already converted.

physicsguy 4y ago

Is this just trying to frustrate people pirating e-books and e-mailing themselves them via AWS servers?

jhbadger 4y ago
Probably not. Most ebooks "floating out there" are already in epub format. If anything, this makes it easier because they don't have to be converted to mobi.
sanjayts 4y ago
Why would someone do this? Isn't it basically asking to get the account deactivated due to piracy concerns esp given that now Amazon has the whole trail of things you have pirated?
- physicsguy 4y ago
  People do it because documents that go through the e-mail thing sync across devices like Amazon purchased books.
ryanmercer 4y ago
As has been said lots of books are already out there as epub, there are many that are already in Amazon's file format too. I'd guess that most people torrenting books are using calibre anyway.

leotaku 4y ago

This is great news! MOBI and especially KF8 (Amazon flavour of XHTML on MOBI) are horribly complex by virtue of them being additional layers over the PalmDB format, which on it's own is actually quite elegant. I've spent quite some time on building a fully featured MOBI library[1]. A bit sad that my work will become obsolete this quickly, but definitely good in the long run. [1]: https://github.com/leotaku/mobi https://github.com/leotaku/mobi

mariusor 4y ago
I was just looking for a replacement library for go to build documents for the Kindle. I have a little service that converts RSS feeds articles into content for ebook readers and currently for them I was converting to mobi. It's great to see that there's an "easy" way to switch to AZW.

hbossy 4y ago

That's too bad. I used it a lot to produce epub fitting on my old Sony PRS-300. It couldn't parse pirated epubs with tables of contents, diacritical signs and illustrations, so it was easier to download mobi and convert it in Calibre to epub. It worked nine times out of ten, compared to maybe 10% with epub->epub conversion.

clementmas 4y ago

From a user perspective that seems like great news. Now I don't have to worry about file extensions. I just keep ePub files in my library.

anilakar 4y ago

I can only find mentions about Amazon's "Send to Kindle" feature doing internal .epub to AZW coversion and I really don't consider that as proper support for the format.

tmd83 4y ago

One of my favourite kindle feature :) it fits in most of my back pockets. I like to read while on the road, when waiting etc and not having to carry it on my hand which is a hassle and not forgetting in random place is a big feature for me.

notdarkyet 4y ago

Are there any good ebook services that sell books in epub formats? Typically I will try and buy from the publishers website to load onto the Kobo but ideally I can buy the epubs themselves without being locked into a service like Amazon/Kobo.

hiidrew 4y ago
library genesis is a wonderful site :)

varispeed 4y ago

On topic, how does the eReader world look today? I tried one a couple of years ago, and as a person with ADHD I was constantly frustrated how bad the experience was in terms of responsiveness. I can see it could work for a book that you access linearly, but for technical books, where you often need to switch between pages it was a chore and I couldn't focus my attention on reading. So I still buy paper books, because I can quickly flick between the pages and access my bookmarks. The downside is that they use a ton of space in my room and I am hoping that one day someone makes an eReader that I can flick through pages as fast as a real book (or faster).

unethical_ban 4y ago
I have a 2014 model an I only use it for narrative reading. I'm not sure the UX has caught up with the need to quickly go between different areas of a book. But I hear the new Kindle Paperwhite has a really fast refresh.
AlanYx 4y ago
Full page refresh is still slow, but the interfaces have gotten better to mitigate that a little. I've never used a Kindle, but on Kobos there's a scrubbing interface that appears that shows pages about 1/8th size so you can flip through them visually a lot faster (due to partial refresh), and the page location scrollbar places enlarged dots around places you've been recently, so it's not hard to flip back and forth between a few places (e.g., your current reading location and an endnotes section).

NoboruWataya 4y ago

I have a very old Kindle (3rd gen, ~12 years old) and I am unsure how it will be impacted by this. My understanding was that Kindles didn't support EPUB files. It seems that Amazon now intend to roll out support for EPUB, but I highly doubt a model as old as mine will get an update. So it seems that for now, while Amazon are just converting EPUBs to MOBI behind the scenes, everything will continue working. But if down the line they update their more modern devices to support EPUB and then stop converting to MOBI, I won't be able to email devices to my Kindle anymore and will have to sideload them via USB. Is there anyone else in a similar situation who can tell me if this is true?

Elidrake42 4y ago
I personally use `ebook-convert` (comes with Calibre) with a simple script that'll capture anything in a drop dir, convert it, and email it off.
loeg 4y ago
You can always convert EPUB to MOBI yourself using Calibre. I often have to convert the other way (EPUB to AZW3) with a newer kindle.
WorldMaker 4y ago
My understanding is that Amazon already crossed into that "mixed" state you are worried about: after a certain OS version Kindles natively understand EPUB (and can be sideloaded via USB, not just emailed). This was rolled out relatively quietly and the Send to Kindle tools have been taking a lot longer to update to support the .epub file extension even when the devices support it. We have something of an idea of when it rolled out in that it is noticeable the current "modern" KFX (?) format is a light tweak of EPUB. But there are indications that there are probably still active kindle devices which Amazon is converting AZW3, KFX, and EPUB behind the scenes still. I still have a 3rd gen kindle keyboard myself that I use rarely and the outward differences between its OS and the OS on my other two more recent kindles are growing increasingly stark (and not entirely for the better, Amazon's recent cover focus even in list views have made the device's library a much bigger chore to navigate with no more than 6 books displayed at a time in either grid or list views). Easy to imagine nearly as many inward differences, including format support, between the OS versions. So far, Amazon seems to want to support any active kindles for the long haul and I would be surprised if any behind the scenes converters get "turned off" without notice, but because they don't tell us where the exact lines are in which devices support which OS versions and which OS versions introduce which feature support, it's a strange gamble with not enough information.

atlgator 4y ago

My understanding is that Amazon supports conversions of EPUB to MOBI through their "email to your kindle" feature. Is there a firmware update planned for Kindles to support EPUB natively?

WorldMaker 4y ago
My understanding is that there was OS version years back that added EPUB native support, but Amazon never properly announced it, it just quietly happened. It's taken a while longer for the Send to Kindle tool to update to add .epub file format support, but people have been sideloading EPUBs over USB for some time now.

unethical_ban 4y ago

I asked about whether DeDRM will still work for me to truly own the books I legally purchased on /r/kindle, and my post was removed. It is infuriating there are communities of readers who are so in the pocket of Amazon they block conversations about DRM stripping.

themadturk 4y ago
I feel your pain, but it is still highly illegal to do strip DRM in the U.S. (five years in prison, $500k fine) Sometimes it's a matter of self-preservation, not being in Amazon's pocket.

AlwaysRock 4y ago

God Mobi is so frustrating to deal with. I batch add books to my old kindle paperwhite once a year. It's a nightmare everytime. Sometimes emails to my kindle works. Sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes their official app works. Sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes Everything needs to be mobi. Sometimes other formats will be accepted but then look like shit. I love the hardware of my paperwhite and its by far the best ~$115 I've ever spent on a device but getting books onto it, other than buying through the amazon kindle store, is the worst.

shuntress 4y ago
I know you and everyone else reading knows this but this is by design. Amazon wants it to be as difficult as possible (if not impossible) to buy _anything_ (not just digital books) from anywhere other than Amazon.
deaddodo 4y ago
I’m confused, my Voyage just accepts PDF files, no issue. For anything non-Amazon purchased, that’s the format I use. It is annoying that other common formats (epub, particularly) are unsupported though.

neves 4y ago

Would I be able to just copy a epub to my Kindle Paperwhite 7th Generation? Or it will work just using "Send to Kindle"? I've just generated a personal e-book in epub and it was really annoying to convert it to Kindle to load in the device.

drittich 4y ago

I'm confused, because Send to Kindle does not support sending EPUB files as of yet. Does this mean a future release will?