Last chance to download your Kindle books – Amazon kills this option today

Another day. Another cloud service changes the rules for things that we have already bought and paid.

This time Amazon is removing a function that has been part of the Kindle experience for more than a decade: to download files to your computer.

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I will not bury the LED: You have until February 26, 2025 to download copies of your Kindle books to your computer. Then Amazon will remove the opportunity to download books into files that you can control yourself.

I am a little disappointed that Amazon does not say anything about it in its most important digital content management interface.

The only time that you see this warning is when you select “Download” in the three-point menu next to a book.

So if you mainly read Kindle eBooks in a Kindle reader or in the Kindle app, you don't necessarily know the deadline for a short fuse until it is too late.

Why should you be interested?

First of all, from a general principle, it is nice to have control over the things you bought and probably own. Digital content is not really characteristics that we own. Providers make it clear that we are licensing this content, and even if we have paid money for something, he is only licensed and they reserve the right to take it away when the mood occurs.

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There were some examples of where Amazon were submitted to our Kindle devices and books were removed. In fact, Big Brother Bezos deleted in 2009 1984 and the Animal Farm of Kindles everywhere. Only last year Puffin books worked on many books by Roald Dahl, including Matilda and Charlie and the chocolate factory, to be more socially conscious by removing words like “fat” and “ugly”. These changes were brought to digital copies in digital copies of the books that were already owned by customers.

Books have always been unchangeable snapshots directly into the meaning of an author. They are instruments of recording. But if companies can change their content during the current flies, everything can change.

When people were able to keep their own copies of books, they had this instrument of recording. But if books are changed during the current flies and we can no longer see the previous versions, it is possible to rewrite the story.

What if a president decides to sign an executive order to change the name of a water? Or what if a president decides that all books that have referred to his predecessor should be rewritten in order to describe this predecessor in wildly dirty terms? Or what if an executive order is specified in which all existing digital books are required, for example to mention slavery or the internment camps of the Second World War?

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That could happen. Today we still have printing materials as recording instruments, even if digital copies are changed. But there can be a time in the future when all of our history are presented exclusively in digital form. Then it is quite possible that regime describes the story to present a certain perspective, regardless of whether it has happened or not.

Practical consideration

But we return to practical considerations. First, if you have an old Kindle of a certain year, the only way to bring Kindle books on these devices is to download the books and then load them into these old Kindles via USB. I describe the process in detail here.

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The same applies to those people who (somewhat unethical and possibly illegally) used tools to crack the Kindle DRM so that they could read the books on other devices.

If you believe that you will ever want to put one of your Kindle books on one of these devices, you can now download it. Because when you wait a week, you can't do this.

If you want your books, download them now.

Like right now. My wife and I have more than a thousand books. I found this clever hack to download it quickly. But if you only have a couple, it won't take so long.

What now?

I will still buy Kindle books if I want them. But my wife really got into epub-based books. Although she has one of almost every generation of Kindle in the past holiday season, she bought one Kobo Libre Color that she was very satisfied.

She also regularly buys Kindle books (she likes those who synchronize with audible), but she has also started to collect epub format books regularly. With this Amazon change, there is now even more motivation to look at alternative e-readers and formats.

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What do you think about Amazon's decision to remove the opportunity to download Kindle books as files? Do you regularly download your eBooks for safe keeping or read them mainly via the Amazon ecosystem?

Do you rethink this change that you are rethinking your trust in Kindle, or are you already exploring alternative platforms such as Kobo or Google Play Books? How concerned are you about the effects of digital booking and the potential that content can change after purchase? Let us know in the comments below.

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