(2023-02-04) Rescuing Kindle Ebooks

I saw a toot from someone saying they suddenly couldn't read their Kindle ebooks that they bought more than 5 years ago - they had to re-buy them, then contact customer service for refunds!

So I thought I should check.

(Mostly I buy epub from GoogleBooks and stripe the DRM, but sometimes you can only get a Kindle.)

I thought I had converted some Kindle books to epub in the distant past, but Spotlight didn't find any. (Though maybe that's a spotlight issue. I can see 1 .mobi file that I know of, but search for name-incl-mobi gives me nothing. )

I haven't used the Mac app since I got this laptop. So I install it. I have 1219 docs in my library, but I know most of those are Samples. The Mac app doesn't let you filter on that?!? (I check online, 443 are purchases.)

I scroll down to the bottom - some of those are from 10yrs ago - I can open them fine. So no panic. But still....

Where are those newly-opened files on my Mac? Ah, found them, different than in the past.

But notice one old book is New Evolution Diet, check my folder, find I had an old .azw file. Open in Calibre, try to convert to epub, blocked by drm. Hmm maybe this Calibre isn't set up right for that....

• see 2014 notes in 2011-06-11-BuyingGoogleEbook

Since I'm running Calibre 4.23, I get DeDRM 6.8.1. I unzip it and install it successfully.

Configuration? This says: If you do not own a physical Kindle, the default decryption key will be pulled from Kindle for Mac the first time the plug-in is run.

So I try New Evolution Diet

• had old file - delete that folder
• open in Mac Kindle - see the file in Finder
• open it in Calibre, then try to open/read it - it says it's in KFX format, which I know requires an additional plugin. Install KFX-Input plugin, restart Calibre, re-import azw file into Calibre (it now recognizes the title).
• Convert: this has DRM fail
• try a newer book: No Sunscreen for the Dead - same outcome

Issue might be that Mac Kindle is v1.39, and DRM changed at v1.25....

• de-register/uninstall old Kindle app
• download Kindle 1.17 from 3rd party; install
• launch → won't run on current version of MacOS.

I try downloading New Evolution Diet azw3 file from Kindle web, convert in Calibre → nope DRM.

Ah, find recent Mac-specific instructions - if you don't have a physical Kindle, what a huge pain.

Options

• I could pay $30 for epubor
• just live with Kindle app - that will be my primary as long as it works.
• download epubs from various sites. That's the fallback.

Mar'2024:

• (I did nothing)
• now a recent GooglePlay ebook won't strip, I realize I hadn't bought anything with DRM from them for a year.

Apr05'2024

• throwing up my hands, buy epubor for $60 (lifetime)
• it worked on the GoogleBook!
• try to launch Kindle app - old version won't run on this MacOsX. Download new one, look around...
• ah can't use that, have to download v1.4.0 from epubor folks - do that. Synch library
• have to re-download individual books
• one of them fails, it's a KFX. They want me to pay for another Kindle Converter app?!?! That's not gonna happen, going to see how many other books have this issue. Seems about 50/50.
• tried another GooglePlay book, just to check. It went fine.
• Apr07 trying Kindle KFX some more. Fix the kindle-file-location in epubor, but it still doesn't see any files.
  • ah, I was looking at the wrong downloads location. When I switched back to the default, it recognized all the local stuff.
• but half of the books failed because they're the old KCR format - I wonder what will happen if I re-download them?