It’s time to start out backing up your bought Kindle ebooks in case you haven’t already. It seems to be like Amazon intends to take away the Obtain & Switch through USB choice from their web site for Kindle ebooks as of February twenty sixth.
Over on reddit, some persons are saying they’ve been greeted by a brand new immediate when making an attempt to obtain Kindle ebooks from Amazon’s web site that claims the next:
Beginning February 26, 2025, the “Obtain & Switch through USB” choice will now not be out there. You may nonetheless ship Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled gadgets by choosing the “Ship or Take away from System” choice.
To this point all of the studies appear to be for US accounts, however I’m nonetheless not seeing that message when I attempt to obtain ebooks from the Digital Content material web page at Amazon, however it didn’t cease me from downloading a number of dozen of my bought ebooks to have on my pc simply in case.
At this level it’s nonetheless unclear if that is solely going to use to sure Kindle fashions, or if Amazon is eliminating D&T throughout the board for all Kindles and all accounts. They already did away with D&T on the newer Kindles that have been launched in 2024, so I assume we should always’ve seen this coming.
Even when D&T goes away totally, it’s best to nonetheless be capable of get your bought ebooks off of older Kindles for backup and DRM elimination, offered the Kindle is sufficiently old to have ebooks downloaded within the older AZW3 format as a substitute of the newer KFX format (it’s tougher to take away DRM from KFX).
Most individuals don’t use D&T or care about backing up their ebooks and eradicating the DRM, so this isn’t going to be an issue for everybody. Generally, it’s a good suggestion to backup book purchases, as many book shops have gone beneath through the years, however Amazon actually isn’t going be closing store anytime quickly. Nonetheless, it’s a good suggestion to have backups in case you ever wish to transfer away from Amazon/Kindles sooner or later.
That is going to be extra of a problem for those who purchase Kindle ebooks to learn on different manufacturers of gadgets like Kobos. It’s going to make eradicating book DRM tougher until you may have an older Kindle laying round that you could pull the ebooks off of.
It’s shocking how many individuals are utterly clueless about what obtain and switch even means. On reddit, persons are asking every kind of irrelevant questions that don’t have something to do with D&T in any way. Sure, Calibre will nonetheless work. No, it’s not going to have an effect on aspect loading. Sure, you’ll nonetheless be capable of use Ship to Kindle. Sure, you’ll nonetheless be capable of obtain your ebooks over WiFi to Kindles and Kindle apps.
D&T was initially put in place for those who didn’t have WiFi to obtain ebooks and wanted to sideload them through USB, and now it’s largely utilized by those that wish to take away the DRM from bought Kindle ebooks in order that they aren’t locked into Amazon’s ecosystem. That is going to outrage some individuals, however it’s actually not going have an effect on the overwhelming majority of Kindle customers that don’t care about DRM elimination and having the ability to learn Kindle ebooks on non-Kindle gadgets.
