Your Kindle reading experience can go far beyond what’s available on the Kindle store. If, like me, you’ve only been buying your reading material from Amazon (or borrowing e-books from your local library), it’s time to explore what your e-reader can really do.
Amazon has a dedicated program called Send to Kindle that you can use to wirelessly send articles, word documents, PDFs, and copyright-free e-books right to your Kindle, no cable required. But there’s plenty of other options now, too. Here are some of my favorites.
How Amazon’s Send to Kindle program works
You might not know it, but your Kindle has its own email address, which can be used to send documents directly to your device.
This technology has been around for over a decade. But now, there are many more options to send articles, documents and e-books to Kindle. These include Chrome extensions, desktop apps, and built-in support for the feature in the Kindle apps for iOS and Android. Here, you don’t even need to worry about remembering and finding your device’s email address (although I do like the simplicity of the email method).
Before you start sending over your files, a word on format support. Amazon won’t let you send .MOBI files (which is one of the native file formats for Kindle), but it will happily take your EPUB file, and will run it on both on your Kindle and in the Kindle app. In fact, it will even sync the read position between your Kindle and your iPhone app, just like if you’d bought a book from the Kindle Store.
Kindle devices support .DOC, .DOCX, .HTML, .TXT, .PDF and .EPUB file formats.
Send e-books using your Kindle email address
Sometimes, the old-fashioned ways are the best. Not everyone wants another service or browser extension.
For this, all you need to do is to find your Kindle’s email address. You can do this from your Kindle itself. Open Kindle Settings and go to Your Account. Here, at the bottom, you’ll find your Send-to-Kindle email address. Make a note of it.
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Now, after downloading the e-books or documents you want to your non-Kindle device (it doesn’t matter if it’s your computer or your phone), open your email app and create a new email. Add this Kindle address to the To field. Make sure that you’re using the same email as the one you used to create your Kindle account.
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Then, attach the documents or e-books to the email, leave the Subject blank, and send the email. Amazon will process the files on its servers, adding them to your cloud account, and will send the files to your Kindle as well, all in just a few moments. The book will show up in your Kindle, as illustrated by the screenshot below.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
If this doesn’t work for you, it might be because you are using a different email address. That’s fine, but you’ll need to approve this additional email in your Kindle settings before you can use it to send files to your Kindle. Frustratingly, this can only be done on the Amazon website.
Navigate to the Content and Devices section on Amazon. Here, choose the Preferences tab at the top of the page, and go to Personal Document Settings.
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Scroll down to the Approved Personal Document E-Mail List section and click the Add a new approved e-mail address button.
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Here, add the email address that you want to use to send documents to your Kindle.
Send any document or e-book using the Send to Kindle website
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This is a great option if you just need to send a document every now and then. Visit Amazon’s Send to Kindle website and log in with your Amazon account. The website automatically figures out your connected Kindle devices, so there’s nothing else to do other than drag and drop files. Click the Send button and wait for a couple of minutes for the documents to show up on your Kindle.
Send documents on the go with the Kindle app
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Sending documents to your Kindle using your iPhone or Android is easier if you already have the Kindle app set up. The Kindle app doesn’t support web articles, but it will do a good job with .EPUB and .PDF files.
First, locate the file in the Files app of your choice, open the Share menu, and choose the Kindle app. This will open up a Send to Kindle menu. Tap the Send button and wait for the e-book or document to show up on your Kindle.
Send articles using the Chrome extension
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Let’s say you’ve come across a long article while browsing that you’d like to read on your Kindle later on. The best way to do this is by using the Send to Kindle Chrome extension.
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In the extension, log in with your Amazon account and navigate to a page you want to send to your Kindle. Click the extension, and choose the Quick Send option to send a distraction-free version of the website to your Kindle. It will be free of ads and formatting.
Use a third party Send to Kindle service
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Amazon’s Send to Kindle extension only works on Chrome, and has very few customization options. Thankfully, there are a plethora of third-party extensions that can help you send articles to your Kindle. Push to Kindle is a customizable option, but the free plan limits you to 10 articles a month (unlimited plan costs $2.99/month). I prefer using Push to Kindle because it does an impressive job at text formatting, and it has an option to remove all images.
If you’re looking for a completely free option, Reabble is a good choice. You can also use read-later apps like Pocket or Instapaper to send articles to Kindle.
They all work in the same basic fashion. You can either use their browser extensions, or their Bookmarklet, which can also work on mobile browsers. You’ll first need to add the service’s email address to your Amazon account’s Approved Personal Document E-mail list. I explained how to do that in the e-mail section above. Next, provide the service the email address to your Kindle (again, covered above), and send it along. The service will do the part of converting the article to an e-book for you.
Best Kindle devices for reading non-Kindle documents
To take advantage of any of these tips, you’re going to need a Kindle. Here’s a few good options for reading any kind of document on a Kindle, especially those not from the Amazon store.
The Kindle Scribe is Amazon’s first take on an e-note, meaning it comes with a stylus that you can use to mark up your documents. If you’re sending schoolwork to your Kindle, it’s a great choice.
Otherwise, the Kindle Paperwhite is a great standby. More affordable than the Scribe, its ability to control color temperature is good for late-night reading, making it a more comfortable way to read long articles from the web.
