I read that Amazon recently made changes that make it more difficult to remove the DRM from a Kindle book. I’d LOVE to import Kindle books. The only recent article I found showed a method of currently removing DRMs that is too difficult for me.
Can anyone please point me to a relatively easy way to remove the DRMs? I’d even be willing to pay for an app to do this.
Thanks!
I have been wondering how to do it for years now, I’ve read so many posts about it, here on LingQ and other websites and I was never able to do it. 
Hopefully someone here will be able to help us out.
It is actually quite simple. If you follow this tutorial - Remove the DRM From Amazon Kindle Books – GeoffStratton.com then all you need to do is download the .azw3 file from amazon and bring it into calibre then convert to pdf or a format supported by lingq and you can upload it. How to download the file from amazon is shown in this tutorial - How to Convert a Kindle Book to PDF Using Free Tools | Digital Trends.
Try using the calibre program, import the book into it, then save/export it back as a file.
I do that with epub to remove the DRM, may work for kindle too
There’s no way to get the book from the Kindle app on the computer, into Calibre. And the only way to read the book is through their app. (Im on Mac) I think its different for non Mac users.
The calibre program works exactly the same on a mac, you don’t get the file from the kindle app instead you need to go to the amazon website and download it by clicking on Manage your content & devices. Then clicking on the three dots of the book you want to download and click download & transfer via USB. To install calibre and the plugin for drm removal see this - Remove the DRM From Amazon Kindle Books – GeoffStratton.com
Oh okay I didn’t know that, Im going to have to try doing it this way. Thank You.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful…at least on the book I was trying. I thought you had the answer there I was search for by downloading the azw3 file. I had been trying the file as downloaded with the kindle desktop app (kfx extension), but apparently recently they’ve gone to a new DRM that no one is able to crack yet…the suggest was to go back to a certain version of the desktop app.
The azw3 file did almost a little better when trying to import to calibre (with the de-DRM plugins I had), but it failed.
When I tried the specific instructions you had with uploading to the epub converter website, I’m getting upload failed. So I’m not sure if it’s down for the time-being.
Remember that Kindle is not the only source. You can also try other e-book retailers like Google Play and Kobo – each with different tricks you can do to get what you want to accomplish here. For the more common languages, the selection on these book sites seems to be the same
That’s a shame it didn’t work for you. But for most books this method does work and I haven’t yet come across a book that couldn’t have the DRM removed.
I clicked “download & transfer via USB” now when I open Calibre and I click on “Add Books” and it doesn’t allow me to select the book.
I actually have seem to found the answer…Not to bother with trying to actively remove the DRM, but to convert to mobi and import that to Lingq. Not sure if something has changed along the way. I did *download via usb" for “my kindle”. Possibly before I wasn’t doing it for “my kindle” so potentially that is another reason.
Unfortunately not. I never got it working.
Being on Linux and not having a kindle also seems to make the process more difficult.
It’s silly because I am willing to spend so much money on books if I could just import them similar to netflix or youtube shows.
Does anyone know of other websites for books that don’t have DRM (My target language is Japanese) Haven’t had much time to look, but I didn’t have much luck before.
Nothing changed, I did it 2 years ago with the same effect. I don’t know if it change something, but the only thing to remember is to open your book by clicking on file, and it should be open by calibre as default program. Later on just click convert in calibre into any format, I prefer mobi or pdf. Maybe you’re right that it’s necessary to have kindle connected to our account, I just have ‘‘Łukasz’’ But it’s my name on kindle account. I’m glad it helped!
I think it may be related to having a kindle. I went to “download via usb” from the amazon site and I could only select my kindle…none of my plethora of other devices (they were all greyed out). Presumably if one doesn’t have a kindle then, that option is not available. If that’s the case, I wonder if one were to buy a new kindle if that option is available? Presumably yes. My kindle is from 2012 so I don’t know if the options have changed.
I agree it stinks…It appears, if you have a kindle (not sure about new ones…mine is from 2012) you can go to the website “manage content” and “transfer via usb” which downloads it to your computer. Then if you convert to Mobi using calibre it appears to work per Adamai’s instructions below. I’m not sure if you can do this without owning a kindle as all my other devices appear to be greyed out if I try to select them.
Unfortunately, I don’t know another good sites for DRM free content. You’ll have to search and scrounge. There are definitely sites, but the content quality can be kind of underwhelming.
I have a oldish kindle and it only uses KFX instead of the older format
toomsie…actually if you have an older kindle you may be in good shape (I do too).
Try this…go to amazon website. Go to the “Manage content and devices” under your account.
Find the book you want to upload to lingq (maybe use a book you already have to test it out)…select it…and click the 3 dots for more choices next to the checkbox…if you have a kindle you should see the choice to download & transfer via usb. Select that.
Then it will ask which kindle to download for…select your kindle and click the download button. It will be downloaded as an azw3 file to your computer. If you don’t have a kindle (and maybe an older one at that) I don’t think you can download this way and you’ll be out of luck.
Use the program calibre to open the file azw3 file. Then use the convert books option to convert it to a mobi file. You should be able to import the mobi file into LingQ.
I just tried it now, but didn’t work “This book is locked by DRM”
shoot…ok, so it may be something additional. I did add a plugin for removing DRM onto Calibre, but another Lingq user said she never did anything special so I thought maybe that wasn’t coming into play, but maybe it is.
So I do have the DeDRM (version 6.6.3) plugin installed onto my Calibre. That is the only user installed plugin I have. I believe this will only work on that “download & transfer via usb” via amazon.com website as an azw3 file. Maybe try installing that, if you don’t have it.
https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases/download/v6.7.0/DeDRM_tools_6.7.0.zip
Unzip the file above and traverse the directory structure to the “DeDRM_calibre_plugin” directory. The plugin itself is the “DeDRM_plugin.zip” file. That is what you will install as a plugin within Calibre.
instructions on installing here (tool 1 section…DO NOT INSTALL the KFX plugin):
https://medium.com/@michelle_z./free-kindle-azw-drm-removal-calibre-plugin-b980b7c1d7d6
Make sure you copy the entire link above…the blue hyperlink above is not using the entire url.
Then try again to import the azw3 file.
Again, this only works for azw3 file for me (download & transfer via usb from amazon.com website)…I know I tried just grabbing the kfx encoded ebook from where the kindle for pc stores it and was not successful a couple months back. Then again, I didn’t have the kfx input plugin either so maybe that’s why. Feel free to try installing that kfx plugin from the 2nd website and trying that on the kfx file too.