How to Remove DRM From Your Kindle Books using Calibre

Last night I wanted to convert one of my Kindle eBooks into a text file, but needed to remove the DRM protection so I could work with it. I was a little shocked at how easy it was. It’s a completely automated process and it’s free.

You’ll need to download Calibre, which is a fantastic tool in it’s own right. I use it all the time to convert PDF files into .Mobi and .ePub files for my iPad.

Once Calibre is downloaded, head over to Apprentice Alf and download the Calibre plugin. It’s the second link under The Tools heading. The other zip file is for removing DRM from other eBooks like Barnes and Noble. I used that not too long ago as well and it worked perfectly. There are articles on the page for process as well.
(That download page is just too damn hard to understand so here are the plugins)

DeDRM_plugin_6.0.6.zip – Download this if you’re just working with Kindle Books
tools_v6.0.5.zip – Download this if you’re working with other readers such as Nook

Next, go to Amazon.com and download the Kindle for PC app. You need to sign into your account and download the books to your machine.

Install and start Calibre. Click the Preferences button.

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On the Preferences screen click the Plugins puzzle piece in the bottom left.

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Click the Load plugin from file button in the bottom right.

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Select the zip file you downloaded. It should be called DeDRM_plugin_6.0.6.zip

Restart Calibre so the changes will take effect.

Start the Kindle for PC app and log into your Amazon account. It will display your library of books. Download the book of your choice.

Nothing exciting has happened yet. You need to find the book on your hard drive and get it into Calibre. The book should be located under the My Documents folder. There will be a My Kindle Content folder. You should see files with the .Mobi or .AZW extension. They may also have .AZ1, .AZ2, .AZ3. The book I was interested in had a cryptic numeric title so don’t panic if you don’t see your book right off.

Click the book you want and drag it over to Calibre. Give it a moment or two and you should see your book appear with a thumbnail of the cover and a description.

Guess what? That’s it. The book is now in Calibre and can be converted to a different format or read on the screen. As I mentioned I converted mine to text. This would also be the method you use to get programs such as Voice Dream to read books. Their program supports .TXT and .ePub. It can’t directly read an Amazon book so you would need to go through this process to get it ready.

It really is that simple. There are products that can charge up to $30 to do this same thing. You don’t need any of that. These three free tools can do it all. The only thing you need to do is log into your Amazon account and download your books.

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