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How to Remove DRM from Amazon Books

Last updated: November 15, 20205 Comments

remove drm amazon

If you buy ebooks for Amazon’s Kindle, you’ll have realized that they come with copy protection called Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Unfortunately, the Kindle format is not compatible with all other ebook reading devices, so you’ll run into trouble if you want to use a tool like Calibre to convert your purchased books into a format compatible with your reading device unless that device happens to be a Kindle, in which case you’re good.

The solution is to use two plugins for Calibre as detailed in this excellent guide. Since I’m on a Mac, I could not get an older version of Kindle to work on Catalina, so I installed a virtualized Windows 8 and I was able to set up everything without a glitch.

Notes

  • If Calibre gives you an error like `ERROR: Unhandled exception: InvalidPlugin:The plugin in C:\\Users\\Me\\Downloads\\DeDRM_tools_6.6.1.zip’ is invalid. It does not contain a top-level __init__.py file`, you’re trying to load the full archive folder into Calibre. Instead you need to open up the .zip file you downloaded and drill down a couple of levels. Using this example the file you want is C:\Users\Me\Downloads\DeDRM_tools_6.6.1.zip\DeDRM_calibre_plugin\DeDRM_plugin.zip.
  • If you’re trying to de-DRM Amazon’s newer .kfx files, you’ll also need to install the KFX conversion plugin(link is external).

Filed under: Tech

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About Jean Galea

Jean Galea is a dad, amateur padel player, host of the Mastermind.fm podcast, investor and entrepreneur.

Comments

  1. Rey says

    January 25, 2021 at 9:19 pm

    I Just tested https://www.ebook-converter.com on mac and it works, the trial version creates a pdf file with marks about buying the complete version of the converter, but it works

    Reply
  2. Mark Arntz says

    January 11, 2021 at 10:37 pm

    I’ve been doing this for years and now it has stopped working.

    Reply
    • Jean Galea says

      January 12, 2021 at 10:23 am

      We need to wait for some updates or use older versions combinations. It works for me with the older versions.

      Reply
  3. Patrick says

    January 4, 2021 at 2:15 am

    In 2021 – I just went through everything I could find on removing DRM from Amazon books. and even though I have a v10 Kindle, I’m not finding any way to import to Caliber, or remove DRM, that is current and working.
    Even “Download and transfer via USB” does not work.
    I’m stubborn and will stop buying books on Amazon if I can’t get them into Caliber, convert to epub, load onto whatever device I want, usually my phone because that is what is with me when I get a chance to read.

    Reply
  4. Carlos says

    November 1, 2020 at 5:07 pm

    It is not working anymore

    Reply

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