This is a grey area for piracy since you need to own the ebook but… you also don’t really “own” anything purchased in digital distribution and this is removing DRM from that. Suffice to say, if this were Nintendo they would try to sue you so it is probably more piracy than not.
Confirmed working as of a few minutes ago since I wanted to rebuild this with KVM.
Based on https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1c2ryfz/ and comments thereof.
- Create a new virtual machine. I recently used KVM directly but also had success with Virtual Box.
- Install Windows 10
- Disable internet access for the VM.
- Download and install
Kindle 2.4.70904(SHA2562e2e4e5bb9fd585947244a4a62ce5baca47818c439d0213cc9a5a96f9a692119) from https://kindleforpc.s3.amazonaws.com/70904/KindleForPC-installer-2.4.70904.exe - Run the Kindle app and disable updating (Tools > Options > General > disable “Automatically install updates…”). Optionally change the save path.
- Run the batch script
disable_k4pc_download.bat(SHA256656fbabfa9d1bb3fd1160100391fbf3886597633178e37cffcffe747d3b66567
) under step 2a at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=361503 to ACTUALLY disable automatic upgrading - Re-enable networking.
- Download and install
Calibre. 7.13.0from https://download.calibre-ebook.com/7.13.0/. This version is known working and all efforts I found used Windows so I went with the msi (SHA2567c1b57b6f55076cc646a30eb6394ec00df18be373c3badf80d7ee39152ccffda
) since this install exists solely to strip DRM before I then add them to my Calibre-Web server. - Launch Calibre and install the KFX Input plugin from the built in plugin manager
- Separately download the 10.0.9 version of the DeDRM plugin (newer may work but, again, lazy) from https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/releases/download/v10.0.9/DeDRM_tools_10.0.9.zip. SHA256 of
d46e7ff94a46dc871eb9b7e639e6da1883823cd5a9d705d53f51bd9c251aabda - Launch Kindle, login, and download whatever you want to strip DRM from. I did run into some weirdness where I had an exclamation point after logging in but restarting the k4pc app allowed me to download books.
- In Calibre, add all the books you downloaded by clicking and dragging the
.azwfile from Explorer to the Calibre window. You must do this from the downloaded directory as DeDRM is dependent on metadata in the same directory. This can be automated using a batch script pretty trivially. - Then convert them to a non azw3 format (mobi if you are putting it back on a Kindle. epub otherwise).
- And then all the epub files in your Calibre library should have had DRM removed and be ready to import into your real Calibre library (or in a random folder on your computer)
Genuine question : why not just download a pirated version of the book then? Seems like a huge hassle for the same end result
After some more thinking, I guess the original piracy has to come from somewhere :)
Yup.
A Sanderson book will be on every tracker. But ML Wang? Maybe now that booktube love them but most smaller writers don’t get that
And, truth be told, I like reading and want authors I like to be able to justify the time spent writing.
Step 2: install win10. Lots of options there, which version are you running with?
Disabling network should come after downloading Kindle, I think…
Can never tell who is going to wipe their posts on reddit or not so reproducing this here (and locally for my own use) since a lot of people have been trying to do this and this method still works as of March 12th 2025.
Thank you for this. I’ve also just sadly discovered that Google adds Adobe-specific DRM to their books. I was fiddling with Calibre plugins to remove the DRM and couldn’t get it to work :/
Next is Amazon. This guide looks great.
DeDRM extracts the keys from Adobe Digital Editions. So you need to have Digital Editions installed (use a Windows VM if you are another OS) and added the E-Book to the library.
That sounds like where I’m screwing up. I’ll sit down with a VM and do that soon. Thanks for your help!
Thank you for your good work!
I’d add “make the Kindle install folder read only” to step 5. Because even with the auto update feature turned off I’ve had Kindle upgrade itself when I was trying to liberate my Kindle library.
Can’t hurt. But the batch file creates a dummy file that actively prevents k4pc from downloading any updates. Amazon could always change how it handles updates but… that would require an update to take effect.
I do this on Mint without windows 10 or the official Kindle app. Is the Kindle app to download directly from Amazon?
The downside of this is that it involves giving money to Bezos in the first place. If there are similar techniques that work with, say, Apple Books, Kobo or other stores not owned by a literal Bond villain, they’d be even better.
(Also, everyone else seems to use the EPub format, while Amazon have their own proprietary fork of an old PalmPilot ebook format. Meaning that you’re probably going to need to convert it to EPub for reading, which is one more step and could, in theory, go awry.)
Yes, fuck Amazon and Bezos. No argument there. But this also helps people who have previously paid for content to break out of Amazon lock-in while keeping what they’ve paid for. You don’t have to buy new stuff, but this means you can keep the old stuff.
The big issue is that Kindle is actually a spectacularly author friendly platform and stuff like Kindle unlimited locks them in it
So I buy most of my e-books via kobo or direct purchases from the authors. But some are still locked in Kindle
