How to save my Kindle books..

August 12, 2009 6:48 AM

I have a new laptop which has my entire library of itunes on it. Everytime I hook up my ipod, it tells me that my device is linked to a different itunes (the one on my old laptop), and asks if I want to erase the entire contents of the device and replace with the new itunes content. This would be fine, except that I have about 20 books on the kindle app that I don't want to lose

I'm not sure if I can redownload the books to the same device that they were originally downloaded to and my kindle account at amazon gives me no clues as to whether it's possible.
I don't even know if they will get erased, though it seems that they would. The books aren't appearing on my itunes library, though the icon for the kindle app is.
Please hope me. I am obviously not the most tech-y person in the room.

posted by newpotato to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: While Amazon's re-downloading policies are a bit mysterious, at the very least you should be able to re-download the books to the same device through the Kindle app. If my understanding of WhisperSync is correct, it'll even remember where you left off automatically.

Absolute worst case, you should be able to drop Amazon customer service an e-mail and they can help you out. If not, you can raise a stink on the Consumerist and they'll help you out anyway. :-)
posted by agentmunroe at 7:07 AM on August 12, 2009

Best answer: You can redownload any content to up to six different devices, so I'm sure you'll be fine.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:08 AM on August 12, 2009

Best answer: If they're on your Kindle account, they'll get re-pushed out. I believe Kindle purchases are tied to an account, not a device, and the current page you're on is synced by the service between devices. On the Amazon site, under your account, you can tell it to re-push books to a specified device if necessary.
posted by mikeh at 7:10 AM on August 12, 2009

Best answer: Just to give you a little bit more confidence, from this page on Amazon's site:

There is no limit on the number of times a title can be downloaded to a registered device.

posted by agentmunroe at 7:11 AM on August 12, 2009

Response by poster: All very helpful answers, thanks. Didn't even think to look at the Kindle FAQs. That will teach me to try to function before coffee.
I'll erase and replace now.
posted by newpotato at 8:25 AM on August 12, 2009

The mystery about Amazon's redownloading policies, if my understanding is correct, resides in the number of *separate devices* the work may reside on at once. What makes it a mystery is that this number varies by publisher and work, and is not to my knowledge made public by Amazon. I doubt the great majority of Kindle users would hit this threshold with normal use.
posted by The Confessor at 8:37 AM on August 12, 2009

Cant you erase the associated ipods on the computer your on and make that laptop the master so that itunes wont delete whats on the ipod?
posted by majortom1981 at 9:52 AM on August 12, 2009

You can re-download content via the amazon.com/manageyourkindle page. I had the Kindle app on my iPod Touch and now I have a Kindle, and that's where I keep track of my files. You can definitely re-send any books to your iPod once you've re-routed the library or whatever.
posted by fantine at 12:45 PM on August 17, 2009