In a recent communication, Amazon has alerted Kindle users about significant changes set to take effect from next month. The notification pertains to the phasing out of support for sending MOBI (.mobi, .azw, .prc) files through the “Send to Kindle” feature, starting November 1, 2023. This change, as News18 pointed out, specifically impacts users attempting to send MOBI files via email and Kindle apps on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
They’re just removing an antiquated file type that you should have moved on from anyway. All my books are in epub format and even if they weren’t calibre converts them so I don’t think this is a significant change at all.
Yup. I see no problem with this change. EPub is an open format and one can easily convert existing ebooks.
Some of us still use devices that only support .mobi
This news wouldn’t really affect you, though, would it?
Send to Kindle feature is only for Amazon Kindle, and Kindle apps, and those have been able to support more than .mobi since the Kindle 2 (non-touch with a keyboard) which was discontinued nearly 15 years ago.
I have a Kindle. It does not support EPUB. This does affect me. I used to use a bookmarklet to send articles to my Kindle, and this would make that unfeasible.
Kindles don’t natively “support” Epub, but you can Send to Kindle or even email things to your Kindle and it will get formatted into a format that Amazon will accept. I’ve done this myself for years on Kindles and for devices with Kindle apps.
For your bookmarklet, you’d have to either update it to send as Epub or find another option that sends as Epub instead of Mobi.
In your situation, it sounds like just emailing articles to your Kindle would be the best option. This article can tell you how to figure out your Kindle email and how to send files to it.
So just set Calibre to convert the books to mobi before sending it to them
That doesn’t work for the workflow of sending articles to my Kindle with a bookmarklet.
I remember having to change things I got from… places… from epub to mobi using calibre for my old school kindle to recognise it years ago. I don’t even have that device anymore.
Glad they’re accepting what appears to be the standard format tbh.
Wait, does Kindle handle epub now?
No, but you can send one through the email service and it will be automatically converted.
I only ever send in epub format. In the article it clarifies that Amazon recommends the sending of epub.
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I haven’t had an e-reader in years but I remember using mobi files a lot, admittedly I’m not up to date, but I thought that this was more important than it appears it is.
it’s trivial to mass convert mobi to a widely supported format. I think this is a welcomed change, because Amazon was the only one on the industry still promoting a legacy format like mobi, even if they tried to start moving on with their newer formats.