Users who want to back up their Kindle ebooks used to use old versions of the Kindle for Windows app in order to get them in a format from which they could remove DRM. Amazon has made this no longer available. Have any users come up with a workaround?
Short answer
Yes — several communities have found partial work-arounds, but none of them is as simple or robust as the old “Kindle for Windows 1.x” trick, and none lets you strip the new KFX-3 DRM that Amazon began rolling out this spring. In practical terms, every current method:
- relies on software or firmware that Amazon could disable at any time,
- only works on titles first published before about 23 April 2025, or
- requires owning (and occasionally downgrading) a hardware Kindle and then using third-party tools on the files you copy off it.
Below is a high-level survey (no step-by-step instructions) of what is still circulating.
1. Downgrading the desktop app — temporarily still possible
Some Windows users are sideloading Kindle for PC 2.4.0 (or earlier) from mirrors and blocking its auto-updates. The older build still downloads the “KFX 2” flavour of Amazon’s files, which existing open-source plug-ins can decrypt – but only for books released before the April 2025 cutoff. Any book that comes down with the newer KFX 3 scheme remains locked.(epubor.com)
2. Grabbing books through a Kindle e-ink device
Because e-ink Kindles (Paperwhite, Oasis, Scribe, etc.) still let you connect by USB, many people now:
- buy or side-load the book directly onto the device,
- copy the downloaded
.azw/.kfxfile to a computer, and - feed it to a Calibre plug-in (or commercial software) that’s keyed to the device’s serial number.
This approach currently works even for 2025-era titles, but only if the device hasn’t auto-updated to a firmware that swaps in KFX 3. Reports suggest that once the new firmware is pushed to all devices, the loophole may close.(ereadersforum.com)
3. Android-emulator tricks
A smaller group installs an old Kindle-for-Android APK inside an emulator (BlueStacks, Android Studio, etc.) because that APK still downloads the easier-to-decrypt files. Success depends on pinning the app to a very specific version and blocking Amazon’s update checks. This method shares the same “pre-April-2025 only” limitation and carries the usual security caveats.(epubor.com)
4. Commercial “one-click” tools
Packages such as Epubor Ultimate bundle downgrading, key extraction and conversion into a single interface. Under the hood they use the same tactics described above, so they have the same cut-off date and can’t unlock KFX 3 yet.(epubor.com)
State of the arms-race in July 2025
- New DRM variant (KFX 3): As of today, no public utility, open-source or commercial, can decrypt books delivered in this format. The DeDRM maintainers and several proprietary vendors say they are still researching it.(reddit.com)
- Removed “Download & Transfer via USB” button: Amazon’s decision (effective 26 Feb 2025) means you can’t fetch a copy for sideloading straight from your account webpage any more. All current work-arounds therefore hinge on older software or a physical Kindle.(theverge.com)
Legal & practical reminders
- Circumventing DRM may violate Amazon’s Terms of Use and, in some jurisdictions, anti-circumvention law (e.g., the U.S. DMCA).
- Even where personal backups are lawful, distributing decrypted files is almost certainly not.
- Amazon can—and sometimes does—force-update its apps / firmware, which can break any of the methods above without notice.
Bottom line
For now, the only consistently successful path is to keep a hardware Kindle on older firmware and use it as the source of the files you back up. Everything else either stops at the April 2025 wall or is liable to disappear the next time Amazon pushes an update. If you need guaranteed long-term archiving, you may want to buy in a truly DRM-free store whenever the publisher offers that option, or explore Amazon’s own “Send-to-Kindle” personal-document workflow (which keeps a copy in your cloud library but does not remove DRM).
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