Amazon’s Kindle line includes some of the best e-readers around, but no Kindle reader supports the industry standard for eBooks: the EPUB format. However, Amazon claims that this will (partially) change soon.
Kindles are designed to read books purchased from Amazon, but Kindle owners can also copy their own files to read – such as DRM-free books and comics purchased from other stores, or public domain books from the Project Gutenberg. However, books must be in .MOBI format to work on Kindles, which is different from the .EPUB format that virtually all other e-readers and reading apps support. This has led to the distribution of many books in both formats and the use of various tools to convert EPUB files to MOBI.
HOW TO TRANSFER EPUB TO KINDLE
Amazon is finally going to support the EPUB format… sort of. The company revealed in a support article that the MOBI file format is being discontinued and soon you will be able to copy EPUB books without converting them yourself. Amazon’s Kindle personal document service, which creates an email address to which you can send books as attachments, will accept EPUB files. Send to Kindle apps for PC and Android will also support this format.
The only minor issue seems to be that Kindle readers won’t actually support EPUB files natively – it’s just that Amazon will now convert them to native Kindle format for you without the use of external tools. Send to Kindle and the Kindle Personal Documents Service can process EPUB books, but Amazon’s support docs say nothing regarding copying EPUB books directly to a Kindle with USB. If you want to move these files to a Kindle without an available internet connection, you may still need to use third-party conversion tools.
Even with that small (supposed) caveat, this is still a great move that will make Kindles much more convenient to use with third-party books. Amazon says the new feature will be available “late 2022.”
