How To Find My Books On Kindle After Purchase?

This could be a software bug that affects your particular model or version of firmware. A search on your Kindle model plus “books not showing” should bring up a forum page with a specific fix for the issue. For example, I knew of a bug in some older Paperwhites where all the books would disappear after indexing. The fix for this was to create an empty folder via USB and then name it something (i.e. create a dummy empty folder). It sounds arcane but such community fixes for strange issues are often the answer and are typically listed on the official support pages for your Kindle model. For such unusual issues, the r/kindle community on Reddit is an especially good resource as someone is bound to have had the exact same problem and found a solution that isn’t listed in the official support pages.

Most importantly, think about why you want to hide your books. Are you trying to prevent extreme choice paralysis? Then use the Downloaded filter. Are you trying to hide specific genres or even certain individual books (such as a borrowed Kindle book that you don’t want the current owner to see?) Then archive them. Are you trying to make a clean list of books you need to read? Then use collections. Most of this can be solved with a hybrid approach. My device is set to the ‘Downloaded’ filter, I archive all the gadgets and freebies that I receive which I don’t like, and I have a ‘Next Up’ collection for the books that I am currently most interested in reading. This approach keeps my digital reading life under control.

Are you logged into the correct Amazon account on your Kindle? I ran into this problem a few years ago. I downloaded a book on my iPhone using the Kindle app, but for some reason it wasn’t appearing on my Kindle. After some digging, I discovered that the Kindle and iPhone app were linked to different Amazon accounts. Check your account by going to Settings > Your Account on your Kindle. Also, make sure your Kindle is connected to Wi-Fi and then manually sync your Kindle by sliding down from the top of the home screen and tapping the ‘Sync’ icon. If you’ve borrowed e-books from your local library through Libby, be aware that borrowed books are often contained in a special ‘Borrowed’ area or listed under ‘Docs’. The interface to library e-books can be somewhat confusing and doesn’t always do a great job of distinguishing between sources of e-books. From your home screen, tap the ‘Library’ icon. Look for a ‘Filters’ option on the right-hand side of the screen. Make sure that option is set to ‘Show on Device’ for the contents listed. If you recently removed books from your device to make room for new ones, it may take a little while for Amazon to update and for the removed books to reappear on your device’s library list. And finally, a simple restart of your Kindle often fixes seemingly minor issues with the device. To restart your Kindle, hold the power button down for 40 seconds or so and then release it when it’s restarted.

I created a budget category called “Media” in YNAB (You Need A Budget). Every time I buy a Kindle book I immediately enter the transaction and assign it to the category “Media”. This way the money leaves my pool of money and I can see it leaving. It’s great for conscious spending. If the “Media” envelope is empty then I have to wait a few days until money has arrived in my account and I can then buy the book I wanted. This has reduced my impulse buying greatly.

Indirect indeed. To access your online reading history go to Amazon.com, log in to your account and go to account settings (top right of the page). From there click on Manage Your Content and Devices. From there click on the ‘Content’ tab on the right hand side of the page and select Books from the drop-down list at the top of the page. Most books are listed in chronological order. You can search for specific books in the list but it can sometimes be helpful to scan through the list of books you’ve downloaded in case you remember reading part of a book but didn’t finish it. Occasionally it’s helpful to ‘tidy up’ your list and remove samples of books as well as those that you know you’ll never read.

Will this ever change? Super-integrated-ecosystems like Apple are moving towards a model where one can not only redeem a gift card but spend money directly within the app itself. It’s possible that Amazon could follow in their footsteps but I can see why they wouldn’t want to. For one, as it is, Amazon controls the entire purchasing experience for customers who purchase on Amazon.com and are able to promote additional products on the same page. There is also the fact that Amazon would avoid the 30% cut that Apple and Google take on in-app purchases. I wouldn’t count on seeing a “Redeem Gift Card” button within the Kindle app on your iPad in the near future. This minor detour to purchase from the comfort of your iPad in the browser is a small price to pay for the enormous selection of Kindle books.

Kindle’s Family Library doesn’t work 100% of the time for sharing books, but it’s pretty good for the most part. For example, you can link up family members’ accounts to share eligible books. But a lot of popular authors these days do not allow their books to be shared through Kindle’s Family Library. So we tend to share older books, like sci-fi and romance titles. Often we’ll find out after we purchase a new release that it’s not eligible for sharing, but we’ve managed to save a lot of money on books that are shareable. Just be sure to check the details of a book before you assume it can be shared.

It’s also possible that the book you’re looking for is not in your Kindle library. I’ve bought books on Google Play Books, Apple Books and Kobo during sales, but then forgotten that I bought them there. It’s worth checking your email receipts for other ebook stores to see if you’ve purchased the book there instead. Also, if you’re subscribed to services such as Everand (formerly Scribd) or Audible Plus then the books you read through these services are borrowed, not purchased, so won’t appear in your Kindle purchase library. I’ve been mistaken and thinking that I’d somehow hidden the book, when in reality I must have bought it to read on a different platform. To try and avoid this problem in future, I’m keeping a simple spreadsheet of all my ebook purchases across all the stores where I buy ebooks. (My memory is useless for this sort of thing.)

This post lists out many of the little Known issues with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and I agree with just about all of them. The biggest limitation for me right now is the iOS/Android app restriction - Amazon won’t sell ebook in-app for Kindle because Apple and Google take 30% or more, and Amazon wants to sell ebook for lower prices. So you can only purchase Kindle ebooks through mobile web browser or from desktop computer. Small price to pay for lower ebook prices, I suppose.

Is there a difference between closing a book and putting a Kindle to 'sleep'? I assume Kindle tracks 'time spent reading' based on how long a book is 'open' and how long a device has been 'on'. So, someone who falls asleep with a book open for an hour would have 'reading time' logged for an hour as well. The history isn't entirely accurate it is an estimate based on 'time that a book is open'. So beware that ‘minutes read’ is probably going to include idle time as well, so it’s best to look at it as a rough proxy rather than the “truth” – it’s a way to get an estimate of how long it took to read a book rather than actual focused time. The “book” count is probably more reliable as a historical record of the books you spent a lot of time reading.