Can You Read Kobo Without Internet?

Yes. The Kobo Plus subscription is only for access to the Kobo Plus catalog, a subset of all titles available on Kobo. The access fee is not for access to the entire Kobo platform. As is inherent to purchasing e-books, you can read your purchased books offline. Just as once you download an email attachment to your computer you can open it up without the internet, the file is delivered to you and is yours to read as you wish. While accessing the Kobo Plus shared drive of content requires permissions each time you access it, your personal attachments (purchased books) are always locally available. I trust Kobo to build and manage a library of my personal e-books, which is why I chose to build my e-book library on Kobo.

If all you want to borrow are audiobooks, then for pure audiobook lending, Libby is your best choice. But you should also check to see if your library still subscribes to RBdigital, now often rebranded, which offers magazines and audiobooks through a separate app. Downloads from the app work just fine offline. Note that the catalog offered through RBdigital may be different from what’s on Libby, though. It’s another tool in your quiver to ask your local library to tell you what digital media services they subscribe to. They want you to use them!

This can be easily visualized as a digital locker. Such a locker can be opened using a combination (the license to use the software) given to you by the library. You can then open and close the locker as many times as you want offline until the combination changes (your loan to the software has expired). The digital locker and all its contents are always on your device. The library does not keep your locker open for you. You have your own copy of the locker. This is different from a remote desktop or virtual machine, where the ‘locker’ is on a server elsewhere in the world, and you are merely looking at a image of it. You have the real thing, stored locally on your own device.

Yes, and I can explain how to do this in practice. On Kindle, long press on a book cover in your library and you will get the option to Download or Remove Download. On Kindle Apps, tapping on the cloud icon in the top right of your library (or long pressing on a book cover) will also download the book for offline reading. Creating a ‘Downloaded’ filter or view is very useful. On e-ink Kindles go into the Library, press the filter menu and select ‘Downloaded’. On the app you will need to search for a similar filter in the app’s menu. Once enabled the view will only display books that are currently available offline and ignores any other cloud-only books. It’s also a great way to browse your offline books.

I use my Kobo as the final destination for my permanent collection of books, such as classics, favorites and reference books. Casual reads that I got through Kindle Unlimited get read on the Kindle app on my phone or on my old Kindle. As a lot of time and hassle would be spent transferring these to my Kobo, they remain in my permanent collection.

"Buy an e-reader" really means "buy into an ecosystem". So, the screen itself is just a part of the whole. All the other functions and so on are outside of the walls of the store of the manufacturer and their approved partners. I chose the Kobo over the Kindle for one reason: direct access to Libby to borrow e-books. If my main source of books was Hoopla, I might have looked for an Android-based e-ink tablet and associated with that respective library. Really it all depends on which ecosystem best serves the main source of books for you.

metadata too! All the metadata we’ve added to a file (like reading progress, highlights and notes) is stored in Amazon’s cloud and synced with our Kindle accounts. If we were to ‘transfer’ the file to a Kobo, that would not be transferred. We’d have to start from the beginning and add all that back to the book. For some people that would be a show-stopper – the reading experience is now enhanced by our marginalia and our place in the book. This data would also be lost in a transfer, because it is Amazon’s to lose. So transfer of file isn’t enough to consider a book to have been moved. The experience of reading a book is locked within the Amazon ecosystem. And what is being sold is not just words on a page, but an ongoing and seamless experience of reading. For people who annotate heavily, this means that a lot of their ‘reading’ is lost, when they switch. I hadn’t thought of this before. It’s a consideration.

As an avid reader who juggles multiple e-readers, I’ve explored the compatibility between Kindle and Kobo extensively. Unfortunately, Kobo devices don’t natively support the Kindle app due to the differing ecosystems. Amazon’s Kindle books are designed to work within their ecosystem, which includes Kindle e-readers, the Kindle app for mobile devices, and Kindle Cloud Reader for web browsers. Kobo, on the other hand, operates on its own platform, with books primarily purchased through the Kobo store or loaded via EPUB files. The lack of a dedicated Kindle app for Kobo devices means you can’t directly access your Kindle library on a Kobo e-reader. However, there are workarounds if you’re determined to read Kindle books on a Kobo device. One method involves removing DRM protection from your Kindle books and converting them to EPUB format, which Kobo supports. Tools like Calibre, a free and open-source e-book management software, can assist with this process. It’s important to note that DRM removal is a legal gray area and may violate Amazon’s terms of service, so proceed with caution. Once converted, you can sideload the EPUB files onto your Kobo device via USB or use Kobo’s Dropbox integration for wireless transfers. This method requires some technical know-how but is a viable solution for tech-savvy readers. Another approach is to use Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader in the experimental browser on your Kobo device. While Kobo’s browser isn’t optimized for this purpose, it can sometimes load the web version of Kindle, allowing you to read your books online. This method is far from ideal, as the experience may be sluggish and lack features like offline reading or seamless page turns. For a smoother experience, consider using a tablet or smartphone with the Kindle app alongside your Kobo e-reader. This way, you can enjoy the best of both worlds without compromising on functionality. Ultimately, while there’s no straightforward app to read Kindle books on Kobo devices, the workarounds available can bridge the gap for determined readers. The decision to explore these methods depends on your comfort level with technology and your willingness to navigate the limitations. If you’re deeply invested in the Kindle ecosystem but love your Kobo device’s hardware, it might be worth the effort. Otherwise, sticking to Kobo’s native offerings or using a secondary device for Kindle books might be the more practical choice.

I have to laugh at how many books I download in the last 10 minutes at the gate before my flight is called. It becomes a ritual of begging the book to download faster as I’m holding up the line to board. And then there’s that wonderful checkmark and the rest of the travel time is spent listening to the book offline. That’s not a feature, that’s a pre-flight adrenaline rush.

Error messages when trying to download e-books purchased through Kobo through Adobe Digital Editions often reference a DRM error. I have found that de-authorizing and re-authorizing my computer to use ADE (Help>de-authorize computer then re-authorize computer with same Adobe ID) usually solves the problem first. Next, check that the Kobo book in question has been added to your account’s library of purchased books. Occasionally download links expire but can be re-downloaded from Kobo website as an ACSM file with a fresh download link usually generated. I also ensure I’m running the most up-to-date version of ADE as older versions have been known to fail to work with more recent DRM schemes – tedious troubleshooting that usually fixes 90% of failed download errors I encounter.