How to synchronize Kindle collections across all devices, including older Kindles?

Question

I have just started organizing collections on my bottom-of-the-line Kindle (the Kindle 4?). Despite selecting "annotations sync and backup" I'm not seeing these collections appear on my iPad and iPhone. I've spent 20 minutes reading through Amazon documentation and forum posts and I still can't figure out how to get my Kindle's collections in sync with my iPad.

Is it possible to keep Kindle collections in sync across all devices that can access Kindle content?

If yes, how?

If only in limited ways or among some types of devices, what are the limitations and which devices?

Answer 1

I am guessing you have already found Amazon's Organizing Your Kindle Content. If every book on your devices is from Amazon, then you can do some organizing at 'Your Account' > 'Manage Your Device' > 'Your Kindle Library' or by using the cloud. If you have works from anyplace else, then the prospects get worse.

I personally have some OCD issues that require my books be in some kind of order that is not primary based on who I bought it from and when. I was trying to keep track organized with an Excel book. I searched for solutions and read many articles & blogs, I strongly desired an Amazon/Kindle solution, the majority pointed to a single solution which I eventually adopted. Calibre is that solution.

The only disadvantage the Calibre has it is a bit more difficult to connect wirelessly to your collection. I won't go into all it's advantages but, essentially it is your own personal library, that you can organize and store you books on, regardless of where it comes from. My 1263 (current count) works are stored on Calibre, I download from Amazon, Smashword, Baen, Project Gutenberg, etc. directly to Calibre (on my pc). Once a week or so, I sit down at the PC, remove some books from my Kindles, mark them as read on Calibre (tag 'read'), add some new books to the appropriate kindle ('paperwhite' for reading in bed, 'keyboard' for text to speech while commuting) and tag the books I am currently reading in Calibre by the device they are on.

I believe there is at least one wireless solution for connecting your Kindle to your Calibre, but in the end I stuck with using the USB connection, as by the time I need to move some books around, I need a recharge, so i get a two for one deal (load and charge).

Answer 2

My own experience with this is that with Amazon you have a couple sets of collections. My iOS and android devices seem to share a set of collections that are automatically sync'ed across them.

In contrast my kindle device and my (mac) desktop software don't share the same. However, from my kindle device if I look at my "Cloud" items, then in the overall menu there is a "Import collections" which lets me import collections from my desktop software. The desktop software has an "import collections" command available from the "add collection" menu in the ui, but I'm not sure where it imports from.

I assume that at some point Amazon will merge all these.

Answer 3

Your calibre ebook imports go into a folder that you can pick. I have mine dump into a Dropbox folder and that keeps my computers synced. Still can't figure out how to get my kindle synced like that so I have to manually toss my files to it.