How to get a Kindle book into Calibre

Convert Kindle to EPub

This is how I got a Kindle book into Calibre and converted to epub, took some reading and messing about. but this is what worked for me.

1. download the Kindle for Mac/Windows program
2. download Calibre
3. download this DeDRM
4. install both Kindle and Calibre
5. run this to get .azw files from Kindle
   • Mac: sudo chmod -x /Applications/Kindle.app/Contents/MacOS/renderer-test
   • Windows: ren %localappdata%\Amazon\Kindle\application\renderer-test.exe renderer-test.xxx
6. unzip the DeDRM tool
7. import the DeDRM plugin into Calibre see below
8. import your Kindle books into Calibre
   • Mac: [home folder]/Library/Application Support/Kindle/
   • Mac: [home folder]/Library/Containers/com.amazon.Kindle/Data/Library/Application Support/Kindle/
   • Windows: [user folder]\AppData\Local\Amazon (it might be hidden) and [user folder]\Documents\My Kindle Content
9. Select the book to convert in Calibre
10. click the convert button and then click OK to start the convert

Installing the DeDRM plugin for calibre

1. Download the latest tools package, and unzip it.
   • (On Windows, right-click and “Extract All…”; After extracting all, rename the tools_vX.X.X.zip file to tools_zipped_vX.X.X.zip to prevent later confusion)
2. Run calibre. From the Preferences menu select “Change calibre behavior”.
   • (Do not click “Get plugins to enhance calibre”, that option is reserved for ‘official’ calibre plugins.)
3. Click on Plugins (under “Advanced”) — it looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece.
4. Click on the large “Load plugin from file” button
5. Navigate to the tools folder unzipped in step 2
6. Open the “DeDRM_calibre_plugin” folder
7. Select the DeDRM_plugin.zip file in that folder
8. Click on the “Add” (sometimes “Open”) button.
9. Click on the “Yes” button in the “Are you sure?” warning dialog that appears. A “Success” dialog will appear, saying that the plug-in has been installed. Click on “OK”.