Manual method
- Use Amazon’s Request My Data route and select the Kindle/digital-content categories offered for your account.
- Complete its confirmation step and save the delivered package.
- Open important books’ Notebook/notes view in the Kindle app and use an available Export/Share option; otherwise copy your own notes with title and location references.
- Preserve your original personal documents separately and check exported annotations against a sample book.
Coverage and limitations: This is a partial route: exact annotation-export controls vary by Kindle app and book. Publisher limits may restrict highlights. Account records and sync do not establish a full portable ebook library.
Size and time to allow
Illustrative planning size: 0.05 GB; scenario range 0.001–0.5 GB. This is a storage-planning example, not a measured average. Your archive may be smaller or larger. Reading metadata, highlights and personal notes across hundreds of books; excludes book contents.
Preparation and hands-on time: Plan 15–60 minutes for selected annotations plus the separate account-request wait; delivery timing depends on the account request.
For the 0.05 GB example, network transfer alone is approximately:
| Connection download speed | Transfer estimate |
|---|---|
| 10 Mbit/s | 58 sec |
| 50 Mbit/s | 12 sec |
| 100 Mbit/s | 6 sec |
These calculations use decimal GB and 70% of the advertised speed. Tiny transfers can take longer because of startup overhead. Local exports do not need an internet download; use these numbers only for a network transfer. Preparation, retries, extraction, checking and a cloud upload are additional; use upload speed for the latter.
Where and how to keep it
An encrypted USB key can hold this example, but keep another independent copy on an external drive or in private encrypted cloud storage. A USB key alone is easily lost and is not a complete preservation plan.
Create a dated kindle/YYYY-MM-DD/ folder. Keep received originals unchanged, use a separate working copy, and note the account/profile, selected dates, formats and known gaps in a private README. Compare file sizes, check any supplied checksums, and open sample files from the backup before considering the task finished. Repeat after meaningful additions. Follow the storage, archive-checking and large-file guide.
Sources and review
Public documentation was reviewed on 27 October 2026. No signed-in export or restoration was performed. Account options and availability can change; follow the current provider instructions.