Kindle Skills - Backing Up Your Books

Backing up the contents of the Documents folder on your Kindle is as easy as dragging the folder to the Desktop on your main computer. Since you are dragging from an external drive, which is what your computer thinks your Kindle is when you connect it via USB, to your main computer, it will automatically copy, rather than move the folder. You can't go wrong, or accidentally delete the folder on your Kindle. Whether it is a Mac or PC, any time you drag something, a file or folder, from one drive to another, Copy is the default action. 

Once you have your folder safely copied on your main computer, you can safely remove the Kindle connected. Then you can move that folder to a more permanent home for archiving. This could be a blank recordable CD, or a USB drive, or you may want to rename the folder (Kindle Documents?) and put it into the Documents folder on your PC or Mac. 

Any time you need to restore what is on your Kindle, you can copy the contents of this folder back to the Documents folder on your Kindle.

Note: You really don't need to worry about any books you have purchased on Amazon. This includes all the free books I have been telling you about all these months. A purchase is a purchase, even when it is free. Everything you purchased from the Amazon Kindle store is stored in "the cloud" on Amazon's servers and can be retrieved any time by visiting your Archives.

Now personal files and ebooks you acquired from other sources (like manybooks.net) are another matter. You should have a special folder on your computer for the initial storage of these, and copy only the books you want to read on your Kindle (as you need them) to your Kindle documents folder. 

If it makes you feel better to copy the entire contents of the Documents folder on your Kindle for backup purposes, go for it. Good backup habits are few and far between. I'm proud of you!

Kindle Skills - From the Desk of Mrs. Wizard If you have a Kindle you will love this book! Get a sample and see.

Ask Mrs. Wizard: Please send me a personal email (mrswizard@mrswizard.com) if you have any questions. I answer all my emails and am more than happy to help any time I can. Your questions mean a lot to me, and may even inspire an article that will help others and make this a more valuable resource to anyone who reads it. 

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