Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Kindle Fire and Your Personal Files

From Greg...
Hi Cindy, 

Thanks again for your blog - I've found many freebies there that I wouldn't have otherwise discovered. 

I am the proud happy owner of a new Kindle Fire. An early Christmas present from my wife.  I think her words were (after me pointing it out on the TV adds numerous times) - "Oh, just get it..." 

My question is this. I also have a third generation Kindle 3G.  I have quite a few "personal documents" that I have e-mailed to it (books, blog clippings, magazine articles, etc) and of course those documents have ended up in Amazon's storage area (and this seems to be different - at least from an accessibility perspective - than the Amazon Cloud Storage).  I would like to access these documents from my Kindle Fire as well, but cannot find a way to do it from the Fire.  I realize I could go to the Kindle management page and send them to the Fire from there, but it seems like you should be able to access them directly from the Fire.  

Have you been able to do this or am I just missing something. 

Have a great holiday season. 
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Wonderful question Greg! I know you are going to love your new Kindle Fire. Do make it a habit to check out the free app daily from Amazon. I'm not much into games, but occasionally there is a goodie I like.

Here is what I found about those personal documents poking around in my account:

The place where your personal documents you have been emailing to your Kindle 3 is different from your cloud drive. To get to the ones Amazon has saved for you, go to the manage your Kindle area on Amazon. The Manage Your Amazon Cloud Drive area is different. I don't believe you can access your personal documents area from your Kindle 3 or the Fire. Don't know why Amazon hasn't thought of that. 

You can access your Archives, but personal files don't go there. 
manage your kindle.jpg
Then go to the Personal Documents area

personal documents.jpg

You should see a list of the documents you have sent to your other Kindle, with an Actions button to the right of each one. On the Actions buttons, there is a little down arrow to indicate there are choices available. Click any of the Actions buttons to see your choices.
actions.jpg
Then you can choose where (else) to send that personal document. Greyed out items listed mean they are not able to receive the file for one reason or another.

deliver title.jpg
The only other way I know of would be to email those documents to yourself again. One thing I do know. The Kindle Fire is brand new, and I'm certain Amazon listens, and this wonderful little machine will probably be improved as time goes by with updates. So, be on the lookout.

Hope this helped and you enjoy the heck out of your new Kindle Fire!

Warmest Regards,
Cindy