Send to Kindle and import Kindle highlights

Keep works with your Kindle two ways. You can import the highlights, notes, and bookmarks you have already made on your Kindle, and you can send any saved Keep item to your Kindle to read on the device.

Both features are available on free and paid plans. Manage everything from settings -> Kindle.

Import Kindle highlights

Bring every highlight, note, and bookmark from your Kindle into Keep without giving Amazon any account access. The import reads the My Clippings.txt file that your Kindle writes to its own storage.

  1. Plug your Kindle into your computer with a USB cable.
  2. Open the Kindle drive in Finder or File Explorer and find documents/My Clippings.txt.
  3. In Keep, open settings -> import and click Import next to "Import Kindle highlights".
  4. Choose your My Clippings.txt file. Keep parses it locally in your browser and shows a preview of the books and counts.
  5. Click Import to save the books to your library.

On macOS

Newer Kindles connect over MTP rather than as a regular USB drive, so they do not show up in Finder. Use a free third-party app like OpenMTP to browse the Kindle, then copy documents/My Clippings.txt to your Mac and upload that copy.

On Windows

Windows shows the Kindle as a normal device under "This PC". Open it, browse to documents/, and pick My Clippings.txt directly.

What gets imported

Keep creates one item per book. Each item contains:

  • All highlights from that book, in reading order with location and page numbers.
  • All notes you wrote on that book.
  • All bookmarks you saved.
  • The date each clipping was added on your Kindle.

Books land stashed, tagged kindle, and grouped into a Kindle collection so they are easy to find later.

Notes

The parser runs entirely in your browser. The file never leaves your device until the parsed items are saved to Keep, and Amazon is never contacted. Each import is capped at 1,000 books. If your My Clippings.txt is larger than that, split it before importing.

If you have already imported the same book before, importing it again updates the existing Keep item rather than creating a duplicate.

Send to Kindle

Send any saved Keep item to your Kindle as a clean EPUB. Useful for long articles, newsletters, X threads, or anything you would rather read on a Kindle screen than a phone or laptop.

One-time setup

  1. Find your Kindle email address. In the Amazon site, open Manage Your Content and Devices -> Devices and pick your Kindle. The email looks like name_abc123@kindle.com.
  2. Open settings -> Kindle in Keep and paste the address into Kindle email, then click Save.
  3. Add Keep's sending address to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List in Amazon. The exact address is shown on the Kindle settings page in Keep. Without this, Amazon will reject the email and the document will not arrive.

To add the sender in Amazon: open Manage Your Content and Devices -> Preferences -> Personal Document Settings, then add Keep's sending address under Approved Personal Document E-mail List.

Sending an item

  1. Open any saved item in Keep.
  2. Click the actions menu and choose Send to Kindle.
  3. The item arrives on your Kindle within a few minutes.

Keep packages each item as an EPUB with the title, source link, and full reading content. Inline images are included when they are available, up to 20 images and 8 MB total. The EPUB is delivered to your Kindle email as an attachment, the same way Amazon's own Send to Kindle service works.

Troubleshooting

If the item never arrives:

  • Check that the Kindle email address in settings -> Kindle is correct and ends in @kindle.com.
  • Check that Keep's sending address is in your Amazon Approved Personal Document E-mail List. Amazon silently drops messages from senders that are not on the list.
  • Check that your Kindle is online. Documents only sync when the device has Wi-Fi.
  • Items without saved content cannot be sent. Open the item in Keep first and make sure the article body is loaded.