Kindle Cloud Confirmed
Amazon just gave you another reason to rush out and buy a new Kindle.
I don’t usually like to rehash old news on this blog but today I will make an exception. A reader asked for clarification on how Amazon will go about backing up your personal documents. Since I was the first to find this feature (on Sunday), I thought this was a good reason to take a deeper look at what I think is a very cool feature.
Here’s what I know so far (based on sending stuff to my Kindle this morning, reading the help pages, and looking at the Manage Your Kindle page).
Everything that you email to your Kindle (any of your Kindles) will be archived by Amazon. They’re giving you 5GB of free storage just for your Kindle files. Note that the 5GB is completely separate from whatever amount of space you have in the Amazon Cloud Drive; I actually have 20GB in the Cloud Drive but only 5GB for the Kindle files.
I’ve tested the service, and files sent to my K3 and my K4 (not yet arrived) have been archived by Amazon.
There’s a new set of menu options on the Manage Your Kindle page, and it looks like I cannot do everything with my files that I could already do with stuff I bought from Amazon. I cannot download the personal files but I can send them to my new K4 or the Kindle Touch (which hasn’t even shipped yet).
Note: This new feature is only fully supported on the new Kindles, just like I surmised on Sunday. I can also confirm that the Amazon help pages say that Amazon will archive your annotations. Again, I suspect it will only work on the new Kindles, but this is not clear.
I don’t know about you but I’ve been wanting something like this ever since the Kindle launched. I would have been willing to rent a GB or 2GB of space in order to get this service, and once I had a Dropbox account I would have been more than happy to give Amazon access to it.
But I also have to question how Amazon went about implementing this service. They gave me 5GB for my Kindle but won’t let me use the 20GB I already have in the Amazon CD? That’s a tad schizoid, and in the long run they will likely have to combine all their cloud storage services into one system.
via Amazon
Comments
Syn September 29, 2011 um 8:55 am
Nate, so does this mean we can store our books bought from other places and Amazon will store up to 5 gb of them? I think thats not bad then with the 5 or 6gb it comes with on the Fire.
I still hate it doesn’t have a SD card but Amazon got rid of those starting with K2 years ago. I think the SD card is to Amazon what the build in DVD drive is to Apple.
Nate Hoffelder September 29, 2011 um 8:57 am
So long as the ebooks don’t have DRM when you email them to Amazon (and you already converted them to Mobi/AZW), yes Amazon will archive them for you.
It doesn’t take long to really like the idea, does it?
Anne September 29, 2011 um 9:06 am
This feature is not showing up on my Manage Your Kindle, Your Kinlde Library page. Maybe it is only going to show up for people who have bought a new Kindle?
Anne September 29, 2011 um 9:07 am
Well never mind. I tried it in a different browser and the feature is there!
Anne September 29, 2011 um 9:09 am
And I should note that it is a document (a news feed) that I sent via Calibre.
Andrys September 29, 2011 um 9:35 am
I remember when you and Ben found this variable at the same time. Excellent catch.
I think they need a menu option for people to choose NOT to archive those, as we are able to say No to annotations-backup. Some perosnal docs are private.
It’s great to have the option though. I’ve sent a lot of stuff and not one is there so it’s only for the new things we’d send.
Mike Cane September 29, 2011 um 9:47 am
Do WiFi-only Kindles have email addresses too?
Nate Hoffelder September 29, 2011 um 9:48 am
Yep. That’s been true ever since the K3 Wifi.
Jason Griffey September 29, 2011 um 11:12 am
No indication that they will sync sideloaded books (that you’ve loaded via USB directly to the Kindle) up to the Cloud, though? That’s what I want…the ability to throw something on my Kindle using USB, and then have the ability to grab it from my iPhone when I need it. True sync…
Andrys September 30, 2011 um 3:16 am
Hmmm, I meant Felix, not Ben (I still have writer Ben Fong-Torres in mind, evidently). Both are good writers.
I’m not sure I’d want Amazon to just pick up my personal docs from my Kindle! If I send them To the cloud, that’s another matter. I’m not even sure about sending via email for the free auto-conversion to Word doc compatability etc.
Nate, I saw your tweet about testing. Any more news?
Andrys September 30, 2011 um 5:18 am
Nate,
The Personal Document Archiving page now says, "Retrieving archived personal documents is currently only supported on Kindle Keyboard, Kindle and Kindle Touch."
They make the setting 'yes' by default, to archiving whatever you send to your Kindle via email through Amazon’s servers.
Kindle Keyboard name has just been assigned this week to the Kindle 3 (WiFi and 3G/WiFi units.
That’s great. They’ll also automatically sync these across various Kindle devices now. That’s huge.
Thanks for finding that we have 5 gigs of Kindle cloud that’s separate from Amazon cloud. I’d not seen that.
Nate Hoffelder September 30, 2011 um 7:10 am
Interesting. Perhaps the K3 got an update in the past few days. Curiously enough, I still cannot send any personal docs to my K3.
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