Three ways to get an EPUB onto your Kindle
The web uploader, the email address and the USB cable. Which to use, and the setup step that catches everyone out.
Updated August 8, 2026
You’ve got an EPUB. Getting it onto the device takes about a minute, once you know which of the three routes you want.
1. The Send to Kindle web page
Easiest, and where you should start.
- Go to amazon.com/sendtokindle and sign in.
- Drag the EPUB onto the page.
- Choose which devices should receive it.
- Send.
It turns up in your library within a couple of minutes and syncs to every Kindle and Kindle app on the account. Nothing to install.
2. Email to your Kindle address
Better if you do this often, or you’re on a phone.
Every Kindle account has an address ending in @kindle.com. Find yours under
Manage Your Content and Devices → Preferences → Personal Document Settings.
Here’s the bit everyone misses. On that same settings page there’s an Approved Personal Document E-mail List. Amazon quietly bins anything sent from an address that isn’t on it. No bounce, no warning. Add the address you’ll be sending from before you send anything, or you’ll be staring at an empty library wondering what you did wrong.
After that, just email the EPUB to your @kindle.com address as an attachment.
Subject and body get ignored.
3. USB cable
No account involved, and it works with no internet at all.
- Plug the Kindle into your computer. It mounts as a drive.
- Copy the EPUB into the
documentsfolder. - Eject the drive and unplug.
The catch: books sideloaded this way live on that device and nowhere else. No syncing, no reading position carried to your phone, and nothing comes back after a factory reset. If you want to read it across devices, use one of the first two.
Which to choose
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| One-off, at a computer | The web uploader |
| From a phone, or regularly | |
| No internet, or you want it on one device only | USB |
| You want it synced across devices | Web or email — not USB |
If the book arrives looking wrong
Amazon converts your EPUB when it arrives, so a book that turns up with broken chapters or paragraphs running together almost certainly had those problems already. That’s a conversion issue, not a transfer one.
Getting a better conversion covers what to do about it.