Your three options

After 20 May 2026, your affected Kindle will stop being a shop. Everything else about it — the screen, the battery, the WiFi, the stored books, the ports — still works. The question is what you want to do with it next. There are three realistic answers, and the right one depends on how comfortable you are with a USB cable, not on how technical you think you are.

This page gives you the honest version of each option. The Old Kindle Survival Guide walks through the steps with screenshots.

Option 1: Keep reading — sideload books with Calibre

Difficulty: Easy · Risk: essentially zero · What you get: a Kindle that still reads new books, just loaded from your computer instead of the store.

This is the path for most people. It is the official, above-board way to put new books on a Kindle that no longer has store access, and it does not touch any DRM, any jailbreaks, or any grey areas. It is what Kindle owners with large collections have been doing for over a decade anyway, because Calibre is a better library manager than Amazon’s own app.

What you’ll need

• A computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) — one you don’t mind installing free software on.
• A micro-USB cable that fits your Kindle — the one you charge it with.
• Calibre, the free and open-source ebook library manager.
• Some source of books. Project Gutenberg (70,000+ free classics), Standard Ebooks (beautifully typeset public-domain editions), your public library via OverDrive, or ebooks bought DRM-free from shops such as Smashwords and Kobo.

How it works, at a high level

1. Plug the Kindle into the computer. It appears as a USB drive called Kindle.
2. Open Calibre. It recognises the device automatically.
3. Drag an EPUB, MOBI, or PDF into Calibre’s library. Calibre converts it to Kindle’s AZW3 format if needed, with one click.
4. Right-click the book in Calibre and choose Send to device. It copies to the Kindle over the USB cable.
5. Unplug. The book appears on the Kindle’s home screen like any other.

The whole process takes under a minute once set up. Calibre has a wireless “content server” mode that lets the Kindle browse your computer’s library over WiFi, but the USB method is simpler for beginners and more reliable on very old devices.

Option 2: Jailbreak the Kindle and install KOReader

Difficulty: Medium · Risk: low if you follow instructions; recoverable on most models · What you get: a far more capable reader that supports EPUB, PDF, comics, translations, dictionaries, custom fonts, and no Amazon telemetry.

“Jailbreak” sounds dramatic. In practice, for supported Kindle models, it is now a point-and-click process. The community at kindlemodding.org maintains two jailbreak tools (WinterBreak and AdBreak) and a catalogue of apps at kindlemodshelf.me. Notebookcheck described the current jailbreak process as “fairly trivial”, which is fair — if you can copy a file to a USB drive, you can probably do it.

The destination most people are heading to is KOReader, an open-source reader app that runs on jailbroken Kindles and handles many more formats than the stock Amazon software. Its file manager is saner, its EPUB rendering is better, and it respects your privacy.

What you’ll need

• An affected Kindle in working order with a reasonable battery charge.
• A computer and a USB cable.
• The correct jailbreak package for your exact model and firmware. kindlemodding.org has a per-model matrix.
• Twenty minutes of patience, and a willingness to read the instructions properly.

Is it legal?

In the UK, jailbreaking a device you own for the purpose of interoperability or alternative software is generally lawful under Section 50BA of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It voids your Amazon warranty, but on a 2012 Kindle that is no longer a meaningful concern. What is not lawful, depending on jurisdiction, is stripping DRM from commercially-purchased books — that is a separate decision covered in the Survival Guide with the appropriate caveats.

Is it reversible?

For most affected models, yes — the jailbreak can be undone and the device returned to stock Kindle software. However, do not attempt to deregister or factory-reset an affected device after 20 May 2026, jailbroken or not. That is a one-way trip regardless of the software on the device. See the warning page.

Option 3: Repurpose the hardware for something else entirely

Difficulty: Medium to Hard · Risk: varies by project · What you get: a standalone e-ink device doing something useful that would cost £100–£500 to buy new.

An old Kindle is one of the cheapest ways to own a working e-ink screen with wifi, a battery that lasts weeks, and a Linux-based operating system. The maker community has spent a decade finding inventive things to do with them, and many of those projects work beautifully on exactly the devices Amazon is now cutting off.

The popular categories:

• Information displays. Wall-mounted weather dashboards, live calendars, message boards for the fridge, kitchen recipe screens.
• Smart home. Ambient sensor readouts, Home Assistant control panels, always-on status boards.
• Little art objects. Literary clocks that tell time in book quotes, rotating art galleries, historical map displays.
• Proper software. SSH servers, chess games, flashcard study tools, language-learning companions.

Most of these need a jailbreak as a prerequisite, then a small amount of setup with a config file or a Python script running on your laptop or a Raspberry Pi. Some, like the wall calendar and the Spotify remote, can be done with zero jailbreak and only the Kindle’s experimental browser.

We’ve catalogued 20 repurposing projects with sources, difficulty ratings, and honest notes about which models they work on. Start here: 20 things to do with an old Kindle →

So which option is right for me?

A rough guide:

• If you just want to keep reading books and don’t care about anything fancy, go with Option 1. Calibre + USB is free, reliable, and stupidly simple once set up.
• If you want a nicer reading experience, care about privacy, or read lots of PDFs and EPUBs that the stock Kindle software struggles with, go with Option 2. KOReader is a real upgrade.
• If you have a working Kindle and no intention of using it as a reader, or if your Kindle has a partially broken screen but an intact e-ink panel, Option 3 gives the hardware a meaningful second life.
• You can also combine them: jailbreak the device, use KOReader for reading and run a smart-home dashboard via Calibre’s content-server mode in the background.