lol i already jailbroke my 2012 paperwhite and intstalled Koreader on it so I can sync it with my calibre epub library over wifi
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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It's a pity Calibre to date refuses to be refactored into a self-hosted service.
The core logic should be portable, with the app just being an interface to it, but no, the entire project is so much spaghetti it would feed the entire boot for over a year... such a shame.
Agree, though calibre-web exists and runs in a single Docker container. I've been using it for a few years, and it's great.
Sure its a whole Linux server under the hood just to run Calibre and the services required to give it a web interface and API for reading apps - making it way bigger than it needs to be - but it does the job.
Calibre-web isn’t Calibre. It uses the same database, but that’s about it, unless you use the optional conversion mod on the linuxserver container.
A docker container is preferred, but again, CW isn't Calibre. Same database but completely different management system + also lacking a lot of the sync opportunities.
The issue is that there's no open protocol for library syncing. It doesn't exist because all big players (Amazon, Kobo/Rakuten, B&N, etc.) have their own proprietary system, and need no open alternatives.
OPDS is a thing but it's meant to replicate a physical library (one you can walk into) in behaviour and approach, not a personal library (list all books I have and give me easy access to them). It's essentially just an RSS-style feed that has no defined structure, thus isn't software navigable - e.g. there's no guarantee you can list all book series, or all authors, and most implementations usually give you very roughly defined "recently added", or "hot now" book lists...
I've actually been working on a solution for this, something that provides an almost Kindle library experience (see all your books from a remote server, sync down the remote ebook file, sync back read progress, filter/search based on book properties, etc.), while being flexible enough for non-readers applications as well. But I haven't even gotten to the point where I can define the API contract properly, let alone the backing database and mapping to Calibre. Honestly at this stage I feel like the best approach is starting from scratch, establishing modern requirements, and going from there.
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So the product lineup is now called "Kindle Paperweight" instead?
Weird.
I didnt know my Calibre server stopped working.
Just another day in the life of an enshittificator.
Corporations like Amazon are a scourge. Switch to free and open formats, software and hardware. Ditch what you can. Hack and pirate what you must. Starve big tech.
I'm poor. I pirate stuff. When I can, I buy physical copies of the stuff I like.
Here's a reminder that Boox makes amazingly good e-readers in all form factors Amazon does (including a variety of tablets!), with stylus support (USI 2.0 for smaller devices, EMR for their Note series and above), fully open (recent Android versions, regular updates, unlockable bootloader, straightforward to root devices), support KOReader, with a solid built in reader (plus support for cloud sync, including syncing books to a free 10GB Boox server storage), support for OPDS (a better way to access your library than Calibre's sync, plus it can be utilised with most digital libraries too), and altogether quite well priced devices.
At the moment I have on my hands a Go Color 7 gen2, a Note Air5 C, and a Palma2 Pro. The experience is surprisingly good for a "random Chinese brand", the hardware, compared to similarly priced devices, is superior (seriously, 4/6/8GB RAM, 64/128GB internal storage, SD card support), not to mention their customised e-ink waveforms (which give you near LCD-like scrolling with minimal trailing effect and little to no ghosting, something I can't say about my Kindles...)
The only downside I found of these devices is the relatively bad battery life in locked/standby (due to Android, but you still easily get over a week per charge with average use, or about 20-22 hours of active use!), and the speakers... definitely not meant for audiobooks.
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Say it with me kids, “This is why we pirate digital media from billion dollar corporations”
this is also why i started buying physical books and using my local public library again.
My local library allows borrowing ebooks. It's incredibly useful. I own two kindles and haven't spent a dime at Amazon for ebooks. I do buy physical books now and then from there, but only if I really need it and can't find elsewhere.
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Jailbreaking and never turning airplane mode off has been the best decision I made with my kindle. Download from zlibrary, transfer to folder on kindle, done
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I've been using raw text files for my books, sent locally over USB, and that's the way it's gonna stay until my reader craps out
There's not really any advantage of using txt files over open standard drm-free epubs. You can still generate them yourself using txt editors or publishing software, you can still load them over USB. But epubs give you quality of life features on eReaders like title pages, table of contents, chapter headers, formatting markers like bold and italics.
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can't you just load epub with calibre or another sync to? I'm pretty sure that's what I do because that's what I'm doing
IMO for personal use "drag and drop into the correct directory" is an infinitely better organisational system than tag based libraries, especially for pirated books. I'm not going to sync my books across 10 different devices since I don't need more than 1 reader, so it doesn't make any sense for me to waste time using tags, let alone fix them for every book I download.
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As far as I know, it might still work with Calibre
My kindle has never been connected to the interwebs. Always used Calibre, wonderful software. About two weeks ago I used it to transfer books, worked with no problems.
This is about the Kindle Store. Calibre will continue to work, it just copies files via USB, you don't even need Calibre for that.
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The magic word is Calibre
Funny, my old kindle seems to be downloading e-books just fine from my self-hosted server.
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My second-hand, old as hell, button-only kindle has never downloaded any book from Amazon since I got it. Only Calibre.
Got my wife a Kobo for her birthday to replace her aging Kindle. She’s bought 1 book so far and gonna look at the Library integration.
Anyone got any tips for ways to use the Kobo? For example I have Calibre on my Mac and have used that to copy books I’ve “acquired” for her, is there any benefit in self hosting Calibre? Is it possible to get her Kindle books on the Kobo or is the DRM a nightmare nowadays?
If she still has access to her Kindle account, you might be able to get the Account Key and enter that into Calibre to remove the DRM.
Is it possible to get her Kindle books on the Kobo or is the DRM a nightmare nowadays?
Calibre has a plugin for that: DeDRM
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So, I cannot buy new books or download my current ones. But, I can download them without paying and then install them still over USB? OK Amazon, that clears things up fine for me.
Good job me never ever having bought any books on amazon. I go out of my way to buy them DRM free. Good old Paperwhite Gen 1 still going strong here.
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They can still be jailbroken and Calibre still exists
Mine couldn't for some time now. You can't download them as files and transfer them. Amazon has become unusable for books at this point.
It's crazy to think that Amazon literally started as a book store.
Google was a search engine. Shit is crazy.
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My older Kindle is jailbroken and does just fine. Jailbreak if you can, if you can't don't Kindle.
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Yet another reason to not buy Kindle.
I've started to realize that early gen products are often less enshittified, even if they are frequently rough around the edges, and can often be hacked into a useful state unlike the newest hardware. By a few gens in, nearly everything is a giant plastic paperweight that only wants to phone home, download "updates" all the time, and probably needs multiple SSO sign ins and a subscription just to work. I'll keep my old Kindle 4th gen with KOreader until it breaks.
Correction: Older kindles can no longer download e-books with the stock rom
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I have a kindle that I've had for ages. It has been jailbroken for a while and I've been loading my own epubs onto it. They make it easy with the 1 click send to kindle stuff but that locks you in to their ecosystem.
I have a kindle keyboard (2012) and I gave up on amazon a long time ago, now I just convert-upload epubs to it using calibre and read.
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I don't download them on kindle anyway, it's not even connected to the Internet. Just put the files on it manually, works fine.
At least for the kindle platform, they've stopped offering a USB option a while ago, precisely to keep people from circumventing their planned obsolescence.
What a bunch of cunts jesus fucking christ
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And yet, my ancient Kobo just keeps on ticking along.
Good thing I put mine in airplane mode when I first got it and never updated firmware. I load books like its a flash drive.
If I got an old kindle; how easy is it to jailbrake it and install a better system?
I just did it for the first time yesterday with an old Kindle I had lying around. It was super easy with this website: https://kindlemodding.org/
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