How to Put Things on Cloud With the Kindle

By John Lister

Cloud storage means you aren't limited by the on-board capacity of your Kindle.
i David McNew/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Amazon's range of Kindles includes a cloud-based personal documents archive. Any personal documents you send to your Kindle are automatically added to an online storage facility, also known as "the cloud." Even you delete them from the Kindle, you will be able to download these files to your device again at any time.

Visit the Manage Your Kindle Page (see Resources) on a Web browser. Select the "Personal Documents Settings" option, select "Edit" and make sure the box next to "Enable Personal Document Archive to My Kindle Library" is checked.

Looking on the same "Personal Documents Settings" page, check the e-mail address next to your Kindle e-Reader. Make a note of this address.

Using your e-mail service of choice, send an e-mail to this address with your document file attached. Write "Convert" as the subject line if you are sending a PDF file to a Kindle e-Reader (rather than a tablet); otherwise, no subject line is needed. If you have a 3G model Kindle eReader and do not want to pay charges for delivery over 3G, adjust the e-mail address by adding "free" after the @ symbol and before "kindle.com." This will stop the Kindle from automatically downloading the file over the 3G connection and instead force it to wait until it has a Wi-Fi connection. Downloading personal files on a Kindle over Wi-Fi carries no charge.

Open your Kindle and delete the document from the Kindle itself if you do not want to keep it on the device permanently. The method of doing this depends on your model but generally involves selecting the document and then choosing a "Delete" option from the menu system. Although it will be deleted from your Kindle, the document remains accessible at any time you have an Internet connection. Select the "Cloud" or "Personal Document Archive" option, depending on your model, and you can download any document again.

Tips

You can send the following document files to a Kindle device and in turn to your cloud storage: DOC, DOCX, PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC, and MOBI.

Warnings

Amazon has a separate service known as "Cloud Drive." This allows you to upload files from a PC or Mac using a dedicated application. You can then view and download these files on any device, including a Kindle Fire tablet. However, you cannot upload files from a Kindle Fire tablet to the "Cloud Drive" service. The service does not work at all with Kindle Fire e-Readers.

×