# Transferring Collections to K3



## Daisy1960 (Feb 10, 2009)

*I remember reading in a recent thread that, in order to have collections transferred to the new K3, we'd have to first download our books individually from archives from the K3 itself. Now that the K3's are appearing on our "Manage Your Kindle" pages, I was wondering if anyone knew whether or not we could send our books to the K3 from the "Your Orders" section of the "Manage Your Kindle" page and still import a previous collection after we've completed the downloads.

I hope my question is clear. In any event, thanks for your help.

[I'm posting my question here because I'm unable to find the thread that originally discussed the collections issue.]*


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

Yes, that will work. However, just be careful. If you have a lot of books and send them all to the new Kindle before it shows up, then as soon as you turn it on, it will start downloading and indexing all of those books. That could drain the battery and overtax the Kindle.. (says the person that routinely deletes and transfers hundreds of books at a shot via calibre) I've never had a problem, but others have had problems with their Kindle freezing when downloading and indexing a bunch of books.


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## Daisy1960 (Feb 10, 2009)

luvmy4brats said:


> Yes, that will work. However, just be careful. If you have a lot of books and send them all to the new Kindle before it shows up, then as soon as you turn it on, it will start downloading and indexing all of those books. That could drain the battery and overtax the Kindle.. (says the person that routinely deletes and transfers hundreds of books at a shot via calibre) I've never had a problem, but others have had problems with their Kindle freezing when downloading and indexing a bunch of books.


*Thanks, "lummy4brats,"

I'll probably just pre-download about a dozen of my very favorite titles right now.*


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Daisy1960 said:


> *Thanks, "lummy4brats,"
> 
> I'll probably just pre-download about a dozen of my very favorite titles right now.*


Luvmy4brats is right about not downloading too many books at once. But remember that you must finish downloading all your books before you copy over your collections from your old device if you want the books to slot back into the correct one automatically.


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## KindleGirl (Nov 11, 2008)

How do you 'copy' over your collections to the new K3? Is there an option for that in the menu or on the Amazon website?


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

KindleGirl said:


> How do you 'copy' over your collections to the new K3? Is there an option for that in the menu or on the Amazon website?


If you go to 'view archived items' on your new Kindle's home screen menu, you'll see at the top of the list of your archived items is an option to 'add collections from another device'. Click on that and it will list your other kindle(s) and you then click on the one you want to copy from. It doesn't seem to take very long - seconds really unless you've got a humongous number of collections. It doesn't actually tell you when it's finished, but the whirly thing in the top left of the screen stops, um, whirling.


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## KindleGirl (Nov 11, 2008)

Linjeakel said:


> If you go to 'view archived items' on your new Kindle's home screen menu, you'll see at the top of the list of your archived items is an option to 'add collections from another device'. Click on that and it will list your other kindle(s) and you then click on the one you want to copy from. It doesn't seem to take very long - seconds really unless you've got a humongous number of collections. It doesn't actually tell you when it's finished, but the whirly thing in the top left of the screen stops, um, whirling.


Great, thanks! I've never had reason to use that before, but I will as soon as the K3 arrives!


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## baxterlf (Aug 12, 2010)

I will be upgrading from a Kindle 1 and I have quite a few books that I did not buy from Amazon but brought in from Mobi. My entire collection is backed up on my computer. Can I just move it from there so I get all the books and not just the Amazon ones. Of course there are no "Collections" on the version 1 so i don't have that option.


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

Only your DRM-free non-Amazon books. For the Amazon books, you'll have to transfer them via your "Manage your Kindle" page (because of the DRM).

Err, if your Mobi files use the 'old' secure Mobi DRM, you'll probably also have to switch the PID they expect to the one of your new Kindle. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not that familiar with secure mobi files). (Or add the PID of your new Kindle to the whitelisted PID list of your mobi provider, and re-download them? That's the way it's supposed to work, no?)


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Baxterlf - if you have the .mobi files on your K1 they should be ok to transfer directly from your backup to your K3 - NiLuJe is right that there's a problem if they're DRM'd but since you already have them on your K1 they must be OK. I have loads of .mobi books/docs and they work fine on every kindle I've had - they're not device specific like Amazon books which of course you have to download from your 'manage your kindle' page.


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## baxterlf (Aug 12, 2010)

Thank you very much. I didn't realize I would have to get the Amazon books sent again. I would have tried to move those as well. You have saved me much trouble.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

Tagging this thread so I can find it later tonight


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

If you had annotations on the Amazon books but did not have Annotation Backup turned on, then you can copy those files from your backup as it is only the book file that has DRM..


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

Linjeakel said:


> Luvmy4brats is right about not downloading too many books at once. But remember that you must finish downloading all your books before you copy over your collections from your old device if you want the books to slot back into the correct one automatically.


Sorta kinda. You can move just some over now and then import collections, and then move a bunch more books over later, and just import collections again. That will 'overlay' or 'reset' the collections so that the second set of books you moved over also get sorted automatically.

It's just that you have to do the 'import' step each time you move a bunch onto the new Kindle (that had already been sorted into collections on a prior Kindle).

and sometimes, even the first time you do the 'import collections', a handful of books may not sort correctly and you'll have to do them manually. But a handful is better than a whole bunch.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

I downloaded the books I haven't read to my K3.. and then tried to "add other device collections" over it.  It  added all  the collections - but  only moved  some of the books  I had downloaded  into them.  Not sure what  happened..


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## Patricia (Dec 30, 2008)

My collections aren't showing up in the same order as they did on my Kindle 2.  I had used symbols to make them sort in the order I wanted, but that doesn't seem to be working now.  What am I doing wrong?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I read somewhere else that the symbol thing either doesn't work the same on the K3. . .or you just have to sort of refresh the collection title by renaming it the same thing. . . . . .


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I read somewhere else that the symbol thing either doesn't work the same on the K3. . .or you just have to sort of refresh the collection title by renaming it the same thing. . . . . .


Some of the symbols aren't sorting as before where they came before the letters of the alphabet but are effectively being ignored. It doesn't just affect the collection titles but also any books titles that have those symbols. The apostrophe is one of them so any title that starts off with words like 'She'd' 'It's' will sort as though the apostrophe isn't there. I noticed as I skimmed through my titles to make sure everything was on that some of them were in a slightly different order from my K2 when sorted by title.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Linjeakel said:


> Some of the symbols aren't sorting as before where they came before the letters of the alphabet but are effectively being ignored. It doesn't just affect the collection titles but also any books titles that have those symbols. The apostrophe is one of them so any title that starts off with words like 'She'd' 'It's' will sort as though the apostrophe isn't there. I noticed as I skimmed through my titles to make sure everything was on that some of them were in a slightly different order from my K2 when sorted by title.


Well. .. .honestly?. .. .that's how I'd prefer it to work. I'd want such a title to be with the "S" or "I" titles, not at the beginning all separate. . . . . .so possibly it's an 'on purpose' change. . . . .


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

bordercollielady said:


> I downloaded the books I haven't read to my K3.. and then tried to "add other device collections" over it. It added all the collections - but only moved some of the books I had downloaded into them. Not sure what happened..


Yeah. I just now did the same thing. Did you figure out what we did? I have about 120 out of their collections and I'm not looking forward to doing them one by one .....


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

Geoffrey said:


> Yeah. I just now did the same thing. Did you figure out what we did? I have about 120 out of their collections and I'm not looking forward to doing them one by one .....


Never figured out what happened. Maybe I didn't wait long enough before bringing down the collections. So -for the ones that didnt move. I just added them manually.


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

I had problems like that with transferring from k2 to DX earlier this month but so far, after about 650 books over Friday night and Saturday (some Amazon, some not), all books from DX to K3 have gone into their collections properly. <<knocking on wood that the rest of them do so....>>


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Steph H said:


> I had problems like that with transferring from k2 to DX earlier this month but so far, after about 650 books over Friday night and Saturday (some Amazon, some not), all books from DX to K3 have gone into their collections properly. <<knocking on wood that the rest of them do so....>>


650 manual adds would suck ... about 2/3 my books went into their collections so it could be worse


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

I'm found that only my Amazon books went into to their Collections - all the rest had to be put back in manually. I could have sworn when I did this before they _all_ went in. Oh well.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

Linjeakel said:


> I'm found that only my Amazon books went into to their Collections - all the rest had to be put back in manually. I could have sworn when I did this before they _all_ went in. Oh well.


I only have Amazon books so that doesn't explain it...


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

Personally, I just switched the system/collections.json with the one from my K2, restarted, and voilà. Although the 'official' import from the Archives did work for my Amazon books [because they were the only one on my device at that point] .


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

Linjeakel said:


> I'm found that only my Amazon books went into to their Collections - all the rest had to be put back in manually. I could have sworn when I did this before they _all_ went in. Oh well.


My non-Amazon books have been going into Collections just fine, so that's not always the case, either.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Steph H said:


> My non-Amazon books have been going into Collections just fine, so that's not always the case, either.


I know, it's weird. When I first had collections I set them up on my K2 and then transferred them to my DX and _everything_ slotted into place. Then when I got my DXG and now my K3, only the Amazon books did it. Grrrr....

Next time I'm going to be brave and just move the collections file from the system folder on the old Kindle and copy it to the new one. (Listen to me, I'm already planning for the K4!).


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## mat2b (Jun 7, 2010)

Thanks for the useful information.

As a follow up... Do I have to do anything special to also have the bookmarks on my non-Amazon books transferred to the K3?

Thanks in advance!
mat


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

mat2b said:


> Thanks for the useful information.
> 
> As a follow up... Do I have to do anything special to also have the bookmarks on my non-Amazon books transferred to the K3?
> 
> ...


Bookmarks in your non-Amazon books won't be backed up by Amazon, but if you're just going to copy the current book files from one Kindle to the other or via your PC, rather than copy them from a previously made backup (i.e. before you bookmarked them) you should be fine. Just make sure you copy all the files relating to each book.


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