# Down to only 924 MB of available space... huh?!!



## Tiskers (Jan 5, 2011)

I have had my Kindle 3 (with WiFi, no 3G) for less than a year.  I have about 150 books, 75 samples, and 4 Audible audio books on it.  My available space is down to 924 MB (and going fast) and I'm a little puzzled.  I thought the Kindle is supposed to hold approx. 3500 books.  This is a far cry from that!  

I realize that the audio books probably take up more space, but seriously... I only have FOUR audio books on it!

I am wondering if there may be something wrong with my Kindle?  It seems to work fine, but this space issue does not seem normal to me!  Should I contact Amazon?  

Any thoughts, comments, advice?

THANK YOU!


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## marimorimo (Aug 8, 2011)

It's easy enough to check what's taking up all the space.

Connect your kindle to the computer and check how much space each folder takes. Maybe even check each file. I'd start with the audiobooks. Those take up a lot more space than you realize. 4 audiobooks could take well over a gigabyte.

If you see random files that you know for sure shouldn't be there or if there's a tallying anomaly of a few hundred megabytes, only then should you contact Amazon. Frankly I think it's just a case of not knowing exactly how much space your files take up.


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## Tiskers (Jan 5, 2011)

Thanks for the reply and suggestion.  

I have never hooked my Kindle to the PC before... what exactly will I need to do to implement your suggestion?  Once the Kindle is connected to the PC, will it be obvious (or have prompts?) for what I need to do?

Again, thank you.


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## ElaineOK (Jun 5, 2009)

Plug your charger into the Kindle and then into your computer's USB port.  Kindle will then appear as if it were a disk drive.  

Elaine
Norman, OK


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## Tiskers (Jan 5, 2011)

Thank you Elaine.  I appreciate the reply.

I will do that tomorrow.  Hopefully it will shed some light.  I am very curious as to what is exactly going on!

PS  Plugging the Kindle into the PC is the only way to determine this?  In other words, this info (files sizes, etc.) is NOT available anywhere in my Amazon account?


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## sleepy6553 (Nov 21, 2010)

I've heard the audio books take up a lot of space. I'm betting that's the culprit.


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## kindlegrl81 (Jan 19, 2010)

I'm also thinking it is your audio books.  I went onto my audible account to check the size of the book that I recently purchased.  The book is 447 pages in DTB format and is 427 MB.  If you put 4 books of similar size onto your kindle, you are talking almost 2 GB of storage taken up.


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

Check your audible books.  If you are downloading the "enhanced" version, it takes up massive space.  3x the amount of the next best format.


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## KingAl (Feb 21, 2011)

kindlegrl81 said:


> I'm also thinking it is your audio books. I went onto my audible account to check the size of the book that I recently purchased. The book is 447 pages in DTB format and is 427 MB. If you put 4 books of similar size onto your kindle, you are talking almost 2 GB of storage taken up.


To put things into perspective, an ebook is generally around 1 MB in size. In other words, 1 audible book can take as much space as several hundred ebooks.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

I agree that the audio books are the most likely culprit. You say you only have four on your Kindle. I just picked four of mine at random and checked the size - it came to almost 2Gb - that's a hefty portion of your Kindle's space. In contrast your 150 books probably don't take up more than about 200Mb altogether. I'd take off a couple of your audio books and only keep the one you're listening to and maybe one other.


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## Tiskers (Jan 5, 2011)

Thanks everyone... yes, you are right... it's the audio books. 

Amazon account/history actually lists the amount of space for each downloaded item, and I added up the audio books (all unabridged) and between the Part 1's and Part 2's of most of them, and the fact that the Harry Bosch book was actually a trilogy of 3 full length books    (didn't think of THAT! D'oh!)  they do take up almost 2 GB of space.  

So now a question about deleting books... I understand that they remain in the Amazon archives and are easily accessible to re-download, etc.  What I wonder about is if you delete a book that takes up say, 475 KBs of space... once the book is gone, are ALL 475 KBs available and free?  Or does it somehow not really free up the whole amount?  It seems as though I have read somewhere that even deleted books leave behind little *remnants* (for lack of a better word!) and you never really recoup all the emptied space?  Is that true?  

And what about rebooting a Kindle... something about a hard 15 second shut-down or something?  What is this and when would I do it?

Again, MANY thanks!


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## JeanneB (Aug 31, 2009)

If you right click on the keypad on the Kindle Drive (this is on a Mac)...it will show you how big the kindle capacity is ..and how much you have used..and what you have left. 
I have about 75 books on my K3.  
Capacity: 3.33 GB
Available: 3.26
Used: 65.7 MB 

Amazing!!  75 books (give or take)..haven't even made a dent in the available space.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Tiskers said:


> ...............And what about rebooting a Kindle... something about a hard 15 second shut-down or something? What is this and when would I do it? .........


You can do either a soft or hard reset - whenever you have a problem or your Kindle seems sluggish and unresponsive - it works like rebooting your PC and cures a multitude of ills!

From the Amazon help page:

Unplug Kindle from power adapter or computer. 
Slide and release the power button. The LED light that surrounds the power button will display green for two seconds. 
Shut down Kindle by sliding and holding the power button for five seconds. The LED light will blink three times. Wait for the screen to go blank, then release the power button. 
Turn on the Kindle by sliding and releasing the power button.......... or you can perform a hard reset by sliding and holding the power button for 15 seconds.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

In practice, the soft reset is usually done via the menu button:  menu/settings/menu/restart.  Note that it's RESTART not RESET (to factory) which will wipe out all you books and you'll have a nice empty Kindle.  Not usually what you need to do.

If that doesn't solve the problem, the hard restart described above usually will, though many find that it you have to hold the slider more like 30-40 seconds for it to restart.  Note that 'slide and release' just toggles it in and out of sleep mode which is all most people need to do anyway.


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

Tiskers said:


> So now a question about deleting books... I understand that they remain in the Amazon archives and are easily accessible to re-download, etc. What I wonder about is if you delete a book that takes up say, 475 KBs of space... once the book is gone, are ALL 475 KBs available and free? Or does it somehow not really free up the whole amount? It seems as though I have read somewhere that even deleted books leave behind little *remnants* (for lack of a better word!) and you never really recoup all the emptied space? Is that true?


The Kindle indexes every book that is stored on it. This index obviously takes up some space - I did some rough calculations here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,71801.%20msg1159180.html#msg1159180.

The index is in two parts - there's an index for the book itself and a master index. I'm sure the Kindle deletes the book index, but does it delete the entries out of the master index? I suspect not, and I suspect therefore that over time the master index will gradually use space.

It does appear that there is some trigger that causes the Kindle to throw away the indexes and re-index, this may be the programmers' solution to this problem. This is mainly guesswork on my part, though, so I may be wrong.

In practical terms, though, for your problem clearing the audiobooks of it will free a huge amount of space and I wouldn't worry about the small amount of space the index takes up.


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