# Transferring collections to new kindle



## kuklachica (Dec 26, 2010)

Quick question... I have already transferred the actual collections to a new kindle, but the books are no longer in the collections. How do I transfer the tags over as well? I don't want to have to re-tag all my books!!
Thanks!


----------



## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

If the books you have are from Amazon and you downloaded the books first and then transferred the collections, the books should all be in place. However, non-Amazon books won't automatically sort into their collections. There are ways of getting around this, such as using software like Calibre, but there are still glitches in the Calibre add-on - it doesn't seem to work correctly if your books are in more than one collection for example. So far as I know, there's no _easy_ way to get non-Amazon books into their collections other than doing it manually as you would have done originally. 

Anyone else found a way to do it?


----------



## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

I don't have any issues with the Calibre plugin, even with a mix of calibre & kindle collections (I let the plugin build authors & series collections, while I handle my reading/TBR collections by hand). And the author is always ready to lend a helping hand if things do go wrong .

I pretty much didn't use collections before being able to set it up the way I want through Calibre.

But to answer the OP's question, unless you used (or are willing to use) some kind of tool to handle your collections, or happen to have a backup of your Kindle (namely, the collection database, in system/collections.json), nope, you'll only ever be able to repopulate your collections with Amazon content, everything side-loaded is a no go.


----------



## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

I guess I must be the only person who hasn't had a problem having non-Amazon content go to the right collections. Just have to make sure I transfer the collections again one last time after transferring books (if I'm doing it in batches, for instance).  *shrug*


----------



## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Steph H said:


> I guess I must be the only person who hasn't had a problem having non-Amazon content go to the right collections. Just have to make sure I transfer the collections again one last time after transferring books (if I'm doing it in batches, for instance). *shrug*


I must admit it's been a while since I had reason to try this - when I got my K3 over a year ago. Perhaps in the latest version of the software it does work, though the OP hasn't had that experience. Very frustrating when these things work for one person and not another.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

It definitely works as Steph H describes for Amazon content. . . . .but I have pretty much no non-Amazon content so haven't been able to test whether it will 're-collect' that stuff as well. . . . Still, rather than re-collecting everything yourself, it's probably worth it to try it first.

It _might_ be that it only works if you can re-import collections from ANOTHER kindle that's still on your account. So if you have to do an un-register/re-register to restore collections, that might NOT affect non-Amazon content.


----------



## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

That could be, Ann.  But I know it worked twice for me in summer 2010 -- when I moved stuff from K2 to KDX and when I moved stuff from KDX to K3 -- and again just this June when I moved stuff from K3 to K3SO.  So it's not a new software thing, either, it was available back to at least near the beginnings of Collections.  But in all cases I still had another Kindle in my account with the Collections so I had something to transfer/import from.

Bummer for those it's not working for, I hope you get it figured out!


----------



## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Steph H said:


> That could be, Ann. But I know it worked twice for me in summer 2010 -- when I moved stuff from K2 to KDX and when I moved stuff from KDX to K3 -- and again just this June when I moved stuff from K3 to K3SO. So it's not a new software thing, either, it was available back to at least near the beginnings of Collections. But in all cases I still had another Kindle in my account with the Collections so I had something to transfer/import from.
> 
> Bummer for those it's not working for, I hope you get it figured out!


I got my K3 last August and transferred everything from my K2. I also still had my DXG on my account. I made sure to transfer all my books, both Amazon and non-A first and then to import my collections from the other device. It definitely didn't work with my non-A books. Next time I'm going to try copying my collections.json file to see if that works.


----------

