--- title: "How to Import Kindle Highlights and Keep Them Useful" description: "Find, export and import your Kindle highlights from the notebook page, My Clippings.txt or the Kindle app, then turn them into notes you can reread." canonical: "https://omphalis.ai/blog/import-kindle-highlights" source: "https://omphalis.ai/blog/import-kindle-highlights" --- # How to Import Kindle Highlights and Keep Them Useful Updated October 30, 2026 ยท 13 min read ![How to Import Kindle Highlights and Keep Them Useful](https://media.babylovegrowth.ai/blog-images/organization-18678/1793197097169_Excerpt-cards-connected-to-a-larger-source.jpeg) To import Kindle highlights, first get them out of Kindle. For books bought from Amazon, that means the Kindle notebook page online or the Share option in the Kindle app. For sideloaded files and documents you sent to your device, it usually means the My Clippings.txt file on the e-reader. Once you have an export, you can bring it into a reading and note-taking tool. This guide covers each route, what breaks along the way, and how to make the imported highlights worth rereading. ## TL;DR - Kindle highlights live in two places: your Amazon account (the Kindle notebook page) and, on e-readers, a local file called My Clippings.txt. - Sync is on by default. If you turned it off, highlights made in that period can be lost, so check before you import. - Amazon-purchased books are the easy case. Non-Amazon books and sent documents usually need the clippings file or an in-app share. - A pile of imported highlights is not the same as understanding. Reattach each one to its source passage and add a note in your own words. - Omphalis imports PDFs, EPUBs, Word docs and feeds, so an exported highlights file can become a document you read and annotate there. ## Table of Contents - Where Kindle highlights are saved - Check your sync settings first - Three ways to export your Kindle highlights - Non-Amazon books and documents you sent to Kindle - Importing the export into a reading tool - Turn highlights into something you will reread - Our perspective: highlights are a starting point, not a library - Try it with one book - Fixing common Kindle highlight problems - FAQ - Sources ## Where Kindle highlights are saved Before importing anything, know where the originals are. There are two homes. The first is your Amazon account. Highlights and notes on books you read through a Kindle device or app are synced to Amazon's servers and show up on the [Kindle notebook page](https://read.amazon.com/notebook) when you sign in. Nothing to install: it is the same account you use to buy books. The second is the device. On Kindle e-readers, highlights and notes are also written to a plain text file named My Clippings.txt in the documents folder. [Amazon's community help notes](https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00006zIBbkSAG/my-clippings-what-is-it-and-how-do-i-delete-them) that you can copy this file to a computer over USB and use or print it. Plug the Kindle in, open the drive that appears, open the documents folder and look for the file. ![Account sync and device file locations](https://media.babylovegrowth.ai/blog-images/organization-18678/1793197149494_Account-sync-and-device-file-locations.jpeg) This split explains most of the confusion in searches like "where are my Kindle highlights." If you read on a phone, tablet or the Kindle app on a PC, there is no clippings file for you to find. Your highlights are in the account. ## Check your sync settings first Most "missing highlights" problems come back to sync. According to [Amazon's sync settings page](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeId%3DGGFEXXS8Z7DPJSTN), Kindle Sync is enabled by default on Kindle devices and apps. It backs up notes, highlights and your reading position to Amazon's servers whenever the device is online. The same page warns about the flip side. Turning Sync off disables features such as sharing your reading position and Export/Share for notes. Notes, highlights or bookmarks made while Sync is off may be lost when you turn it back on. A short checklist before you export: 1. Open your Kindle's settings (or the app's) and confirm Sync is on. 2. Connect to Wi-Fi and let the device finish syncing. 3. Open the notebook page on the web and check that your latest highlights appear there. 4. If something is missing, look on the device itself, since the local file may still hold it. If you read on a plane or a train with no connection, expect a delay. Highlights usually appear once the device is back online. ## Three ways to export your Kindle highlights Which route you take depends on where the book came from and which device you read on. | Situation | Where the highlights are | Best export route | | --- | --- | --- | | Book bought from Amazon, any device | Amazon account | Kindle notebook page or the app's notebook and share options | | Kindle Scribe notebooks and annotations | Device and account | Share by email, or convert to a searchable PDF | | Sideloaded file or document sent to Kindle | Often the device only | My Clippings.txt over USB, or the share option in the app | | Kindle app on a PC | Account | View the book's notebook in the app and export it | ### From the Kindle notebook page Sign in at the notebook page, choose a book from the list and you will see every highlight and note with its location. For a quick import, you can select and copy the text into a document. It works for a handful of books and gets tedious for a library. ### From the Kindle app In the mobile app, open the book, tap the notebook icon at the top right and use the share icon to send the highlights as a file or by email. The exact labels shift between app versions, so treat the menus as a guide rather than a script. On a PC, [Amazon's own forum](https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q00009SJP3sSAH/downloading-my-clippings-as-a-csv-file) points out that the Kindle app can show a book's notebook and export it. That is the practical way to get a clean per-book file without touching a USB cable. ### From a Kindle Scribe If you write or highlight on a Scribe, you can share annotations or notebooks by email to contacts. [Amazon's Scribe sharing page](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=TJE2UYmdw0ppUuR3Rs) says the exported file is delivered through a temporary link that expires in 7 days, so download it promptly. The same page describes a Convert to text sharing option that can give you a searchable PDF of a notebook, which is a format most tools can import without fuss. ## Non-Amazon books and documents you sent to Kindle This is the case people struggle with most. A book you bought elsewhere and sideloaded, or a PDF you emailed to your Kindle, may not appear in the notebook page the way a store-bought title does. Two routes tend to work: - **My Clippings.txt.** Because the file lives on the device, highlights from sideloaded material typically land there even when they never reach your account. Copy it over USB and you have everything in one plain-text file, mixed across books. - **The app's share option.** In the Kindle app, the notebook and share icons can send highlights from a document you opened there. Expect rough edges. The clippings file is one long list, with the book title, location and date above each entry. Highlights from many books are interleaved in the order you made them. If you want one file per book, you will need to split it by title, either by hand or with a small script. Long highlights can also come through cut short, which is worth a glance before you trust a quote. Because Amazon changes menus and file handling over time, double-check the steps against the device in front of you. If a document does not behave, the Amazon help pages for your model are the authority. ## Importing the export into a reading tool There are several types of destination for Kindle highlights: general note apps, outliner tools, plugins for local notebooks, and dedicated reading platforms. They differ in one respect that matters: whether the highlight stays connected to the book it came from, or becomes a loose line of text. A loose line is the usual result. You paste a sentence into a note and, three months later, you cannot remember which chapter it came from or why you saved it. The fix is not a smarter importer. It is a place where each highlight is shown in context and carries your own note. ### Bringing highlights into Omphalis Omphalis does not claim a one-click Kindle sync, and we would rather say so than promise it. What it does do is import documents in several formats: PDFs, EPUBs, Word docs and feeds. That makes a practical workflow possible: 1. Export your highlights for a book (notebook export, share email or the clippings file). 2. Put them in a document: paste them into a Word file, or save the export as a PDF. 3. Import that document into Omphalis. 4. Read through it there, add your own notes next to each passage, and ask questions about anything unclear. If you still have the book itself as an EPUB or PDF, import that too, so your highlights and the source sit side by side. For the technique behind the notes, our guide on [attaching notes to quotes](https://omphalis.ai/blog/attach-notes-to-quotes) walks through keeping each note findable. ## Turn highlights into something you will reread Highlighting feels productive. Research on study habits is mixed on whether it helps on its own, and anyone who has a Kindle full of yellow lines knows the problem: you rarely look at them again. The value comes from what you do after the import. Here is a simple pass for each book. 1. **Cut.** Delete highlights that were only "interesting" at the time. If you cannot say why you saved it, it goes. 2. **Group.** Sort what remains by idea, not by page order. Three highlights about one argument belong together. 3. **Write one line.** Beside each group, put the point in your own words. This is the step that builds retention. 4. **Link.** Connect the book's ideas to other things you have read, such as an article, a paper or a podcast. 5. **Schedule a revisit.** Set a day, a month out, to skim your notes once. If you are a student, the same logic applies to turning highlights into study material. Our post on a [PDF highlighting strategy](https://omphalis.ai/blog/pdf-highlighting-strategy) shows how to move from highlights to flashcards. If you work from articles rather than books, [taking notes from articles](https://omphalis.ai/blog/take-notes-from-articles) covers the same habit for web reading. One more caution. Highlight exports strip context. A sentence that read as a conclusion may have been the author's objection to someone else's view. When a highlight surprises you, open the passage again and read the paragraph around it. ## Our perspective: highlights are a starting point, not a library We built Omphalis for people who save more than they read. Kindle highlights are a perfect example of that habit. They are saved with good intentions and then sit in an account or a text file. Our view is that an imported highlight should reopen the passage it came from. A quote in isolation invites false fluency: you recognize the line, so you feel you understand the argument. That is why we keep the full source in view, attach your note to the original passage, and offer explanations of difficult sections without making you leave the text. When you ask a question, the answer cites the source, so you can check it. ![Our perspective: highlights are a starting point, not a library โ€” overview diagram](https://media.babylovegrowth.ai/blog-images/organization-18678/1793197231647_Our-perspective-highlights-are-a-starting-point-not-a-library-overview-diagram.jpeg) This is also why we are cautious about tools that promise speed above all. Summaries are fast. They are also where nuance goes missing. If your goal is to remember and use what you read, the slower step of writing one sentence in your own words is worth more than a hundred imported lines. For Kindle readers, that means treating the export as raw material. Get it out of Amazon, bring it somewhere you will actually read it, and spend your effort on the notes. > *โ€” Omphalis Team* ## Try it with one book The easiest test is a single book you highlighted heavily. Export it, import the file, and add notes to the ten highlights that matter most. You can start on the free plan. Paid plans are priced at [published rates](https://omphalis.ai/pricing): Pro is $9 per month or $90 per year, Premium is $19 per month or $190 per year, and Scholar is $39 per month or $390 per year. Unit packs start at $10 as a one-off purchase. Paid plans include deeper features such as PDF extraction, advanced listening, and import and export. ![Omphalis](https://media.babylovegrowth.ai/blog-images/organization-18678/1790615591899_omphalis.jpg) If you also keep a reading list elsewhere, [our Pocket page](https://omphalis.ai/pocket) explains how to bring that over too, so articles and book highlights end up in one place. ## Fixing common Kindle highlight problems **Highlights not showing on the notebook page.** Confirm Sync is on, connect to the internet and wait. If the book was sideloaded, it may never appear online. Use the clippings file instead. **Highlights cut short or ending in an ellipsis.** Long passages can be truncated in exports. Compare against the book itself before quoting. **Everything in one messy file.** That is how My Clippings.txt works. Split it by book title before importing, or import the whole file and search within it. **Scribe export link stopped working.** The link expires after 7 days, per Amazon. Send the notebook again. **Scanned or image-based documents.** If a document has no selectable text, highlights will not carry over cleanly. Our guide to [PDF OCR and highlights](https://omphalis.ai/blog/pdf-ocr-highlights) explains how to make scanned text selectable. When you are done, you may want to share or archive your notes. See how to [export notes to PDF](https://omphalis.ai/blog/export-notes-to-pdf) without losing attachments. ## FAQ ### Is there a way to export highlights from Kindle? Yes. For Amazon books, use the Kindle notebook page online, or the notebook and share options in the Kindle app. On e-readers you can also copy My Clippings.txt over USB. On a Kindle Scribe, you can share notebooks by email. ### Where are my Kindle highlights saved? They are saved to your Amazon account and appear on the Kindle notebook page. On Kindle e-readers, they are also written to My Clippings.txt in the documents folder. Which one you use depends on where the book came from. ### Why aren't my Kindle highlights showing up? The usual cause is sync. Sync is on by default, but if it was off, highlights made during that time may be lost when you turn it back on. Sideloaded books may also never appear online, so check the clippings file on the device. ### Can I import highlights from non-Amazon books? Usually, yes, through the clippings file or the app's share option. The result is a plain text list, so you will need to organize it by book. Once it is in a document, you can import it into a reading tool such as Omphalis and add your own notes. ### Does Omphalis sync with Kindle automatically? We do not claim a direct Kindle sync. You export your highlights, put them in a PDF or Word document, and import that file. From there you can read, annotate and ask questions about it. ## Sources - [Amazon Kindle notebook page](https://read.amazon.com/notebook) - [Update Your Sync Settings for Kindle, Amazon Customer Service](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeId%3DGGFEXXS8Z7DPJSTN) - [Share Notes and Notebooks from Your Kindle Scribe, Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=TJE2UYmdw0ppUuR3Rs) - [Downloading my clippings as a CSV file, Amazon forum](https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q00009SJP3sSAH/downloading-my-clippings-as-a-csv-file) - ["My Clippings": what is it, Amazon forum](https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00006zIBbkSAG/my-clippings-what-is-it-and-how-do-i-delete-them) ## Recommended - [Highlights and notes that reopen the passage](https://omphalis.ai/highlights) - [Students: PDF Highlighting Strategy That Turns Highlights into Flashcards](https://omphalis.ai/blog/pdf-highlighting-strategy) - [How to Take Notes From Articles So You Can Use Them Later](https://omphalis.ai/blog/take-notes-from-articles) - [How to Attach Notes to Quotes So You Can Find Them Later](https://omphalis.ai/blog/attach-notes-to-quotes) --- Listed on: [Featured on launched.tools REVIEWED โœ“](https://launched.tools/tools/omphalis)