How to Export Kindle Highlights (Every Method)

How you export Kindle highlights depends on where you read:

• On a Kindle e-reader: plug it into your computer and copy the file My Clippings.txt from its documents folder. It holds every highlight and note you made on that Kindle, including ones you later deleted, across all books, including documents you sent to it yourself.
• In the Kindle app (phone, tablet or computer): open the book's Notebook and use its export or share option. You get one book's highlights, by email or as an HTML file.
• On the web: go to read.amazon.com/notebook. You can see and copy the highlights from your Kindle books, but there's no export button.

Usually the reason to export is to get a highlight back later, when you're writing something and need that one line. So after the steps for each method, this guide covers how to keep the file so a highlight is still findable months later.

Which Kindle export method fits you

All of them are subject to the publisher's clipping limit, covered further down.

Export all Kindle highlights at once: My Clippings.txt

This is the only way to get every book in one go, and it also covers personal documents you sent to your Kindle.

1. Connect your Kindle to your computer with its USB cable.
2. Open the Kindle in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) and go to the documents folder.
3. Copy My Clippings.txt to your computer.

Some recent Kindles connect as a media device instead of a drive. On Windows they still open in File Explorer. On a Mac, a free app such as OpenMTP opens them.

The file is plain text but hard to read: one long list of every highlight from every book, in the order you made them. If you edited a highlight, the old and new versions are both there.

Our free Kindle highlights tool cleans it up. Drop the file on the page and it groups your highlights and notes by book in reading order, keeps the longest version of an edited highlight, and lets you copy one book or download them all as Markdown or CSV. The file is read in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. It reads Kindles set to English, Chinese, Spanish, German, French or Japanese.

Email one book's notes from a Kindle e-reader

For books you bought from Amazon, the e-reader can email you one book's notes.

1. Open the book.
2. Tap the top of the screen and open the menu (⋮).
3. Choose Notes (on some models, Notes & Highlights), then Export Notes.

Amazon sends the file to the email address on your Amazon account. Menu names vary a little between models. Readers report that this doesn't work for personal documents; use My Clippings.txt for those.

Export highlights from the Kindle app

On a phone or tablet: open the book, tap the Notebook icon, then the share or export icon. Pick a citation style (or None) and send the email. You get an HTML file with that book's highlights and notes.

On a computer (Kindle for PC or Mac): open the Notebook panel and look for Export. It saves an HTML file. Some app versions name these menus differently.

The Kindle apps don't write My Clippings.txt; only an e-reader does. If you read only in the app, use the app's export or the web Notebook.

Copy highlights from Kindle Notebook on the web

Go to read.amazon.com/notebook and sign in. Your books with highlights are listed on the left; click one to see its highlights. Highlights from the e-reader and the apps sync here while sync is on.

There's no export button, so you select and copy. That's fine for a book or two. Tools such as Bookcision and Glasp read this page and save it as a file. Other companies run them, so check what they collect first.

Why some Kindle highlights are missing from your export

• The clipping limit. Publishers can cap how much of a book you can clip. Past the cap, the Kindle writes a placeholder line in My Clippings.txt instead of your words, and app exports stop short. The highlight is still visible in the book, so you can copy the few that matter by hand.
• One highlight shows up twice. Changing a highlight adds a new entry and keeps the old one. Keep whichever version you want.
• You read it in the app. App highlights aren't in My Clippings.txt. Look in the web Notebook.

Keep Kindle highlights searchable after you export

Picture a product manager who reads business books on her Kindle and saves articles and talks about pricing as she finds them. In March she highlights a line about price anchoring in a pricing book. In June she's drafting a pricing proposal. She remembers the idea, not the wording or which book it was in. Her exports are HTML files in Downloads, one per book, so finding the line means guessing the book, opening its file and scrolling.

Two habits would have made that a one-minute search:

1. Add one line of your own to the highlights you'll want again. A few words on why it caught you is enough, like "anchoring: use for the Q3 pricing page." In June, that's what she'd type.
2. Keep book highlights with your other notes. A pricing highlight is easier to use next to the pricing article she saved in May, with a line on anchoring, than inside a book export.

This scenario is a made-up example, not a customer story.

Import Kindle highlights into Linko

On the web, Linko imports My Clippings.txt directly (Import is in Beta):

1. Open the account menu and choose Import, then Kindle.
2. Choose the file. Like the tool, Linko reads it in your browser and doesn't keep it.
3. Pick the books you want and click Import.

Each highlight becomes a private note on its book, with any note you wrote on the Kindle under it. Linko files each note into a topic when one fits, so you don't sort them yourself. Importing a newer file later adds only what's new. On the current Free plan, imports may use a one-time allowance first; the Import help page explains how. If you read in the Kindle app, you can bring highlights in through Readwise instead. The Import help page has the details.

Here's the June search again. She types "anchoring" into Linko's Search. The March highlight comes up, with her line on it, and so does her note on the May article, since she used the same word there. If nothing matches the words she types, Linko looks for notes with the same meaning. She copies the line into her draft and keeps writing. The highlight's page also lists Related notes, other notes Linko finds connected, which is how an old highlight turns up next to newer reading. See Find an idea you half remember.

Daily review brings back one set of your notes each day as questions, so imported highlights come up again on their own too.

FAQ

Can I export all my Kindle highlights at once?

Yes, from a Kindle e-reader: My Clippings.txt has the highlights you made on that device, from every book. The app exports one book at a time, and the web Notebook has no export button.

Can I export Kindle highlights without email?

Yes. Copy My Clippings.txt over USB, use Export in the desktop app, or copy from read.amazon.com/notebook.

How do I export Kindle highlights to Notion or Obsidian?

Turn My Clippings.txt into Markdown with the Kindle highlights tool, then paste or import the Markdown into Notion or Obsidian.

Is My Clippings.txt uploaded when I use the Linko tool?

No. The page reads it in your browser. Nothing is sent to Linko or kept after you close the tab.

Why does my export stop partway through a book?

That's usually the publisher's clipping limit. The highlights are still in the book, and you can copy the ones you need by hand.

Get your highlights back

If you have a Kindle e-reader, copy My Clippings.txt tonight and import it. Then open one book you finished this year and add a line to the highlight you'd most want back.

Sign up, then import your Kindle highlights →