Send to Kindle Not Working? Here’s What You Need to Do!

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Like most portable devices, Kindles become more appealing when integrated seamlessly with other devices. That’s why the “send-to-Kindle” feature was born: it enables Kindle users to receive documents and images from other devices. Unfortunately, the transfer doesn’t always go smoothly.

Send to Kindle may not work because of an issue with your send to Kindle email, incompatible file formats, or the number and size of your files. You can fix these issues by authorizing the sender address, converting your documents to a supported file type, and simply giving it time.

In this article, we’ll explore the main reasons why send to Kindle can fail. Each potential cause will be followed by a proven solution. By the end of this article, you’ll be back to effortlessly moving your documents across your devices.

Before we begin, one thing to note is that the “Send-to-Kindle” email address is not your typical email address (the one used for registering your Kindle). It is specific for each Kindle device associated with your account.

If you want to learn more, make sure you check out my other article about Kindle email address before proceeding with this article.

1. Unauthorized Email Addresses

To email a document to your Kindle device, the sender’s email address as one pre-approved in the Kindle user’s Amazon account. 

Of course, if you bought the Kindle yourself and registered it with your email address, that email address is automatically on the whitelist.

However, if the Kindle was a gift or a hand-me-down from someone else and they haven’t cleared their user data from the Kindle, you won’t be able to send documents to the Kindle without their intervention.

Also, if you are receiving a book from your loved one or a friend, you’ll need to whitelist their email address as well before you can receive the book or the document on your Kindle device/email account.

How To Fix

Maybe your Kindle used to belong to someone else and the previous owner still wants to have the Kindle registered under their name, or perhaps you’re getting a rich Kindle library as part of the package.

In that case, you should ask them to add your email address to their Approved Personal Document Email List. This list can have up to 15 approved email addresses.

You can also take the steps mentioned below if you want to permit new email addresses to send documents to a Kindle registered under your email address. Amazon’s Help & Customer Service page offers a helpful guide on how to do this.

2. Two-Factor Authentication

Amazon frequently revises Kindle’s procedures to safeguard its users. In that vein, when you prompt the send to Kindle feature, Amazon will send an email asking you to verify that the sender is a trusted device. The email will be addressed to the email address used to register the Kindle.

How To Fix

Before you press that “Verify Request” button, you won’t be able to facilitate any transfers. Additionally, you’ll need to give the go-ahead within 48 hours of receiving the email. 

To avoid undergoing this precautionary step again, update your send to Kindle email address. 

Amazon wants to ensure that this sensitive email address is as difficult to trace back to you as possible. For this purpose, you might want to treat the prefix of your email address as a strong password. 

3. Wrong Kindle Email Address

This is one issue that often goes under the radar. The default email address prefixes on Kindle email addresses aren’t the easiest to memorize. 

How To Fix

Make sure that you’ve typed in the right email address. After you use it that first time, you won’t need to keep retyping it whenever you want to send a file to your Kindle.

This would also be an ideal time to review your Approved Personal Document Email List. Everyone’s got multiple email addresses nowadays. You might be sending the e-books through one that’s not on the list.

4. Attachments Go Over the File Size or File Number

Your Kindle can only have 25 attachments delivered to it simultaneously. If you attempt to send any more than 25, the documents won’t be delivered to your Kindle.

How To Fix

This restriction persists even if you stuff them into a zipped file, so the only workaround is sending a maximum of 25 files at a time.

Furthermore, Kindles can only process emails below 50 MB. If you wish to send larger files, compressing them into a .zip file will help reduce their size. Kindle’s conversion service will unzip and convert the files automatically when delivered.

5. Unsupported File Type

The send to Kindle feature is incredibly versatile, but it doesn’t support every file type under the sun. Some file types used to be compatible with Kindle devices but no longer are, such as MOBI files (they have the extensions .azw and .mobi). 

Here is a comprehensive list of all the file types that you can send to your Kindle:

  • Documents created on word processing apps such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs (.doc and .docx)
  • Webpages as Hyper Text Markup Language files (.htm and .html)
  • Documents in Rich Text Format (.rtf)
  • Plain text documents (.txt)
  • Portable documents (.pdf)
  • Digital images (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .bmp, and .gif)
  • E-books (.epub)

How To Fix

If your file is in an unsupported format, consider converting it to one of the above before sending it to your Kindle. For instance, if an e-book is in the recently unsupported .mobi format, you can easily convert it to .epub. 

Another way of transforming unsupported files is setting the subject as “Convert” on the email you’re sending to your Kindle email address. Doing so not only guarantees the attachments will be converted and delivered to your Kindle, but you’ll also be able to enjoy exclusive Kindle features like Whispersync and text size variation.

6. Kindle Not Connected to the Internet

You can resolve many technological hitches by simply reconnecting the device to the internet. Users fond of activating airplane mode to conserve the battery on their Kindles might not notice they aren’t connected to the internet in the first place.

You might have also missed the notification that your desired item got to the Kindle. At times, books that are actually on the Kindle pull disappearing acts. Don’t worry—you can visit your content library to see if there are any additions to your virtual bookshelf.

7. Buggy Software

New software is usually a good thing, but not always. If you’ve had a breeze with the send-to-Kindle feature in the past but it suddenly stopped working after you updated your Kindle, you might need to go back to the last software iteration.

This should be carried out only as a last resort—besides requiring a bit of tech-savviness, your data is always safer when your software is up to date.

Good E-Reader offers a helpful guide on safely carrying out this downgrade.

8. It’s Taking Longer Than Usual

Typically, sending files to your Kindle will take 10 minutes at most. Nevertheless, you might sometimes have to wait several hours to receive that email for many mysterious reasons. 

Amazon even says that your email delivery is valid for up to 60 days, giving you a brief glimpse into the worst-case scenario. While this occurrence is rare, it has happened to some unlucky Kindle users. 

Given that you’ve attempted all the above troubleshooting steps, all you can do is wait. Once two hours have passed with no sign of your file(s), feel free to contact Amazon Customer Service directly.

Send to Kindle is an easy way to transfer your files from your phone or laptop to your Kindle, but you can also buy Kindle Books from Amazon. This will ensure that your selected titles are available natively on your Kindle. And what’s better—you can purchase Kindle Books using Amazon gift cards.

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