How to Check if a Kindle Book Has DRM (3 Methods)

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How to Check if a Kindle Book Has DRM (3 Methods)

How to Check if a Kindle Book Has DRM (3 Methods)

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You know that your purchased Kindle books can only be opened with a Kindle device or one of Amazon’s Kindle apps, and you also know that you should remove the Kindle DRM if you want to load your purchase into your favorite third-party e-reader or reading app. However, do you know how to check if a Kindle book has DRM? This guide will show you.

Method 1. Check the details on a book’s Amazon store page

Visit amazon kindle store and login with your account. Then go to the kindle bookstore page and look at the full list of product details.

If you see the phrase “simultaneous device usage: unlimited,” books are not protected by DRM. Those without this disclaimer have DRM.

Pros

It is the most direct way to check whether or not the ebook is protected by Kindle DRM.

Cons

You have to manually check each book.

Method 2. Import Kindle book to Calibre and double-click to open

Calibre is a reading app that by itself servers. One of its features is that it supports multiple eBooks formats. However, Calibre viewer only opens DRM free files. It means if one kindle book was not with drm, it should be open by calibre.

Find the kindle book stored location first, and then import kindle book to calibre(drag all the .azw / .azw3/ .kfx files into the Calibre window).

Double click to open the kindle book. And if the book has DRM, it definitely won’t work.

If it does not have DRM, calibre should be able to add and view it.

Pros

Not only Kindle books, calibre also checks other pupular formats eBooks, kobo, google play, etc.

Cons

Strictly speaking, this method doesn’t 100% work. It only works when you haven’t added the dedrm plugin to calibre.
There are other issues(errors) when calibre viewer won’t open your Kindle book. For example, if the calibre viewer is broken, it’s likely that the book won’t open, either.

Method 3. iSummersoft Kindle Converter helps check kindle drm

iSummersoft Kindle Converter is mainly developed for converting DRMed Kindle books to ePub, PDF, Mobi and AZW3 format so that you can read Kindle books without limits.

Different from other converter tools, this tool helps auto-detect your downloaded kindle books and shows them at the left column. After you add books to the right main workspace, it shows whether your Kindle book has DRM or not.

Pros

One-stop tool that helps detect kindle book drm, and also is able to remove Kindle DRM and convert kindle books.
Check kindle drm with one click.

Cons

Should pay money for the kindle drm removing function.

What is Kindle DRM and why Amazon uses it?

DRM, Digital Rights Management, is Amazon’s method of physically preventing users from copying its Kindle book contents. It means that you pay money for the books, but they are linked to your amazon account. DRM is helpful and necessary to protect publishers and authors, however, DRM makes it difficult to transfer, backup, and share our own Kindle contents.

Are all Kindle books have DRM?

Not all kindle books have DRM. But I would say that almost all Kindle books will do that. It is up to the publisher whether a book should have DRM.

In fact, those DRM free Kindle books will usually have a limit on how many devices you can use the book on over time.

Where and how to get DRM free Kindle books?

Some free Kindle books will also be DRM free (while the others you pay for likely does have DRM).

And as what I known, the following ebook stores also sells DRM free Kindle books:

Smashwords, Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Free-eBooks.net, Internet Archive, Book View Café, Weightless Books.