Exactly how to remove DRM

Preparing

DeDRM works on books for:

• E-ink Kindles,
• older versions of Kindle for PC or Mac,
• NetGalley in Adobe Digital Editions (ADE).

It does not work on books from:

• Kindle Fire,
• Kindle for Android or iOS.

1a: Books from Kindle for PC or Mac

TODO: The instructions here should possible be merged with those from this forum post: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283371

1. You must use Kindle v1.26 or earlier:

   Version 1.26 Exe Archive: https://keybase.pub/koumaza/Archive/kindle-for-pc-1-26-55076.exe

2. However, with Kindle Unlimited, you must use v1.24 or earlier.

   (The 1.24 download link is dead. You can use 1.17 instead.)
   Version 1.17 Exe Archive: https://keybase.pub/koumaza/Archive/kindle-for-pc-1-17-44183.exe

3. Install, launch, and register this Kindle installation with your Amazon account credentials.

4. Go into Kindle's settings, and disable the auto-update. Otherwise, when you exit the program, it will update to the latest version, which does not work with DeDRM.

1b: Books from Adobe Digital Editions (ADE)

Authorize ADE with an Adobe ID.

2: Install Calibre

Calibre and the DeDRM plugin need to be installed on the same machine (and user) as the book source (Kindle, or Adobe Digital Editions (ADE)), so that DeDRM can automatically retrieve the decryption key.

• Calibre 4.x works with the current releases of DeDRM (up to 6.8.0)
• Calibre 5.x does not work with DeDRM, until DeDRM 7.0.0 is released some time in the future.

i.e. You must install Calibre v4.x to use DeDRM.

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

3: Install DeDRM Plugin

1. Download Latest Release From: apprenticeharper / DeDRM_tools / releases

   (E.g. DeDRM_tools_{version}.zip)

2. Extract the above zip to find DeDRM_Plugin.zip

3. Install

   1. Open Calibre

   2. Preferences > Plugins > Load plugin from file

   3. Select DeDRM_Plugin.zip (not DeDRM_tools_{version}.zip)

      If this produces an long error message:

      • Check you are using the correct versions, re-read "Install Calibre" above.
      • Check you are selecting the correct zipfile, re-read this section.

4. Configure (For Calibre on Linux only)

   • If you are running Calibre on Linux, or on a different machine/user than your Kindle/ADE install, you'll have to get your Kindle for PC key, by running the kindlekey.py script and add this to the DeDRM plugin configuration. (TODO, detail or link to exactly how to do this.)

Remove DRM

1a. For Kindle

| Launch Kindle for PC/Mac & login. | Download the book from which you want to remove DRM. (Use Right-Click) | It will be downloaded to C:\Users\username\Documents\My Kindle Content\***\***.azw

1b: For Adobe Digital Editions (ADE)

Open the ACSM file downloaded from NetGalley in ADE, to get the Adobe DRM PDF/EPUB.

3. Import the book into Calibre

Use any of the methods in the UI, Drag-and-Drop, or the Import Wizard, etc.. Important: DRM is removed when importing books to Calibre, not when converting to other formats.

4. This is the end of the procedure. Good job on your hard work.

Troubleshooting

Some common problems users are reporting:

TODO: Make it easy for users to find an entry by looking for the symptom they will be observing.

With reference to

1. From @ElleKayEm https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/issues/1328#issuecomment-712930550