ClipMark - convert Kindle notes and highlights to markdown

Kindle devices store a user's notes and highlights in a single file called My Clippings.txt. It has content for all books, whether Amazon-purchased or side-loaded. It is a single, flat text file with clippings from all books intermingled, which can make referencing or extracting your clippings difficult.

ClipMark is a very simple nodejs app which

• parses My Clippings.txt
• groups the clippings by book
• sorts clippings by location
• attempts to remove duplicate highlights
• generates a markdown file per book

NB: this only works for physical Kindle devices. Apps on various other platforms do not produce a My Clippings.txt file.

Example output

# The Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector

*28/05/2024 - 02/06/2024*

## Page 9
### Location 131
> Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.

### Location 138
> Happiness? I never saw a dumber word, invented by all those northeastern girls out there.

## Page 13
### Location 191
> The person I’m going to talk about is so dumb that she sometimes smiles at other people on the street.

Running

Prerequisites

• nodejs (v18 or later - earlier versions might work but have not been tested)
• the "My Clippings.txt" file from a Kindle device

Run

To run ClipMark, you only require the files in the app folder. Download them, then run:

$> node app/clipmark.js path/to/My\ Clippings.txt

A folder called clippings will be created in the current directory, and a file will be created there for each book that has clippings.

NB existing files will be overwritten.

Building

Prerequisites

• git
• nodejs v18+
• typescript (npm install -g typescript)

Build

$> git clone https://github.com/benrhughes/clipmark.git
$> cd clipmark
$> tsc