How to organize books in your Kindle library

Books are a great way to ascertain new knowledge and explore other worlds, but the issue with carrying them around is that they take up a lot of space. This is where e-readers come in handy–they allow readers to carry their favorite books with them anywhere and everywhere. But as you accumulate more and more titles on your Amazon Kindle, it can become difficult to find what you’re looking for. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to organize your Kindle library so finding books becomes a breeze! In this blog post I’ll show you how to remove content from your Kindle, filter by genre or author, browse through collections based on books read or not yet read, and arrange titles into custom categories that will help make organizing easier than ever before.

1. Get rid of books you don’t need

The first step to getting your Kindle library in order is to get rid of any books you don’t need. If over the years you’ve amassed quite the collection then this might seem like a daunting task. But take it one step at a time it will be much easier. You can start by looking through your Kindle library and removing any titles that you’ve already read or don’t plan on reading again.

Removing books from your Kindle is easy. Just go to the Home screen and select “Manage Your Content and Devices.” You will then be taken to a page with all of your devices listed. Select the device you want to remove books from, such as your Kindle device or Kindle app, and then click on ” Actions .” Under “Actions” you’ll see the option to “Delete Content”–select this and all of your content will be removed from that device.

Note: Removing books from a Kindle does not mean they are gone forever. You can download them through your Amazon account anytime by going back into Manage Your Content & Devices, selecting the book you want to re-download, and clicking on “Download.”

If you have a lot of books to get rid of, then I suggest using the Calibre plugin. It’s an e-book management program that allows you to delete books from your Kindle, as well as add new titles, change a book cover, and more.

Regardless of how you choose to remove books from your Kindle, the goal is to end up with a library that only contains titles you want and need. This will ensure your kindle isn’t cluttered, which makes it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for without wasting time digging through pages and pages of titles.

Now that you’ve cleaned out your Kindle, let’s get you organized!

amazon site, sort option, single book

2. Sort your books using Kindle collections

One way to organize your Kindle library is by creating cloud collections. Collections are groups of books that act as a folder structure and are synced across all of your kindle devices. This makes it easy to find a specific type of book without having to search through every title.

To create a new collection, go to the home page and tap the three-dot icon in the upper left of the homescreen. At the bottom of the drop-down menu select “create new collection.”

You have easy access to these collections in either Grid or list view on the library screen, by searching for them, or if you tap sort and then tap collections.

Create collections for specific purposes

One great way to organize your Kindle library is by creating collections for specific purposes. For example, you can create a collection of books that include your favorite authors. You could also have one for topics you’re learning or those from a certain publisher. For example, I have a ton of books on SEO, PPC, advertising, and social media that are all grouped into a “Marketing” collection.

3. Organize books you want to read with reading lists

While this won’t directly help with organizing the books you already have on your Kindle, it will make things easier when picking out your next book. Amazon has a feature called reading lists that allows you to add books you want to read in the future. When you’re figuring out what to read next, you can just select one from the reading list and it will pop open in the kindle store.

To add a book to your reading list while on an e-reader, such as the kindle paperwhite, go back to the Home screen and select “Reading Lists” from the menu. Next, you’ll see all of the lists that are currently on your Kindle e-reader. If this is your first time using them then just tap “Create List,” which will open up a page for naming it. Then, type a name and hit “Save.”

While this works fine if you just have your kindle ereader, I actually prefer to manage my reading lists on the Amazon website. Often times when I receive a new book recommendation I’m closer to my phone or computer than my kindle, so I find just searching for the book on those the easiest way to add it to my reading list.

If you’re also a fan of using GoodReads like I am, you can connect your GoodReads account with Amazon to sync your reading lists between the two platforms. This way, any books you add to your GoodReads list will automatically show up on your Kindle and vice versa.

To do this, open “Settings” from the three-dot menu and select “Your Account.” From here, tap “Social Networks” and select “Connect to Goodreads.” Sign in to your account on the following page and you’re all set to go! If your Goodreads-Facebook account is locked, then you’ll have to do this from a web browser.

4. Easily find books using filter and search

If you’re not sure what collection your book is in, or if you want to find a specific title but don’t know the author or genre, you can use the filter, search, and sort options on your Kindle.

The filter tool allows you to quickly narrow down your results by selecting certain criteria. This is helpful if you only want to see books you haven’t read yet or if you have other docs such as pdf files.

The search bar in the upper right-hand corner can also save you a ton of time. You can use it to search for the exact title or author of a single book, rather than search through your entire library until you find it. Again, you can even use it to find your collections.

The sort option is great if you only have an idea of what you’re looking for based on title or author. You could use one of those options to navigate the rest of your kindle library more quickly. There is also a sort option for collections, which is an incredibly quick way of sifting through those.

5. Automatically catalog your books in Notion using Readwise

If you’re looking for a more automated way to catalog your Kindle books, I highly recommend using Readwise. This is an online service that will automatically add all of the titles on your Kindle to their database so you can keep track of books in one place. Better yet, they organize your highlights and notes and use spaced repetition to remind you of important things you’ve read.

You can even take things one step further by integrating Readwise with Notion databases. Each book gets listed as a page, in which you can expand on your notes and link info from that book to other books! Think of it as a database for knowledge management. I find this the best way to go back and review my read kindle content, and the best part is that it’s created automatically.

Keep Your Kindle Library Organized

So there you have it! These are just a few great tips to help you organize your Kindle library. Whether you’re using collections or setting up a Notion catalog, hopefully now you have a few ideas on how to make things more streamlined and user-friendly for yourself. Have a good time reading!

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