How to export your Kindle highlights (and Kobo ones too)

Every highlight you make on an e-reader is a small decision: this line mattered. Then it sits in a file you never open. This guide shows where your Kindle and your Kobo keep your highlights, how to get them out, and how to bring them into a reading journal where each one keeps the feeling that made you mark it.

Where your Kindle keeps your highlights

On the Kindle itself, in a plain text file called My Clippings.txt, inside the documents folder. Every highlight and note you make on that Kindle is added to the end of it, with the book's title and author, the page or location, and the date.

The file only holds what you highlighted on that Kindle. Highlights made in the Kindle app on a phone or tablet are not in it: Amazon keeps those in your Kindle notebook online, for books bought from Amazon.

Step 1: get My Clippings.txt

1. Connect the Kindle to a computer with its USB cable. It shows up as a drive called Kindle.
2. Open the documents folder. My Clippings.txt is there.
3. That is all you need. You can copy it to your computer as a backup, but Storyfeel can also read it straight from the Kindle.

If your Kindle does not show up as a drive (some recent models connect as a media device instead, especially on a Mac), copy the file with whatever your computer uses to browse the Kindle's files, and use that copy in the next step.

Step 2: bring the highlights into Storyfeel

1. In Storyfeel, open Feels, go to Highlights and choose Import Highlights.
2. On a computer with Chrome or Edge, choose Connect to Kindle and select the Kindle drive: Storyfeel finds My Clippings.txt by itself. In other browsers the button says Choose Kindle File, and you select the file. You can also drop the file onto the window.
3. Before anything is saved, you see how many moments were found and the books they belong to. A book that is not in your library yet asks where it should go: Completed, Reading, TBR or DNF, or Don't add to leave its highlights out.
4. Highlights you imported before are skipped, so you can import the same file again later without doubles.
5. Confirm, and your highlights are in Feels, each with its book.

What comes across

• The text of every highlight, with its book, author and location.
• Your Kindle notes. A note you typed on a highlight becomes Your thought on that moment. The Kindle saves a new copy of a note every time you pause while typing; only the last, complete one is kept.
• Quotes. A highlight that starts and ends with quotation marks, like a line of dialogue, comes in as a quote rather than a highlight.
• Nothing else. Bookmarks are ignored, and the same passage highlighted twice comes in once. Storyfeel reads only the text you highlighted, never your books.

Kobo

A Kobo has no clippings file. Your highlights live in the Kobo's own database, a file called KoboReader.sqlite inside a hidden folder named .kobo.

1. Connect the Kobo to a computer with its cable and tap Connect on the Kobo's screen.
2. In Import Highlights, choose Connect to Kobo and select the Kobo drive. In browsers where the button says Choose Kobo File, select KoboReader.sqlite yourself. The .kobo folder is hidden: on Windows, turn on hidden items in the File Explorer's View menu; on a Mac, press Cmd + Shift + . in the file window.
3. From there it works exactly like the Kindle: preview, choose where new books go, confirm.

Other readers and apps

Storyfeel also reads a highlights CSV: a table with a column called Highlight or Text, and ideally Title and Author. Many highlight services export one, Readwise among them, which is also a way to bring in what you highlighted in the Kindle app on your phone. If the file does not say which book the highlights belong to, Storyfeel asks you.

Three Kindle quirks worth knowing

1. Deleting a highlight on the Kindle does not delete it from the file. My Clippings.txt only ever grows, so highlights you removed on the device come along. Delete them in Storyfeel after the import.
2. Some books have an export limit. Publishers can cap how much of a book can be clipped. Past that point the Kindle writes a notice instead of your text, such as You have reached the clipping limit for this item. Storyfeel skips those notices, but the highlights behind them are not in the file.
3. Books you sent to the Kindle yourself sometimes carry the file name as their title. Storyfeel tidies underscores and a repeated author name; check in the preview that the book is the one you expect.

After the import: give each highlight its feeling

This is the part an e-reader never had. Open a highlight in Feels and choose what it made you feel, from a short list or Browse all feelings, then write a line in Your thought. A year from now the passage is still there, with the mood you read it in.

And so that they do not sit unread again: in Games → Recall, a few of your highlights come back each day, spaced so they stick.

Questions

Can I import again after reading more?

Yes. Import the same file whenever you like: highlights already in Storyfeel are recognised and skipped, and only the new ones come in.

Can I do it from my phone?

Getting the file off the Kindle or Kobo needs a computer. Once you have the file, the import works on any device.

Does the free plan limit highlights?

No. Highlights are not limited. Books that the import adds count towards the free plan's 20 books in your library and 20 on your TBR; any beyond that are kept, locked, until you subscribe. Nothing is ever deleted.

Moving from Goodreads too? Here is how to export your Goodreads library. And for what to write next to your highlights: reading journal prompts. Or simply try Storyfeel free.