Get Kindle Fire HD 10 to work with Calibre

Get Kindle Fire HD 10 to work with Calibre

Having just come off the heady rush of "Prime Day" 2022, I've unpacked my new Fire HD 10 (an upgrade from my Fire HDX 8.9) and am ready to load my books onto it.

Alas, Calibre does not see my new Fire HD 10. Windows sees it as a device, and I see it in file explorer. However, Calibre does not.

After searching the web for about an hour (and coming up empty) I finally stumbled upon a vague reference to a USB setting on "newer kindles". It seems newer kindles have a default USB setting of "power only" and you have to set them to "data transfer". Alas, there was no more information than that. But fear not, I figured it out.

1. Plug the FireHD into an open USB port on your PC (I'm running Windows 10)

2. Click on "Settings"

3. Click on "Connected Devices"

4. Select USB under "Currently connected"

5. Under USB choose "File Transfer"

You'll probably hear the appropriate notification sound from Windows the instant you click on "File Transfer". Now start up Calibre on the PC and it should see your Fire HD 10 just fine!

NOTE: This setting is not "sticky". That is, you'll have to go through this every time you connect to the PC. If anybody figures out how to make this setting last, please give me a holler in the comments.