Kindle Notes

Kindle Notes copies your Kindle highlights, notes, and bookmarks from your Amazon account to a database on your computer. You can then read the data in a local web page. Claude and other AI assistants can also search the data through an MCP server.

• You do not connect the Kindle device with a USB cable. The data comes from read.amazon.com.

• The tool does not see or keep your Amazon password. You log in to Amazon in a Chrome window. The tool then uses that session again.

• All the data stays on your computer, in the ~/.kindle-notes/ folder.

Kindle Notes is not an Amazon product. Amazon did not examine or accept this tool. Refer to Disclaimer.

Requirements

• macOS or Linux

• Node.js 22 or higher

• pnpm. To install pnpm, run npm install -g pnpm.

• Git

• Google Chrome

• An account on amazon.com

Related MCP server: Calibre MCP Server

Procedure: Install

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/0xpili/kindle-notes.git
   cd kindle-notes

2. Install the dependencies:

   pnpm install

3. Build the tool:

   pnpm build

4. Add the kindle-notes command to your computer:

   npm link

5. Make sure that the command works:

   kindle-notes help

If you do not do step 4, use node dist/cli.js in place of kindle-notes in all commands. Run these commands in the kindle-notes folder.

If Google Chrome is not on your computer, install the Chromium browser for Playwright:

npx playwright install chromium

Procedure: Get a new version

1. Go to the kindle-notes folder.

2. Run these commands:

   git pull
   pnpm install
   pnpm build

You do not have to do npm link again. Your data in ~/.kindle-notes/ does not change.

Procedure: Remove the tool

1. In the kindle-notes folder, run npm unlink -g kindle-notes.

2. Delete the kindle-notes folder.

3. To delete your data and your Amazon session, delete the ~/.kindle-notes/ folder.

Procedure: Get your notes

1. Run kindle-notes login. A Chrome window opens.

2. Log in to Amazon in the Chrome window. When the Kindle notebook page shows, the window closes.

3. Run kindle-notes sync. The tool copies all your data. The sync uses approximately 3 to 4 seconds for each book.

4. Run kindle-notes ui.

5. Open http://127.0.0.1:4477 in your web browser.

To get new notes from Amazon, run kindle-notes sync again. You can do the sync many times. The sync adds new items and changes the items that changed on Amazon. The sync does not make duplicate items.

Amazon asks for your password again when your last login is more than 1 hour old. If you run the sync in a terminal, the sync opens Chrome. Type your password in the Chrome window. The sync then continues.

If the sync runs without a terminal, the sync stops with exit code 2. A scheduled job is an example of a sync without a terminal. Run kindle-notes login or kindle-notes sync in a terminal, then the next scheduled sync will work for 1 hour.

Commands

The web page

The web page has these parts:

• A list of books, with covers. Use the filter box to find a book.

• The highlights of the book that you select, in the sequence of the book.

• Buttons to show all items, only highlights, only notes, or only bookmarks.

• A search box. Press / to go to the search box.

• A "Random" button. This button shows one highlight that the tool selects at random.

• A "Copy" button on each item.

The web page has a light mode and a dark mode.

Procedure: Connect the MCP server to Claude

1. Install Kindle Notes. Refer to Install.

2. Do the procedure in Get your notes.

3. Run this command:

   claude mcp add kindle-notes -- kindle-notes mcp

4. Start a new Claude Code session.

If you did not do npm link, use the full path to dist/cli.js:

claude mcp add kindle-notes -- node /full/path/to/kindle-notes/dist/cli.js mcp

For other MCP clients, use this configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kindle-notes": { "command": "kindle-notes", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

The MCP server has these tools. The tools only read the local database. The tools do not connect to Amazon.

Examples of text that you can write to Claude:

• "What did I highlight about habits?"

• "Make a summary of my notes on the book Deep Work."

• "Show my bookmarks in my last book."

How the tool gets the data

For more data, refer to docs/DESIGN.md and docs/REQUIREMENTS.md.

Limits

• Export limit: The publisher of a book sets a limit on the text that Amazon exports. For a highlight after this limit, Amazon gives only part of the text. The tool keeps this part and shows the label "partial".

• Books with only bookmarks: Amazon does not show these books in the notebook. The tool cannot find them.

• Personal documents: Amazon usually does not show documents from "Send to Kindle" in the notebook.

• Amazon regions: At this time, you can use the tool only with amazon.com accounts.

• Changes to Amazon pages: The tool uses Amazon pages that Amazon does not document. If Amazon changes these pages, the sync stops with the message "Amazon page format changed". The sync does not save incorrect data. To repair the tool, change src/amazon/parse.ts.

CAUTION: The sync opens each book in the Kindle web reader to get the bookmarks. Amazon then shows the date of the sync as the "last annotated" date of each book. The tool does not turn pages. But we did not do a test of this on a Kindle device. To prevent this change, use kindle-notes sync --no-bookmarks.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm test        # Tests that use sample pages. The tests do not connect to Amazon.
pnpm typecheck
pnpm build

Refer to CONTRIBUTING.md. For security, refer to SECURITY.md and docs/MAINTAINING.md.

Disclaimer

Kindle Notes is not an Amazon product. Amazon did not examine or accept this tool. "Kindle" and "Amazon" are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

The tool reads your data from your Amazon account, with your session. Make sure that your use of the tool obeys the Amazon Conditions of Use. You use the tool at your own risk.

License

MIT