How do I transfer everything from my old Kindle Fire to my new Kindle Fire?

If you’re like most people, you probably have a ton of information stored on your old Kindle Fire that you want to take with you to your new one. Luckily, transferring everything over is actually a pretty straightforward process. In this post, we’ll walk you through how to do it. So sit tight and let’s get started!

What is a Kindle Fire?

A Kindle Fire is a small tablet computer developed by Amazon. It has a color 7-inch multi-touch display with a resolution of 1024×600, an Arm Cortex-A8 1.2GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM. The device has 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, plus a microSD card slot for expansion. It also has dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and a USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfer. The Kindle Fire runs a custom version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and offers access to Amazon’s extensive ecosystem of digital content, including books, movies, TV shows, music, apps, and games. The device was released in November 2011 and was followed by the second-generation Kindle Fire HD in September 2012.

What can you do with a Kindle Fire?

When the Kindle Fire came out a few weeks ago, there were mixed reviews. Uncle Walt says it’s good, but not great. David Pogue of the New York Times says it is “slow” and doesn’t have “polish or speed.” The Kindle Fire, on the other hand, is still selling like crazy. Some reviewers are disappointed that it’s not an iPad, but that’s the wrong way to look at it. The Fire is a great media tablet that does a few things very well. I’ll tell you what they are.

Since two weeks ago, when my kids or wife haven’t taken it to another room, I’ve been using a Kindle Fire. My family fights over it, which is the first test I gave it. The Fire has been tried out by kids, and moms like it. My young kids are crazy about Fruit Ninja right now. Even my two-year-old, who loves the iPad, is starting to look at the Kindle Fire and plan ways to get her Mom out of the room so she can play with it. My wife won’t listen to that. She’s too busy reading Joan Didion’s newest book, Fire. When everyone is asleep at night, I steal it from the bedside table and watch old episodes of Arrested Development.

The Kindle Fire was made to find and use digital media like books, movies and TV shows, music, magazines, apps, and the web. It doesn’t have as many features as an iPad, but it does well in these areas. Let me talk about each of these things separately:

Reading

The iPad is more like other Kindles than anything else. I’ve been messing around with a Kindle Touch as well, and the screen is so unreliable that it’s hard for me to use. Every time I turn a page, the E Ink screen flickers, which also gives me a headache. No, if you want to buy a Kindle, you should get the Kindle Fire. Even reading digital books and magazines is much better. It looks great in The New Yorker magazine.

Yes, I know that screens with backlights aren’t as good for your eyes as screens with E Ink, but who are we kidding? Many of us spend 8 to 12 hours a day looking at screens. I’m used to it and find that backlit screens are easier to read than E Ink. It is also much easier to mark important parts of the text or look something up on the web right from the text.

As a digital book reader, the Kindle Fire also beats the iPad (as you would hope it would, coming from Amazon). Most of the time, this is because of how small it is. It’s about as big as a big paperback book. You can hold it in one hand and use your thumb to turn the pages. It’s much more pleasant to read on than the larger iPad, which is a little hard to hold for long reading sessions. But the Kindle app on the iPad is fine in every other way.

Watching

Even though the Fire’s screen is smaller, it is a great device for watching videos. It works directly with Amazon’s Instant Video store, where you can buy or rent video downloads. There are a good number of old and new movies and TV shows to choose from. You can either watch the movies right away or save them to watch later. I haven’t had any trouble streaming. The pictures are clear, and I’ve been able to watch whole episodes over a strong WiFi connection without any hiccups.

You can also use Netflix or Hulu Plus, which both have apps for the Fire, to watch movies. But if you have Amazon Prime, which costs $79 a year and gives you unlimited shipping, you also get Instant Video. That’s a good deal since Netflix’s streaming-only plan costs $96 per year and doesn’t include a free shipping of Christmas gifts.

The only bad thing about watching videos on the Fire is that you have to do it by yourself. The small size of the screen doesn’t affect the viewing experience when you’re alone and holding the device in your lap, but it’s not great for watching a show or movie with someone else. It is like reading over someone’s shoulder but on video. I don’t know of an easy way to show the video on a bigger screen like you can with the iPad’s Airplay feature.

Listening

The music store on the Kindle Fire is so small that I hardly notice it. There is nothing wrong with the choices, and I like how it gives out MP3 songs that can be played on any device. But when it comes to buying digital music, I am too tied down to iTunes (or other streaming services) to want to use the Amazon Music Store. It’s too hard to figure out how to get the music into iTunes so I can listen to it on my iPhone or through my stereo.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want to walk around with my headphones plugged into the Fire while listening to an album. You can’t run with it or anything. And listening to music or a movie through the Fire’s external speakers is fine for a movie, but not the best way to listen to music or a movie. The only time music makes sense on the Fire is if you want to listen to something while reading or surfing the web.

Browsing

The Silk browser on the Fire is supposed to make browsing faster by pre-caching pages in the cloud and sending them to the device in a smarter way. The browser is fast and works well, but as far as I can tell, it is not faster than the browser on an iPad. I checked out about six web pages. If there is a difference in how fast pages load, you can’t tell.

When it comes to browsing the Web, the iPad’s bigger screen gives it the edge. You don’t have to squint as much as when you use the browser on your phone, but you still do. When I want to read a webpage, I often pinch and zoom. Tabbed browsing is a good feature of the Fire, though.

Playing

Apps are the last thing. The Fire only comes with a few thousand apps that can be downloaded, while the iPad comes with more than 200,000. But Amazon has done a great job making sure that many of these first apps are great. Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds aren’t unique to the Fire, but they are fun and show off how good their graphics are. Media apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora, can offer more ways to have fun. Some “apps” like Facebook and Twitter just send you to their HTML5 mobile websites through the browser, but I think they will get full-fledged apps in the future.

More importantly, the store is much better organized and easier to navigate than the official Android Market. If the Kindle Fire becomes the most popular Android tablet, which I think it will, it could also become the biggest distributor of Android apps. Amazon’s app store finally gives Android users a way to shop and find new apps, much like what iTunes did for iOS apps.

The best apps are still on the iPad, and they will continue to be there first. However, if you get a Kindle Fire, you won’t lose any apps. And they will only get better as more people buy the Fire, a device that encourages buying media, including apps.

No feature of the Kindle Fire will make people want to buy it. They are going to buy it because it will help them get used to digital books, movies, magazines, and apps, which are still strange to them. All of these are media. The Fire makes it easy to find them and, more importantly, easy to buy them. You don’t give it much thought.

Still, being able to put all of your media on a small, 7-inch device is a very cool thing. But your media is not the only thing that makes it interesting. It gives you access to Amazon’s huge and growing digital library of books, movies, apps, and songs, all of which are at your fingertips and just a click away. If you do buy a Kindle Fire, I can promise you that you will spend a lot more on media than the device’s subsidized price of $200. And once you start buying digital media for the Fire, you won’t be able to leave. If it doesn’t already, Amazon will have you as a customer for life.

How to Use Your Kindle Fire

Know This About Your Kindle Fire

Before we start, you need to know what kind of Kindle Fire you have if you want to get the most out of this article. There are more than one, yes! Amazon has made a total of 10 Kindle Fires since the first one came out in 2011, and I’m sure they’ll make more in the years to come.

Luckily, I’ve updated my infographic to show all ten versions of tablets, so you can tell which one you have. Most of you who are reading this probably have a newer tablet, but it’s best to know which model you have.

So go check it out, find your device, and then come back!

How to turn on your Kindle

Now that you know what kind of Kindle Fire you have, let’s learn how to turn it on and off. Okay, I know this is VERY basic, but it’s where you start when you’re teaching the basics. Not much time will be needed.

For older Kindle Fires, you can just tap the power button to turn it on. For newer models, you have to hold down the power button for a few seconds before it will turn on. (I thought this was a step up.)

How do I get my old Kindle files onto my new Kindle Fire?

Press the “Menu” button on the keyboard of your new Kindle and use the five-way controller to choose “Sync & Check for Items.” Your last page read notes, and other information you added to your old Kindle will be transferred to the new one.

How do I move files from my old Kindle to my new one?

Use Kindle Transfer, which is the easiest solution.

1. Join your two Kindles to your computer.
2. Open Kindle Transfer.
3. Click on the source device and mark the books you want to move.
4. Use the drop-down menu to choose the target device, then click the “Transfer” button.

How do I move applications from my old Kindle Fire to my new one?

To re-download, go to the Apps and/or Games page on your new Fire by tapping the relevant menu link (game apps will be on the Games page). Tap the link for “Cloud” to see all the apps you’ve saved to your Cloud. Long-tap the icon for each app or game you want to download, and then choose “Download” from the menu that appears.

How do I sync two Kindles?

How do I synchronize my two kindles

1. Sign in to your account on Amazon.
2. Go to Your Kindle > Manage.
3. Click the “Actions…” dropdown menu next to the title and choose “Download and move via USB.”
4. Click the “Download” button and then choose the Kindle device to which you will send the file.

How do you move books from one Kindle Fire to another?

Move ebooks from a regular Kindle to a Kindle Fire. To move books that were downloaded but not bought:

Step 1: Use the USB cable to connect your old Kindle to your computer. Under “My Computer,” your Kindle will show up as a drive. Click on it to open the drive.

Step 2: You should have more than one folder.

FAQ

Can I transfer everything from my old Kindle to a new one?

All you’ll need to do is copy and paste the “Documents” folder from your old Kindle to your new Kindle. There may be a bunch of files with the same filename, so you’ll need to decide whether to keep the files on your new Kindle or overwrite them with ones from your old model.

Can you sync two Amazon Fire tablets?

Make sure your Fire Tablet and Second Screen device are turned on, registered to the same Amazon account, and connected to the internet. You can use separate wireless, Wi-Fi, or wired Internet connections, as long as the Second Screen device and the tablet can both connect to the internet at the same time.

How do I sync two Kindles?

Enable Whispersync for Kindle Books

1. Go to Manage Your Content and Devices.
2. Select the Preferences tab.
3. Select Device Synchronization (Whispersync Settings) and confirm that the feature is turned ON.

How do I transfer from Kindle?

To transfer Kindle books, you can log in to the same Amazon account on a different Kindle/device and download the books from the library, or you can locate the Kindle files on your device and convert them to epub or pdf, then transfer them to a different device.

How do I sync my Amazon Fire tablet?

From Manage Your Content and Devices, go to Settings and then ensure that Device Synchronization (Whispersync Settings) is turned ON. Sync your device. Swipe down from the top of the screen and tap Sync to ensure that your device is synced with the latest updates and content downloads.

Why is my Kindle not syncing across devices?

If you are trying to sync Kindle content, you should verify that the Whispersync option is enabled. Go to “Manage Your Content and Devices” >> Select the “Preferences” tab >> Select “Device Synchronization (Whispersync Settings)” and confirm that the feature is turned ON.

How do I link two Kindles to one account?

Click the “Edit” link to the right of your second Kindle’s name in the “Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings” section. Change the “@kindle.com” email address to match that of your first Kindle and click the “Update” button. Your second Kindle is now registered to the same email addresses as your first Kindle.

Can two Kindles use the same account?

You can add multiple Kindles to your account. Having two or more Kindles registered to the same account is useful if you and other family members have the same tastes in books. If you buy a book on one Kindle, you can read it on another Kindle at the same time without having to buy it again.

How do I set up a new Kindle?

Set Up Kindle: Register Your Kindle With an Amazon Account

1. Turn On Your Kindle and Select Your Language.
2. Select Your Region.
3. Wait for the Kindle to Restart.
4. Connect to a WiFi Network.
5. Log in to Your Amazon Account.
6. Confirm Your Account.
7. Download the Kindle App.
8. Wait for the Kindle to Finish Setting Up.

How do I register a Kindle I bought from someone else?

To register a Kindle that you bought from someone else, first, deregister the device. Open the device “Settings”. Click on the “Registration” option. Then choose “Deregister”.