Every time you make a note, highlight a section of text or add a bookmark in a Kindle book, a copy of the annotation is made in the MyClippings.txt file on the Kindle. The text file is a simple record of all annotations made in all books in the Kindle. It serves as a backup of notes and highlights but has limited utility if you’re reading more than one book concurrently, as the notes are organized chronologically. There is no way to re-sort the annotations by book.

The MyClippings.txt file generated on a Kindle as a record of all bookmarks, annotations and highlights is not very useful when it is stranded on the device. It’s easy enough to drag it onto a computer desktop and read through the file, but that isn’t very useful when intense reviewing of one specific book is required.

There are several conversion solutions available, like Notescraper, but that program is Mac-only. ClippingsConverter, on the other hand, is a web-based solution that is easy to use and produces clean results, offering Excel, Word or PDF output. It can parse the text file by book, which makes it a great tool for students or book club participants. I used the Evernote export option and was very impressed by the notes it produced. There are many options for the export, including book sort order and what data to include or skip. It is also possible to omit any specific book from the import process.

Though access to notes and highlights on kindle.amazon.com is still a great backup, the process at ClippingsConverter is painless and great for filing away notes.

image by the waving cat