This is the low tech way to do it but it works:
Get kobo
Download epub of book to computer
Plug kobo into computer
Copy book onto kobo. And I don't see why I would need anything else.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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I have a Kobo and set up a Calibre Web server so it can pull books from the server instead of the Kobo store. It's fantastic. I got my SO one for Christmas and plan on doing the same for her.
⬆️ This ⬆️
Assuming you have the means to set up a server, it's very easy and so convenient once it's set up
You don’t even really need to set up a server, I run calibre on my pc and just copy stuff over with a usb cable every now and again.
Calibre is really excellent software by the way. Kudos to the devs for it.
Yeah you don't have to, and I probably wouldn't bother setting up a home server just for this job, but if you install calibre web behind a reverse proxy then you can add books to it from anywhere, on any device, and your Kobo will periodically update without you lifting a finger. If you have a home server anyway, it's a no-brainer imo — such an easy ux once it's up and running
Yeah makes sense if that’s your use case. The way I use it, when I got it I loaded about 12gb of books on there, and have put about 6 new books on it since.
It’s over 1000 books, that’s quite the backlog for me to be working on! If I changed nothing that would do me until the end of my life - so I’ll only bother connecting again if there is some new book I wish to read urgently, which does happen, but not regularly. So given this is a task I only do a few times a year it doesn’t make sense to host.
Fair enough — I have a far shorter backlog than that! But I do really appreciate being able to download and add a book whenever a recommendation here catches my fancy, for example
my kobo literally just lets me paste files into its storage through my PC
As another Kobo user, I do want to say you have to do it this way for things like PDFs if you plan to try and read any of those. They're always a pain with ereaders but I wasnt aware you can't sync or send them at all so its just a little annoyance when I have everything else automatically syncing with Calibre Web.
I have a Boox Go Color 7 and mainly read with the Moon+ Read Pro app. The app lets you integrate websites for downloading books pretty easily. I think you can integrate the Calibre web interface too but I usually just copy books with USB.
The e-reader is Android based and you can install most apps, of course not all apps look or work great with eink but if you want to use some newspaper app or something like that it's probably a good fit. Used it to read articles I bookmarked with the Pocket app too until Mozilla discontinued it.
I read Manga on it with Mihon too, the main reason why I went for a color e-reader. The color rendering is pretty rough.
I have the kindle app installed too for ebooks purchased after the Amazon locked down downloading ebooks on PC. It's not very good but better than nothing.
Spouse has a kobo which they like for ease of use reasons. It isn't jailbroken but that does not seem to matter, they get epubs on it just fine.
Personally I like large-format e-readers so if I were to buy a new one I would get a remarkable. Another alternative is the PineNote but that is well into 17 torrents territory.
The first batch of the PineNote will be great to write software for, but not great to write notes on. Wait for a later batch with better preinstalled software if you just want to use the device as an e-reader, e-note, or your everyday computing device.
No kidding lol
Well now Pine64 has done a second run of them and there are two possible images to choose from, Debian and Arch. However neither are particularly stable and easy to use. That being said, if you want a linux e-ink tablet you'll get a linux e-ink tablet - with all that entails. Personally I love mine and would consider buying another if it dies, although the remarkable is very tempting.
i have an old kindle and i've never used the amazon shop to put books on it. either drag-drop or just use calibre.
next one we get will probably be some decent cheap chinese one so i'll also watch this thread. just need a simple screen and dark mode
I love my kobo forma. I exclusively drop free range kepubs on it but the integrated store works great too.
I have an old kindle. Picked up for cheap on ebay. I simply put it in airplane mode so it doesn't try to "phone home" and load books onto it via calibre
Pocketbook is just a tiny Linux distro. So is ReMarkable if you can find an old one for a good price (I got one for $130 and it's great for reading PDFs). My pocketbook has a good base UI, but you can sideload anything.
There are Git setups for ReMarkable that let you put everything in a git repo so you can have a history of your books and reading/note states. Great for having detailed backups.
I've got a kobo and it takes epubs on it fine, no tinkering needed. It more comes down to the quality of the ebooks you download, and the only benefit you loose is you can't read ebooks on your phone and pick them up in the same place.
Apparently you can jailbreak a kindle and install KOReader pretty easily but it sounds like you don't want to bother with that
btw you should look into https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/try/ for converting your epubs into kepubs. they work better with kobo os!
This is really cool. I might give this a download soon and convert some things I've downloaded
Yes I see there's ways around new kindle restrictions, it's just that from what I can see unless you're careful you end up having to re jail break it every month.
Definitely get a Kobo. I think you just missed their black friday sale so maybe wait until christmas?
I like Boox a lot, but I hear the hardware can be a little hit or miss. You can drop basically any file in the books folder and it'll show up in the library. The device is otherwise android so you can really do anything with it.
I also recommend Pocketbooks. They're great e-readers by default without needing to touch anything, you can sideload pirated epubs super easily. Newer Kobos by comparison require an account by default, and you have to change some configs to enable "sideload mode" in order to load your own epubs onto it.
How important is an integrated backlight to you?