How to Send Anything to Your Kindle for Later Reading

So you've loaded up your Kindle with free books, but you have a few other non-book documents you'd like to read on it. Here are some easy ways to send any web article, PDF, or document straight to your Kindle (or smartphone with the Kindle app).

Step One: Find Your Kindle Email Address

To set this up, we're going to use Kindle's Personal Document Syncing service, which relies on an email address—for example,—to send articles to your device. Whatever you use is going to require you to know this address, so to find it, head to this page in Amazon's Kindle settings and click on "Personal Document Settings" in the left sidebar. You should see your Kindle's email address near the top of the page. Copy this down and enter it when you're prompted to by one of the apps in step two.

Step Two: Choose Your Sending Method

There are a few different ways to send documents to your Kindle. Here are a few of our favorites.

Via Email: If you have a PDF, DOC, HTML, RTF, or other compatible file, you can just attach it to an email and send it to your Kindle email address to have it show up in your Kindle library on your device. It isn't the fastest way to do it, but you can do it from nearly anywhere, so it's pretty convenient.

How to Send Anything to Your Kindle for Later ReadingS

Amazon's Send to Kindle Desktop App: Amazon also has a desktop app for both Windows and OS X that lets you send compatible files to your Kindle just by right-clicking on them on your computer and pressing "Send to Kindle". This is especially handy if you send a lot of PDFs or DOC files.

The Bookmarklet or Chrome Extension: If you're more of a web junkie, you'll love It has a bookmarklet that works on nearly any browser and will send any web article to your Kindle with one click. It also has a really cool Chrome extension that can grab an article, strip it of formatting and (if you so choose) images and then send it to your Kindle, which can be really nice. If you don't like, you might also try the very popular Kindlebility bookmarklet, too.

You can also send articles to your Kindle from services like Instapaper Readability, though unless you've already stored those articles, it lengthens the process by one step—so the above choices are quicker if you stumble upon something and want to send it to your Kindle right away.

Step Three: Set Up Personal Document Syncing

How to Send Anything to Your Kindle for Later ReadingS

Lastly, you'll need to authorize the above apps to send documents to your Kindle. Head back to Amazon's Kindle settings page, click on Personal Document Settings in the left sidebar, and scroll down to "Approved Personal Document Email List". From there, add a new email address and type in the address of whatever service you're using from step two—for example, if you're using Readability, you'll need to add to the approved list.

Lastly, you can send these articles over either USB, 3G, Wi-Fi. Here's how that works:

If you want to send articles over USB, you can use a slightly different version of your Kindle email address in the apps above: instead of It should return to you a file compatible with your Kindle, which you can then drag over to it using a USB cable as described here.

If you have a Kindle with Wi-Fi or a smartphone, your articles should show up as soon as you have a valid Wi-Fi connection. You won't be charged for this service.

If you have a 3G-enabled Kindle, you can also send articles when you aren't near Wi-Fi using Amazon's Whispernet. You can enable this on the Personal Document Settings page, under "Whipspernet Delivery Options". When you enable this, Amazon will automatically send your articles over 3G if you don't have Wi-Fi connectivity and will charge you $0.15 per Megabyte transferred (per article—so an article 1MB or less will cost $0.15).

Alternatively, if you don't want to pay money (but don't have Wi-Fi), you can keep Wispernet disabled and add another step to the process to get those articles on your Kindle. Once you've sent an article to your Kindle using an app in step two, go to the Amazon Kindle settings page and you should find that article in your Kindle library. Click the Actions dropdown and click "Deliver to My..." and choose your Kindle from the list. It'll then send the article to your Kindle over 3G, but without charging you. Photo by The Approximate Photographer.

Step Four: Enjoy Your Articles

That's it! It sounds like a lot of setup, but once you're done, you should be able to send nearly any article or document to your Kindle with one click. Then, whenever you turn on your Kindle, you'll have a plethora of articles ready to read. There are a lot of other ways to send stuff to your Kindle, but these are by far the best and easiest in our opinion. Check out Amazon's Help page on the subject, or share your own methods in the comments.