Free software lets you create Collections by creating folders on your computer

Free software lets you create Collections by creating folders on your computer

Thanks to ManyDawgs in the Amazon Kindle community for the heads-up on this!

There is free software that will let you use your Windows PC to convert folders you’ve created in your Kindle’s documents folder into Collections on that Kindle.

One big thing that means is that you can drag and drop multiple files at once into a Collection.

It’s something a lot of people have really wanted.

I do need to give you a few caveats first.

This is not an Amazon product, and hypothetically, if could have some kind of malware (bad software, like viruses) in it. My intuition (and that’s all it is) is that it doesn’t, and I didn’t see any adverse affects after installing it.

There weren’t a lot of instructions. You have to already have a good idea about how to create files on your computer and move files into them. That’s not hard, but some people may not be familiar with it.

You must restart the Kindle afterwards to have your Collections show up. Again, no big deal, but I do want to point that out.

It does not work with the Kindle Fire and the Kindle Touch line.

While you can “nest” the folders on your computer, they aren’t nested afterwards. You could have a Fiction folder, and put mysteries and romances in it. On your Kindle, those Collections would be

Fiction – mysteries

Fiction – romances

That’s fine, but I do think some people may expect to have a Fiction Collection that they click to see the other Collections.

All that said, it seemed to work fine. 🙂

It’s not a big deal for me, because I don’t keep a lot of Kindle store books on my Kindle at any given time. Counting all of my files (Kindle store and not), I probably don’t have fifty files on any of my RSKs (Reflective Screen Kindles…anything but a Kindle Fire).

However, I’m sure that some of my readers keep thousands, and this may be very useful.

Here’s the basic sequence, if you do want to try it.

First, download the books to your Kindle that you want to have in Collections.

Second, connect your Kindle that is capable of making Collections and isn’t either a Kindle Fire or Kindle Touch to your Windows PC.

Now, go ahead and go to

http://www.colegate.net/KindleCollectionManager/default.aspx

and request the program. You may want to look around the site first.

You’ll have to put in your name and e-mail, and they send it to you. Some of you might not want to do that, and that’s not unreasonable.

After you get the e-mail, install “Kindle Collection Manager”. It came as a zip file (that’s a compressed file, and it often contains several files). It seemed to take a few minutes to install. It may also need to install Microsoft .Net Framework…that’s fine.

I didn’t find the set-up process very intuitive, but you basically double-click on the unzipped file and click “run” or “ok” or things like that several times. 🙂

The program is now in your Start menu. Go ahead and start it.

You will now see your folders on one side. There is a “1-touch sync” button at the top…go ahead and click that, and it creates the Collections. For more on how that looks, see this:

http://www.colegate.net/KindleCollectionManager/faqs.aspx#1touchsync

After you save it, they have a button to “safely eject” your Kindle, which is a nice touch.

Disconnect your Kindle physically from your computer (unplug the cable from your Kindle).

Restart your Kindle:

Home – Menu – Settings – Menu – Restart

That should do it.

Your Kindle does need to be sorted by Collections, but that’s no different from Collections you build on the Kindle.

I know I’ve been a little sketchy on this…it’s going to vary somewhat depending on your computer. If you have questions, you can ask…I’ll try and answer them.

If you do try it out, feel free to comment on this post to let me know what you think.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.