After years of push-back, Amazon is finally opening up its Kindle walled-garden -- at least a bit.

The tech giant has announced that starting on January 20th, 2026, Kindle owners will be able to download digital rights management-free Kindle e-books in EPUB and PDF formats directly from its digital Kindle storefront, as long as they're part of the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. As first spotted by Good e-Reader, this marks a stark shift from Amazon's typically restrictive DRM practices.

Previously, even if you purchased a Kindle e-book from an author that opted not to apply DRM, the book was still encrypted in Amazon's proprietary KFX format. This means that while you technically own the e-book, you can't do whatever you want with it, including moving it to a competing e-reader from a company like Kobo or Boox.

Unofficial workarounds that convert e-books from Kindle's KFX format, including jailbreaking and third-party software, have been around for years, but this marks an official shift in Amazon's policy. The company says that Kindle owners will be able to download EPUB and PDF files directly from the Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon's website.

As is often the case, there's a pretty substantial catch with this shift. First off, the change only applies to content you've actually purchased, so if you borrowed a book through Kindle Unlimited or another e-book lending platform, you won't be able to download the EPUB or PDF.

Also, if the book isn't part of the KDP program, which includes the vast majority of Amazon's Kindle e-book store, it still features DRM.

The change won't affect every Kindle e-book

The responsibility is ultimately on KDP authors to mark books as DRM-free

It's important to note that this is Amazon effectively shifting the responsibility for DRM to authors that are part of its Kindle Direct Publishing Program (KDP). These changes also won't impact previously published e-books. It's on authors to change the DRM status of their books that have already been published through the KDP program. Once DRM is disabled, Amazon says that it will take 72 hours before the change is reflected in the Kindle e-book store.

Earlier this year, Amazon removed the download and transfer via USB option from Kindle devices. The company also recently released an update that made it impossible to jailbreak 11th and 12-generation Kindle devices, depending on what firmware version the e-reader is running.

While this DRM policy shift feels like a step in the right direction, at least right now, it's unclear how many KDP authors will opt to remove restrictions from their work. DRM is a key reason why I've always preferred Kobo's e-reader ecosystem. While I do most of my reading with the Kobo Libra Colour, on the off-chance that I want to transfer that book to my Boox Palma 2, the process is super simple, or I can just install the Kobo mobile app directly on the Android-powered e-reader.