Send to Kindle MacOSSend to Kindle for Mac is an app which lets you send personal documents from a Mac computer directly to the selected Kindle device or app, as well as archive them in your Kindle account.

Thanks to this app Mac users can now add own files to Kindle much easier than to Apple’s native iBooks application. It’s either Amazon cares more for Mac users who like to read, or Apple doesn’t care well enough.

In order to use Send to Kindle, Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) is required. The supported file types are: .doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt, .rtf, .jpeg (.jpg), .gif, .png, .bmp.

After the installation the icon will be added to the dock. When you open the application, you’ll be asked to register it with your Kindle credentials.

The app is extremely easy to use, and you don’t have to open the app first in order to send files.

1. Drag and drop files into the app’s icon

If you add several files to your Kindle virtual bookshelf, it’s good to keep the Kindle app in the dock. You can simply select the files, drag them into the app’s icon in the dock, and drop.

Send to Kindle for Mac

You can drag and drop files from Finder, but also from some applications. I’ve tested files opened in Google Docs in Chrome browser, and also a Preview app with a pdf document.

In the Preview app you’ll only be able to add the pages selected in the sidebar, so it’s a good way to send to Kindle only the most interesting pages from a big pdf document.

If you have the Send to Kindle app opened you can also drag & drop files directly into it.

2. In Finder: by control-click

If you want to send multiple files right from your Finder, you can, besides drag & drop, simply select the documents and control-click to open the pop-up menu. Then find Send to Kindle command and click on it.

Send to Kindle for MacOS

3. Via the print menu

This method makes it possible to send files from almost any application which opens supported file types. To send to Kindle just open print dialog box (usually Command-P) and select Send to Kindle.

It works in text editors, image-editing apps, but also in browsers. The screenshot below shows the pdf file opened in Google Chrome.

Send to Kindle for MacOS

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Once the files are added, the app opens and you can choose the destination device, delivery method (WiFi or Whispernet) and decide if you want to archive the file in your Kindle virtual bookshelf.

Additionally, in the application settings you can turn on a conversion of pdf files to Kindle format.

One feature I’m missing is a default set-up where I can pick up the default device & settings, so there would be no need to open the app’s dialog box at all.

For more information, check Send to Kindle for Mac online help. To get more posts like this, please subscribe to Ebook Friendly by RSS or email.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Apple does seem to be more than a little clueless about our digital age. As you note, Amazon’s providing more ways to get data on to their Kindles or Apple’s own iDevices than Apple is.

    When it comes to text, Apple is still leaving in the age of cassette tapes. Text apps built on OS X’s APIs look like WordStar circa 1982. They even lack character/paragraph styles, something Microsoft added to Word in the late 1980s. When it comes to text, there’s not only nothing new, innovative, or ‘different,’ OS X is at least a quarter of a century behind most commercial word processing apps.

    You’d think that Apple would at least add a Digital item to the File Menu alongside that for Print. OS X should create flowable ePubs as easily as it creates fixed-size PDFs. And it should be easy to send PDFs and ePubs to mobile devices, either the users or those of colleagues.

    If Apple spent a tenth the money innovating text on their OSs as it spends with music and video, it could do all of us a world of good, particularly the business world, which deals in words far more than with sound or images.

  2. Michael, you say:
    You’d think that Apple would at least add a Digital item to the File Menu alongside that for Print. OS X should create flowable ePubs as easily as it creates fixed-size PDFs.

    And can you create flowable ePubs in Windows’ print menu?

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