10 Kindle Tips & Tricks Every Reader Should Know

Most people use a Kindle exactly as it came out of the box. Which is fine. It works.

But there are a handful of settings buried a menu or two deep that quietly change how the thing feels to use, and almost nobody turns them on. These are the ten worth ten minutes of your evening.

1. Set up the reading screen properly

Font, size, line spacing, margins. All of it is adjustable, and the defaults suit nobody in particular.

A slightly larger font with wider spacing is easier on tired eyes at the end of the day, and it costs you almost nothing in page turns. Word Wise is worth a look too if you read a lot of older or denser writing. There is a fuller walkthrough in our guide to the best Kindle settings for comfortable reading.

2. Turn on dark mode

White text on black, found under display settings.

It is the difference between reading in bed and lighting up the whole room. Also the difference between reading on a night flight and being the person everyone resents.

3. Fix the ghosting with page refresh

Ever noticed a faint shadow of the last page hanging around behind the new one? That is e-ink doing what e-ink does.

Page refresh clears the screen fully on every turn. Slightly slower, much cleaner. Once you have seen the ghosting you cannot unsee it, so turn this on and stop looking for it.

4. Use collections, properly

A Kindle library gets unmanageable faster than a shelf does, because nothing falls over to remind you.

Collections are just folders. To be read. Started and abandoned. Comfort rereads. Set up three and you will actually use them. Set up eleven and you will not.

5. Email things to yourself with Send to Kindle

Your Kindle has its own email address, sitting in the settings.

Anything you send there arrives as a readable document. Long articles, PDFs, a manuscript, the twelve-page terms and conditions you have been avoiding. It is the fastest way to read something properly rather than skimming it on a phone.

6. Let Whispersync keep your place

Whispersync syncs your position across every device signed into the same Amazon account.

Leave the Kindle at home and the phone app picks up on the exact line you stopped at. It only works if the Kindle has been on wifi recently enough to report in, which is the one thing that trips people up. More on that in our guide to Whispersync.

7. Highlight as you go

Press and hold to highlight, tap to add a note.

Everything lands in My Clippings, which becomes a slow accidental record of what you were thinking about in a given year. Worth doing even if you never look back at it. Especially worth doing if you are in a book club and would like to sound like you paid attention.

8. Fill it with free books

Public libraries lend e-books through Libby, and most Australian councils are on it with a card you already have.

Project Gutenberg holds the out-of-copyright classics. Prime Reading comes free with Prime if you already pay for it. Between the three you never need to buy a book you are not sure about. We have a list of ten free Kindle books worth starting with.

9. Stop the battery dying mid-chapter

Wifi is what drains a Kindle, not reading.

Turn it off, or use aeroplane mode, once your books have downloaded. A Kindle that is only reading will run for weeks. A Kindle quietly hunting for wifi in your bag will not.

10. Lock it down if you share it

Parental controls sit in settings behind a PIN, and they will block the store, the browser and Goodreads.

Useful if a child has claimed your Kindle. Also useful if you would like to stop buying books at eleven at night.

Where to start

Dark mode and page refresh take about thirty seconds between them and you will notice both tonight. Collections take longer and pay off for years.

The rest can wait for a rainy afternoon.

And however you have it set up, the Kindle still has to live somewhere. Kindle cases at Case Society Co: something you like looking at, and a good home to be read in.