# How many books can your e-reader hold?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 21, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538 "2016-08-21T19:22:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/21 "2016-08-22T16:18:58Z")
I’ve got a Kindle Oasis with 231 books on it. (total drive size is 2.76 with 1.65GB free.) So probably around 650 books or so. But I also just uploaded some graphics heavy books that I normally would not have on this ereader. So, probably more “regular” books than what those numbers show.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/22 "2016-08-22T21:46:40Z")
I don’t know. I tend to delete books off the Kindle as soon as I read them. If I want to read them again, I can always bring them back from the cloud.
I think the most I’ve ever had in my to-be-read queue was about 25. I currently have 14 on board.
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/23 "2016-08-22T22:20:54Z")
When I purchased it, it said that it could hold around 1000 books. I’ve got 96 on the Kindle, plus 100 in the cloud. I like to re-read a lot, so I keep books I might conceivably want to re-read on the device.
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### Author:  [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/24 "2016-08-23T00:07:03Z")
I’ve got a 2nd generation Kindle Paperwhite and it should in theory hold close to 1,000 books.
Some of what I’ve got are large-ish e.g. the French dictionary, and I think it may be getting tight on space with 6-700 books on it.
I don’t delete stuff I’ve read unless I’m reasonably sure it’s nothing I’ll want to reread casually later on. I don’t buy that many new books though… most of my ebooks have been accumulated over the past 14 years or so; newer ones I usually get from the library.
As a side note to Amazon: THANK YOU for not changing your device size with each new release. It meant my 2nd generation could use the covers that were already available for the first, and if I ever update it, I can still use my customer Oberon Design cover (my husband has a 3rd generation and it uses the cheap cover I got for the 2nd generation one).
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### Author:  [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/25 "2016-08-23T18:52:18Z")
I have an old pre-Kindle reader that has a SD card slot. [An earlier version of this.](http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EZ_Reader) I currently have about 3000 books on it. I’ve had it for about 10 years, I think.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/26 "2016-08-23T19:09:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> As Ruk said on Star Trek, “THAT WAS THE EQUATION!” Thank you, mil milion gracias! I didn’t even know that there were sorting options; I just now went and fiddled with it a while\*\* until I found my way to that control\*\*. I’m happy now!
Care to enlighten the rest of us? I can find no such control anywhere.
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/27 "2016-08-23T19:30:19Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Care to enlighten the rest of us? I can find no such control anywhere.
I’m sure it depends on what version you have. I have a 6th Generation Paperwhite, and in the upper right corner of the Home screen, just below the three bar menu symbol, it says “Collection” with a down arrow. Clicking on that arrow allows me to choose whether I want to sort by Recent, Title, Author or Collection (my choice would appear on the screen in place of Collection). Do you have any similar sort order choice on your Kindle?
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### Author:  [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/28 "2016-08-23T19:34:06Z")
I have an older Nook HD with a 32gb card. I have probably five hundred books on it. I delete most of the fiction books after I’ve read them but I keep some non-fiction (cookbooks, textbooks) if I figure I’ll want to reference them.
I bought this refurbished from Woot and didn’t have high expectations but I love it. I’ll probably just get a regular tablet when it dies, but I’ll miss it.
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### Author:  [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/29 "2016-08-23T19:35:12Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Another gripe… My Kindle is so old, that it doesn’t actually move books to folders. I can create a folder – say, a Mark Twain folder. I can send all my Mark Twain books to that folder.
That’s another thing I love about my EZ Reader. I can manage books in folders on the PC and just copy the whole directory structure to the reader, which then displays books in that structure.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/30 "2016-08-23T21:07:21Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Care to enlighten the rest of us? I can find no such control anywhere.
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#):
>
> I’m sure it depends on what version you have. I have a 6th Generation Paperwhite, and in the upper right corner of the Home screen, just below the three bar menu symbol, it says “Collection” with a down arrow. Clicking on that arrow allows me to choose whether I want to sort by Recent, Title, Author or Collection (my choice would appear on the screen in place of Collection). Do you have any similar sort order choice on your Kindle?
Mine is an old “keyboard” Kindle. When I push “Home” I get the list of my books. The default was “Newest” order, so, for instance, every time I opened the dictionary to look up a word, it jumped to the top of the list.
In that Home screen, I push the five-way controller up, and the cursor moves up into the line where “Newest” was. Then I hit the center of the 5-Way, and get a list of choices. I changed it to “Collection” and that solved my gripe!
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/31 "2016-08-23T22:51:36Z")
Found it, tried it. Didn’t work. The “Collections” tab is greyed out and can’t be selected. It might have something to do with the fact that my Kindle is one of the first DX models issued. I really should upgrade one of these days.
Thanks anyway.
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/32 "2016-08-23T22:54:56Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Found it, tried it. Didn’t work. The “Collections” tab is greyed out and can’t be selected. It might have something to do with the fact that my Kindle is one of the first DX models issued. I really should upgrade one of these days.
>
> Thanks anyway.
I was reading about this at Amazon, and some people were able to get the Collections tab not to grey out by rebooting their Kindle (shutting it down and letting it install any upgrades). Also, Collections is only active if you have existing Collections that have books added to them.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/33 "2016-08-23T23:50:20Z")
My phone has over 140GB of storage, and most ebooks are 3MB or so.
I have no idea if I can just fill my phone with ebooks, but in theory shouldn’t I be able to hold 45,000 or so on my phone?
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/34 "2016-08-24T18:58:29Z")
Is there a way to count them, other then scrolling down a list and doing it manually? I have no idea howm many books are on my Kindle.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/35 "2016-08-25T03:44:51Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> The kindle stores all of your books “in the cloud,” so even if you delete them from the device, you can instantly download them again if you want them.
>
> Go to the “books” setting and you should see “cloud” and “device.” Deleting them from the device does not delete them from the cloud.
Well, in a sense I know that, but for some reason I don’t trust it. It is a very old Kindle, though. I’m thinking about replacing it,and then I guess I can see if my books transfer over or not.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/36 "2016-08-25T03:55:21Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> Well, in a sense I know that, but for some reason I don’t trust it. It is a very old Kindle, though. I’m thinking about replacing it,and then I guess I can see if my books transfer over or not.
There should be an option to download to your computer. They’ll still be there in the cloud but you’ll have a backup.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/37 "2016-08-25T08:40:19Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> Is there a way to count them, other then scrolling down a list and doing it manually? I have no idea howm many books are on my Kindle.
I can’t speak for a Kindle, but on a Nook HD and HD+, you just key up the “Library” and it tells you how many books you’ve got stored at the top of the display.
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### Author:  [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/38 "2016-08-25T14:48:40Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> The kindle stores all of your books “in the cloud,” so even if you delete them from the device, you can instantly download them again if you want them.
>
> Go to the “books” setting and you should see “cloud” and “device.” Deleting them from the device does not delete them from the cloud.
True, unless
1. Your provider goes out of business
2. You fail to meet your provider’s terms of service (Barnes and Noble will disable all their purchased content if your credit card expires, for example)
3. you have books from other sources that you’ve sideloaded, or
4. The provider decides to delete your books for whatever reason. It has happened on a number of occasions with Amazon.
I strongly recommend backing up all your books to your computer. If it weren’t against board policies I’d recommend stripping the DRM to really future-proof them - that’s not as silly as it sounds. A number of former e-book providers have gone out of business and that would mean you might lose all access to their content if you haven’t backed it up.
Amazon lets you load third-party stuff to your Kindle by emailing it to a specific address e.g. my\_kindle\_1 at kindle dot com, but I don’t know if you can re-download that or if it’s permanently stored in their cloud.
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### Author:  [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/39 "2016-08-25T14:51:06Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> Well, in a sense I know that, but for some reason I don’t trust it. It is a very old Kindle, though. I’m thinking about replacing it,and then I guess I can see if my books transfer over or not.
Log into your Amazon account on a computer then look for Manage Your Content And Devices. If the books are there, you’ll be able to get them on your new Kindle.
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### Author:  [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-can-your-e-reader-hold/763538/40 "2016-08-25T15:42:16Z")
Something for Kindle users to be aware of:
[Kindle Paperwhites turn Windows 10 PCs into paperweights: Plugging one in ‘triggers a BSOD’](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/25/windows_10_kindle_paperwhites/)
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