# How to organize books on your Kindle
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 14, 2024, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763 "2024-10-14T12:25:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/1 "2024-10-14T12:25:50Z")
Continuing the discussion from [How do you do books](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-books/1008584/22):
> [@How do you do books](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-books/1008584/22):
>
> **For ebooks, do you organize them?**
> I have several collections on my Kindle, including:
>
> - one for every author who I have more than one book from
> - one for authors I only have one book from (“misc read”)
> - the books that I’m currently reading (“in progress”)
> - books that I’ve bought and downloaded but haven’t read yet (“to read”)
> - samples that I’ve downloaded but haven’t read yet (“samples”)
> - books I lost interest in but might want to try again another time (“finish later”)
> - books I disliked so much that I decided not to finish them (“abandoned”) – which is rare, but sometimes happens
I’ve acquired enough ebooks that it’s getting hard to find them. How can one organize one’s Kindle library?
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/2 "2024-10-14T15:54:21Z")
I tend to think in categories, with a series or universe with derivative works also in my collection getting its own category. Then I have sections for cooking, organizing (smile), time-travel fiction (I have a fair amount of that), religious, movie novelizations, dystopian, mystery, true crime, stuff borrowed from Kindle Unlimited, general fiction, and stuff I haven’t sorted yet.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/3 "2024-10-14T16:27:00Z")
I didn’t mean, what categories do you use (although that’s interesting, too), but mechanically, how do you organize books on a Kindle.
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/4 "2024-10-14T16:33:41Z")
Sorry, I had just gotten up. 🙂
You’d use the Collections view, create your collection of choice, then go through and select books and add them to it. Repeat as desired. I use the Kindle app on an Android tablet, so can’t give step-by-step since the interface is probably different on a stand-alone Kindle.
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/5 "2024-10-14T16:43:53Z")
For fiction, I make collections for each author that I have more than six of their books in my collection. I then organize them based on what makes the most sense for each particular author. Some are by date published, others by their most well known works first, then by date published, still others by short story collections and then novels (or the other way around), and so on. It just depends on what each individual author has written. For non-fiction, I divide it by category and then organize the books in each category alphabetically.
> [@Seanette](#):
>
> Sorry, I had just gotten up. 🙂
>
> You’d use the Collections view, create your collection of choice, then go through and select books and add them to it. Repeat as desired. I use the Kindle app on an Android tablet, so can’t give step-by-step since the interface is probably different on a stand-alone Kindle.
This. It’s **a lot** easier to organize them on a device using a Kindle app rather than on an actual Kindle. The actual Kindle has no options for organizing things book by book, with a different strategy for each separate author. It has to be the same way for your entire collection, and it sill sometimes messes up. I’ve posted about this before, but I’ll repeat this anecdote because Amazon still hasn’t found a way to fix this. For my collection of Sue Grafton books, _A is for Alibi_ is alphabetized between _I is for Innocent_ and _J is for Judgment_, because the algorithm seems to thing the correct title for the book is _Is for Alibi, A_. On the Kindle app it’s as easy as clicking and dragging the titles to organize them.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2024, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-organize-books-on-your-kindle/1008763/6 "2024-10-14T18:41:32Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> This. It’s **a lot** easier to organize them on a device using a Kindle app rather than on an actual Kindle. The actual Kindle has no options for organizing things book by book, with a different strategy for each separate author.
I also wanted to add another dig (and rule out another option) - the Kindle cloud reader (if you want to read from a web browser on your desktop or laptop) is similarly useless.
> **[Amazon Kindle: Your free personal library you can take anywhere](https://read.amazon.com/landing?qs=P3Jlc291cmNlVHlwZT1FQk9PSyZpdGVtVmlldz1jb3Zlcg==)**
>
> Access and read millions of titles instantly and comfortably on your phone, tablet, or computer.
The sort features are pathetic, no way to create new collections, or otherwise add much organization. Just by author, by title, or purchase order. One _tiny_ exception to my hate for this version is the ability to pull up any highlights you have. This is a fast way to clear any you made by mistake, or to copy out from the browser if you even want to quote a selection to a fellow fan, or to have a zippy quote for a post. 🙂