Kindle Highlights to Anki
Client-side · No upload · No account
Every highlight you make on a Kindle ends up in one long text file, with every edit repeated and every note separated from its passage. Drop it in, pick the books, and download a clean flashcard deck or a Markdown file of quotes.
Drop My Clippings.txt here
Plug the Kindle in by USB and it's in the documents folder. The file is read in your browser and never leaves your device.
Highlights you never see again
A highlight is a decision that something matters. Left in My Clippings.txt it is a line in a file nobody opens. Turned into a card, it comes back on a schedule — a day later, a week later, a month later — until it sticks.
The deck is built for review, not for storage.The passage is the question and the book, location and your note are the answer, so a review asks “where was this, and why did I mark it?” Tags are hierarchical in Anki (kindle::Book_Title), so each book can be studied as its own deck.
The Markdown file is a commonplace book. One heading per book, each passage as a quote with its location, notes beneath. It drops straight into Obsidian, Notion or any notes app. Keeping a commonplace book on your phone.
Or skip the export next time. In GemReader every highlight is a flashcard the moment you make it — how highlights become cards. DRM-free Kindle files (AZW3, MOBI) open there too; the Kindle DRM Checker tells you which ones.
Questions
Where is My Clippings.txt?
Connect the Kindle to a computer with a USB cable. It appears as a drive; the file is in the documents folder at its root. Every highlight, note and bookmark made on that Kindle is appended to it, across every book, including sideloaded ones. The Kindle phone and tablet apps do not write this file.
How do I import the deck into Anki?
In Anki desktop, choose File → Import and pick the downloaded .txt. The file declares its own separator and tag column, so Anki maps the passage to Front, the book and location to Back, and tags each card with its book. Use the Basic note type, or any type whose first two fields are front and back.
Can I study the cards without Anki?
Yes. GemReader imports the same file on its Review page (Import Anki deck → pick the .txt) and schedules the cards with spaced repetition on your phone. Books you read in GemReader skip this step entirely: every highlight you make there is already a card.
Why are there fewer cards than clippings?
The Kindle never edits My Clippings.txt; when you extend or trim a highlight it appends a new entry and leaves the old one. The converter keeps the latest version of an overlapping passage and drops the earlier ones. Bookmarks, which have no text, are skipped. A note is attached to the back of the highlight it was typed against; a note with no highlight becomes its own card.
Some highlights are cut off. Why?
Publishers set a clipping limit on many store books, often around 10% of the text. Past it, the Kindle keeps showing the highlight on screen but writes a truncated clip, or none, to the file. No converter can recover what was never written.
Is the file uploaded?
No. It is read with JavaScript in your browser tab, and the deck is built there too. Nothing leaves your device.