BooksByMail extension - Send ebooks over mail without an Amazon account

[uniqdom]

Hello, I have been working on a extension that allows you to send books to your device using an email, but without the need of an Amazon account.

Please, consider it as BETA software.

Requirements

• You need a jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite 1 with v5.3.9 fw (may work with other models and firmwares, but not tested).
• NiLuJe's Python update installed in the device.
• KUAL installed.

Installation

• Copy using a USB cable the folder 'bookbymail' into the folder 'extensions/'. If you want to do it over the network, copy the folder to '/mnt/us/extensions/'

Configuration

• Edit the file BookByMail/etc/offlineimap.conf. Set your email provider, your account and password. Also change the parameter 'maxage' if you want to download books from mails that are older than two days. Keep in mind that you need enough space to download all those mails (they are removed after the operation is complete).
• Edit the file BookByMail/etc/ebooksFormats to set the file extensions of the books that you want to download from your email to the device.
• Store your passphrase to decrypt files in BookByMail/etc/passphrase.

How to send books to your device?

• Use Calibre feature to send books over mail or just send you an email using your email client. There is no need for a subject or a body. Just attach your ebook. The filename of the ebook must be a valid FAT32 filename, so avoid strange symbols.
• In your Kindle, open KUAL, and tap on BooksByMail.
• It will take a little time to fetch the emails and unpack the attachments. Afterwards books will end up in your documents folder.

How to encrypt a book?

• You may use GnuPG to encrypt the file. Just be sure to set the passhphrase in BookByMail/etc/passphrase to decrypt in your kindle.
  
• To encrypt a book:
  
  

  gpg --cipher-algo AES256 --output a.txt.gpg --symmetric a.txt

• From there, just send filename.mobi.gpg to your mail. The extension '.gpg' is needed to know that the file is encrypted, and the extension '.mobi' (or another extension of supported books) is needed to know that the file is a supported book.

Restrictions

• Only IMAP servers are supported, so, don't try POP servers.
• Keep in mind that the max size of the book will be limited by the size of an attachment in your email account.
• As the storage is in a FAT32 filesystem, don't use strange symbols in the filename of the ebook.

Contribute

• Report if it works in other Kindle model/firmware
• Report bugs
• Send patches

You can find the project here.
https://github.com/mcastillof/BooksByMail

[knc1]

Thank you.
I haven't tried it myself yet but it looks nicely done.

On devices supported:

• It is a Python script.
  NiLuJe has posted Python-2.7 builds for all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• It is launched by KUAL.
  KUAL works on all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• NiLuJe's builds are here:
  NiLuJe's Snapshots
  (Which everyone should be using anyway.)

Notes:
I am not selling Gmail, it is just an easy to access example for these suggestions.
Any decent e-mail account provider will offer the same or similar account controls.

• As noted in the documentation, Calibre is not required.
  Any e-mail account that supports imap access may be used. (Which isn't much of a restriction.)
• This is a Python script, it should run on your desktop PC also (but I haven't tried it).
• There are tools to synchronize imap accounts.
  Isync
  Which would need to be compiled for the Kindles, but scroll to the bottom for a link to a similar tool written in Python.
• imap on Gmail:
  Google Imap
  Note: The default setting on a new gmail account is pop disabled, imap enabled.
• Use an account alias, not your base account.
  Available in the "Accounts and Import" section of Gmail settings page.
• Use an account label for your books.
  Available in the "Labels" section of Gmail settings page.
  Note that you can control imap access by account labels.
• Setup a suitable (for you) set of filters and perhaps a whitelist of senders.
  Available in the "Filters and Blocked Addresses" section of Gmail settings page.
• A general purpose e-mail account will not auto-convert things to a Kindle readable format.
• A general purpose e-mail account will support s/mime and the Kindles have the supporting libraries pre-installed in case anyone wants to extend this to handle s/mime attachments.
  (Nobody can be tracking your reading interests if you encrypt the darn things for transmittal.
  And the attachments are useless (other than as random numbers) to any unintended recipients. )

[uniqdom]

Originally Posted by knc1

On devices supported:

• It is a Python script.
  NiLuJe has posted Python-2.7 builds for all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• It is launched by KUAL.
  KUAL works on all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• NiLuJe's builds are here:
  NiLuJe's Snapshots
  (Which everyone should be using anyway.)

Thanks knc1.
The Python script that I'm using came from offlineimap, I'm using their latest version available in their repo (v7.1.2). I'm also using a binary file called munpack, taken from mpack project. The binary comes from Debian Stretch armel mpack .deb package. I don't know if this binary file will work in different kindle devices.

I will provide more info in a few hours.

[knc1]

I misread the requirement for libc - all of our Kindles have a new enough libc to run that binary.

The KT and PW1 are both using the same ARMv6 based system chip and all of the newer models are using an ARMv7 based system chip. But the ARMv7 will run all ARMv6 code (ARM is very good at that).

So there is a good chance it will run on all touch screen models.

- - - - -

That mpack/munpack binary does not do s/mime -
But that was just an observation in my notes, leave it up to someone else to add s/mime support.

= = = =

No, I don't remember all of that just off the top of my head.
I have open in front of me a list of such facts I have been working on for the past several days.

[uniqdom]

In a next release I would like to put a busy or loading icon, so the user can know that the extension is still working. Any recommendation to do that?

[uniqdom]

I have updated this extension to version 0.03 (beta). In this update I have added GnuPG, so now you can send encrypted books over your email.

Basically you have to encrypt your book using a passphrase, send it over your email as attachment, and open the BooksByMail extension. More info in the Readme file of the project.

[THE DBX]

Thanks for this apps!
...I have try with my Oasis One... nothing running.
But, I'm sure in the futur update, all kindle can have this function.

[Pisckuy]

Originally Posted by knc1

Thank you.
I haven't tried it myself yet but it looks nicely done.

On devices supported:

• It is a Python script.
  NiLuJe has posted Python-2.7 builds for all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• It is launched by KUAL.
  KUAL works on all Kindle models, K2 .. Oasis.
• NiLuJe's builds are here:
  NiLuJe's Snapshots
  (Which everyone should be using anyway.)

Notes:
I am not selling Gmail, it is just an easy to access example for these suggestions.
Any decent e-mail account provider will offer the same or similar account controls.

• As noted in the documentation, Calibre is not required.
  Any e-mail account that supports imap access may be used. (Which isn't much of a restriction.)
• This is a Python script, it should run on your desktop PC also (but I haven't tried it).
• There are tools to synchronize imap accounts.
  Isync
  Which would need to be compiled for the Kindles, but scroll to the bottom for a link to a similar tool written in Python.
• imap on Gmail:
  Google Imap
  Note: The default setting on a new gmail account is pop disabled, imap enabled.
• Use an account alias, not your base account.
  Available in the "Accounts and Import" section of Gmail settings page.
• Use an account label for your books.
  Available in the "Labels" section of Gmail settings page.
  Note that you can control imap access by account labels.
• Setup a suitable (for you) set of filters and perhaps a whitelist of senders.
  Available in the "Filters and Blocked Addresses" section of Gmail settings page.
• A general purpose e-mail account will not auto-convert things to a Kindle readable format.
• A general purpose e-mail account will support s/mime and the Kindles have the supporting libraries pre-installed in case anyone wants to extend this to handle s/mime attachments.
  (Nobody can be tracking your reading interests if you encrypt the darn things for transmittal.
  And the attachments are useless (other than as random numbers) to any unintended recipients. )

Hello. It work in a pw3? Or I can find any alternative today? Thanx you.

[uniqdom]

Hi Pisckuy, I don't have a pw3 and I also lost my pw1. Probably nobody is using this extension, but you may give it a try.

Requirements in pw1 were:

You need a jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite 1 with v5.3.9 fw (may work with other models and firmwares, but not tested).
NiLuJe's Python update installed in the device.
KUAL installed.

[G-lo-gi-a]

I tried this on a PW2 (5.4.3.2) with KUAL v2.7.

I used NiLuJe's newest python2 snapshot 0.15.

I made a new gmail for simplicity but it's overkill really, I'm hoping to set up a simple mail server in future. If you choose to use gmail you'll need to enable "allow unsafe apps" option.

It worked perfectly first try. I haven't experimented/tested with it much but it downloaded some .mobi without trouble.

The mail to kindle is a really cool feature that I was sad got broken when jailbreaking, despite having the kindle registered correctly. This fixes that, and even better removes dependency on amazon servers.

Thank you uniqdom!

[shalym]

Originally Posted by G-lo-gi-a

I tried this on a PW2 (5.4.3.2) with KUAL v2.7.

I used NiLuJe's newest python2 snapshot 0.15.

I made a new gmail for simplicity but it's overkill really, I'm hoping to set up a simple mail server in future. If you choose to use gmail you'll need to enable "allow unsafe apps" option.

It worked perfectly first try. I haven't experimented/tested with it much but it downloaded some .mobi without trouble.

The mail to kindle is a really cool feature that I was sad got broken when jailbreaking, despite having the kindle registered correctly. This fixes that, and even better removes dependency on amazon servers.

Thank you uniqdom!

Wait--are you saying that send to kindle doesn't work anymore for jailbroken Kindles? Is that something with the newest jailbreak? While my Oasis 3 isn't jailbroken, I have jailbroken a few of my other Kindles and I was able to access books that were sent both via email and the Send to Kindle app.

Shari