I see a lot of people advising others to turn on airplane mode to keep their Kindles offline, especially after getting a new Kindle, but is that really the best advice to follow in 2025?
Some people prefer to keep their Kindles disconnected from the internet most of the time for a number of reasons, but Amazon is trying to make that impossible to accomplish if you buy your ebooks from them so keeping Kindles offline isn’t exactly a practical approach for most people.
I have a few Kindles that I keep offline for different reasons, but the truth it’s a lot more convenient to keep Kindles online. You have access to several additional features, and it’s a lot easier to have your ebooks and documents wirelessly delivered than it is to filter everything through a computer first.
But some people would rather keep their Kindle offline and give up those conveniences for different reasons.
Reasons to Keep Kindles Offline
Avoid unwanted software changes. Amazon is always changing random things with the software on Kindles. Some of the changes are good, like when they add new features, but sometimes they change things for the worse, like when they turned the homescreen into an ad-ridden mess.
Sideloaders. Some folks prefer to manage their ebook libraries using Calibre on a computer and sideload ebooks via USB. Amazon will delete these ebooks from Kindles if you keep your Kindle offline for a long time and then go online, so sideloaders are better off keeping their Kindle offline all the time or online some of the time.
Keep Amazon from disabling your Kindle. Amazon has the power to make your Kindle useless at any time if they flag your account for some reason, even if you didn’t do anything wrong. A while back some people got erroneously locked out of their Amazon accounts because Amazon “detected unusual activity”, and their Kindles were locked out as well. Keeping a Kindle offline would at least still give you access to your books until Amazon got things figured out.
Jailbreaking. Some people like to jailbreak their Kindle for various reasons. Some prefer to install KOReader, an alternative ebook app, for native EPUB support and some extra features the default Kindle reader lacks. There are lots of things you can do with a jailbroken Kindle, and I still don’t understand most of them. But Amazon is always breaking jailbreak methods with software updates so it’s always advisable to keep your Kindle offline if you want to jailbreak it.
Longer battery life. People are always saying they keep their Kindles offline to extend battery life. That sounds logical enough, but I don’t know how much of a difference it really makes. Kindles still have really long life battery even with airplane mode turned off.
Avoid new ads downloading. I used to keep my Kindle Voyage offline just so it wouldn’t download new advertisements. If you keep a Kindle disconnected long enough it’ll just show a generic ad that is less annoying than the usual screensaver ads.
Reasons to Keep Kindles Online
Syncing. One of the great things about Kindles is they will automatically sync your reading position, notes, bookmarks, and highlights between different devices and apps. And it actually works pretty reliably, unlike some other services.
Wirelessly deliver ebooks and documents. Another convenience is having all your books and personal documents wirelessly delivered to Kindles. You can also shop for new books and download them without having to use other devices.
Internet connection required. Some features require an internet connection to work, like Wikipedia lookup, translations, accessing public library ebooks, Goodreads, getting Kindle Unlimited ebooks, etc.
Keep sideloaded ebooks from getting deleted. As mentioned above, Amazon has an annoying habit of deleting sideloaded ebooks from Kindles, but that doesn’t happen if you keep your Kindle connected to Amazon’s servers regularly.
Can’t transfer Kindle ebooks via USB. Now that Amazon has reliable way to get ebooks away from Amazon’s clutches for backup.
