Converts a MOBI into an EPUB. Both are reflowable text, so this is the conversion that loses least — the words behave exactly the same afterwards, in a format every reader except an old Kindle opens directly.
This is the conversion that loses least
That is why this is the right destination and PDF is not. A PDF has fixed pages, which is precisely the property a book on a phone should not have.
DRM is the thing that stops most of these
The check is explicit: an encrypted book is refused with a plain explanation rather than converted into a file of garbage.
Books without DRM convert normally, and there are more of them than people expect: Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, most publishers selling direct, Humble Bundle, anything you produced yourself, and anything already in Calibre.
What comes across
Images, cover art, footnotes, tables and the book's own styling do not. Those live in separate records with their own indexes, and reassembling them faithfully is a much larger job than reading the text — which is the part you read.
MOBI, AZW, AZW3 — what the extensions mean
MOBI holds the older format. AZW is a MOBI with Amazon's DRM. AZW3 holds KF8, the newer format with better typography. All three are read here, and the format is detected from the file's contents rather than its name — mislabelled books are extremely common and convert anyway, with a note saying what they really were.
One thing is not supported: books compressed with HUFF/CDIC, the scheme Amazon's own tools use for large files. Those are refused with a clear message rather than half-read.
Other names for this
Also searched as “kindle to epub”, “mobi converter”, “convert mobi”, “mobi to ebook”.
Questions
- Is my file uploaded?
- No. The PDF is built in this tab and handed to you as a download. That matters here more than most places: the documents people convert to PDF are contracts, CVs, medical letters and manuscripts.
- Why was my book refused?
- Almost always DRM. A book bought from Amazon is encrypted to the account that bought it, and no converter can read it. Books from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a publisher direct convert normally.
- Do the pictures come across?
- No. The text and its structure do; images, cover art and footnotes do not. Those live in separate records with their own indexes.
- What about .azw and .azw3?
- AZW is a MOBI with DRM, and AZW3 holds the newer KF8 format — that has its own page, though both are detected from the file contents rather than the name.
- Can I convert several files at once?
- Yes. Drop as many as you like, or a whole folder. Each becomes its own PDF keeping its original name.