I found Kindle’s secret custom reading modes

There’s no better feeling than finding a book you literally can’t put down. The best plots don’t care if it’s 3AM on a weeknight, and your sleep schedule has likely suffered at the hands of a good story.

E-readers only enable this behavior, which — don’t get me wrong — I’m not condemning in the slightest. Sleep deprivation is well worth an entire evening devouring a good story on my Kindle Paperwhite. But reading in the evening (or the witching hour) is a very different experience than during the day. Your eyes are tired, and it’s much easier to lose your place in the text when sleep is calling your name.

Most nights, I take a few minutes to change a handful of Kindle settings to set me up for the reading marathon ahead. But sometimes, I’m so excited that I just jump straight into the story — which I usually pay for hours later when my eyeballs start drifting off my Kindle Paperwhite’s digital page. However, I recently discovered that you can create custom Kindle presets for different kinds of reading, and here’s how you can, too.

Why would you create different reading modes?

Settings aren’t hard to change

Kindles don’t have an overwhelming number of settings, which helps the e-reader line maintain its minimalist status. However, the small selection is powerful when you want to customize your reading experience. You can change the font and its size, the margins and text alignment, swap orientations, and choose what appears on your reading screen in general, like the page number or clock at the top.

During the day, I stick to a strict set of settings: Bookerly font, bold: 0, font size: 6, line spacing: 1, paragraph and word spacing: 0, orientation: portrait, alignment: middle, the smallest margins possible, and light mode with no warmth. But, these settings don’t work well for me when the sun goes down. The screen is too bright, and everything other little setting combined just makes it too easy for my tired eyes to lose their place.

Admittedly, my ideal nighttime settings are a hassle to set up. If I were to change them back and forth every day, it would get annoying — fast. So instead, I created two preset reading modes to jump between. The best part is that enabling them takes only a few clicks.

How to create custom themes on your Kindle

And make your own “night mode”

If you like the way your Kindle is set up right now, I’d recommend creating a preset for that group of settings first. To do so, follow these instructions:

1. Open a book, and make sure all your settings are exactly the way you like them.
2. Tap the top of a page, and click Aa.
3. Under Themes, tap Save current settings.
4. Name your theme — I called my first one “Daytime.”

Now, “Daytime” (or whatever you named this theme) will appear under the themes tab. Now, if you change any settings, you can always go back into the Themes tab and revert to this theme by just tapping it. But if you have different preferences for the evening or other circumstances like I do, you should set up another theme.

To do so, go back into your Kindle’s settings and set it up exactly how you like it in that particular circumstance — personally, I wanted to create a night mode. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s how I set mine up:

• Font: OpenDyslexic
• Bold: 0
• Size: 7
• Line spacing: 1
• Paragraph and Word spacing: 0
• Orientation: portrait
• Alignment: left
• Margins: smallest size

Once you have your Kindle the way you want it, tap at the top of your screen > select Aa > Themes > Save current settings. It will ask you if you want to update an existing theme with your current settings or create a new theme. Choose Create a new theme and name your theme “Nighttime,” or whatever else you choose.

Now, you can toggle between your reading themes depending on the reading experience you desire. It’s so much easier than recreating the same settings setup every single time.