I wish every Kindle owner knew how easy it is to get rid of clutter

Having been a proud Kindle owner since 2009, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of e-books. Not including the hundreds of books I’ve borrowed from Kindle Unlimited and Libby over the years, I have over 400 titles downloaded to my device right now as we speak.

They aren’t confined to one genre (or format), either. From personal development and health to romantasy and thrillers, I have every kind of story under the sun behind my Kindle Paperwhite screen. But as someone who jumps between digital shelves as much as I do knows, it makes for a very disorganized library.

I like to go back and reread my favorite stories and side-loaded articles often, and that used to mean digging through the slightly-delayed scroll of my Library screen or using the search bar at the top. However, I recently decided to bite the bullet and do a little organizing using the Collections feature, and I’m never going back to how I sifted before.

What are Kindle Collections?

Digital folios

Collections is an organizational feature on Kindles that lets you create a folder and drop whatever titles you want into it. It doesn’t hide them away from your main library entirely (in case you prefer to do a little browsing across the whole thing), but it allows you to access what you put inside it like walking into an isolated part of a library.

I look at Collections as a way to build and label my own personal shelves. My Kindle might not know the difference between Throne of Glass, a Substack I just downloaded, and my Grandma’s chili recipe, but I don’t particularly want them all in the same section. I’d rather drop Throne of Glass into my Fantasy folder, the Substack into my Articles folder, and that savory chili recipe into my Cookbook folder.

In fact, I have six different collections right now:

• Health
• Finance
• Fantasy
• Fanfiction
• Articles
• Cookbook

Seven, if you count ‘Uncollected,’ which your Kindle organizes the rest of your titles into by default.

How to create a Collection on Kindle

Easy-peasy

Making Collections is easy and intuitive, like everything on your Kindle e-reader. I’ve found that the fastest way to do so is this:

1. Find a book in your Library you want to add to a Collection.
2. Tap the three dots in the lower right-hand corner of its cover art.
3. Tap Add to/remove from Collection.
4. Click the ‘+‘ symbol in the upper right.
5. Name the Collection anything you want, and decide if you want to make it one of your ‘favorites‘ by checking the box.
6. Click Create.
7. It will show up on the Collections page with a check mark in the box beside it. You can hit Save to save that title to that collection, or uncheck it and save it to another collection instead.

Now, you need to know how to access your collections. From inside your Library, tap the sorting menu (up and down arrows) below the stoplight (three dots) menu in the upper right. Then, choose Collections under View options. The Collections menu should then appear on the screen.

Why not just use the search bar?

A matter of sections and mistakes

I’m so glad you asked, dear reader. One of my Collections is dedicated to articles I’ve side-loaded for later reading, and sometimes I can’t remember the name of said article (or even a keyword). When I drop those articles into my “Articles” Collection, it creates an isolated section of my Library dedicated to just those items. If I’m in the mood for one, they aren’t hiding in the mass of other books I own.

Plus, as much as I love my Kindle’s matte touchscreen, I abhor typing on the keyboard. I may be a professional on a regular keyboard, but there’s something about the spacing and slight lag on a Kindle that creates the perfect environment for a typo every time it comes up. I can’t remember the last time I typed a single word correctly on the first try — thank goodness the e-reader is meant for reading, not typing.