I’ll bet you didn’t know this secret Kindle Collections hack

If you think organizing the miscellaneous drawer in your kitchen is a chore, try organizing your digital libraries. Specifically, the hundreds (if not thousands) of e-books you’ve accumulated on your Kindle e-reader in the last 16 years. It was a task I attacked head-on yesterday, and my Collections page is now something to gawk at. I didn’t realize how annoying the digital chaos was until I saw how much cleaner it made my Kindle’s interface.

Now when I want to reread one of my favorite books in a spurt of nostalgia, I don’t have to go digging through hundreds of titles or fumble with the clunky Kindle search bar. Plus, sometimes you don’t know what you’re in the mood to read until you see it. Browsing books has never been so back.

Yesterday, I wrote an article about the Kindle Collections feature, and someone left a comment explaining their frustration with the process of creating and adding books to various collections on the Kindle. I admit, when you have to sort through hundreds or even thousands of e-books, the process feels so tedious that it might not even be worth it. But luckily, I found a secret (and better) way to sort and bulk-add dozens of titles at a time to a collection. Here’s how.

How to add e-books to a Kindle Collection in bulk

Put down the Kindle, pick up the app

It takes at least four taps to add a book to an existing Collection, and many more to create a Collection in the first place — so yes, the process is tedious and almost not worth it when you’re doing it book-by-book on your Kindle. It’s disheartening, especially considering the benefits of a cleanly organized Kindle library. There had to be a better way.

Developer

Amazon

Offline downloads

Yes

Ads

Yes

Downloads and background play

Yes

Amazon’s first-party Kindle app is best known for letting you download and read all your favorite ebooks across your mobile devices, but it can also transfer files to your e-reader.

And, alas, there was. I downloaded and opened the Kindle app on my MacBook Pro to find that right-clicking a book gives you the exact same options as on your Kindle — most importantly, the Add to Collection option. This discovery was revolutionary in itself; organizing my books on my laptop’s much bigger screen felt less tedious and less painstakingly slow.

But still, there had to be a way to do it faster. When I took a closer look at the options that appeared when you right-clicked a title, there was one that didn’t appear on my Kindle: Select Multiple Items. Jackpot! After choosing a few of my favorite fantasy novels, I was able to add them all, en masse, to my Fantasy Collection.

What if you don’t have a laptop? Easy — download the Kindle app to your smartphone. When you log in and see your Library, tap and hold the title you want to add to a Collection and choose which one to drop it into. From here, you can also tap the + symbol in the upper left to create a new Collection. But, if you want to select multiple books like I did on my laptop, you must make sure that you’re in the Library tab at the bottom of the app screen — it won’t give you the option to Select Multiple Items from the home screen.

Collections are supposed to make your Kindle easier to navigate, personalized, and simply nicer on your eyes. But if like me, you have over 400 e-books on your device, sorting them all one by one into designated collections and tapping at least four times per addition will likely take well over 1,600 taps and several hours — and that’s not even considering the mistakes you’ll make along the way.