Have you ever noticed that the different prices of the same Kindle with or without special offer when you purchased the Kindle devices, no matter Kindle eReaders or Kindle Fire tablets? The Kindle device with special offer is about $20 cheaper than the one without special offer but includes the sponsored screensaver and special offers which are also called advertisements. I have to admit that some screensavers are pretty and it is easy to find some new authors and books via these ads. Anyway, as a coin has two sides, these ads are not welcome by every Kindle user. Some users even think these ads are not their taste but another way to waste their time. Even more, you can not purchase the Kindle without special offer in some countries. If you are really sick of seeing these ads on your Kindle, you come to the right place. I will share you guys four different methods to remove ads from Kindle. I am definitely sure you can find at least one way to remove ads from your Kindles or Kindle fire tablets after go through this article.
- Method 1. Amazon Official Method to Remove ads from Kindle
- Method 2. Contact Amazon Customer Service to remove Kindle ads for free
- Method 3. Ultimate Way to Remove ads from Kindle Paperwhite free
- Newly Added: Remove ads from Screenlock of Kindle Free
- Method 4. Remove "Customers also bought" Recommendation from Kindle Fire
Method 1. Amazon Official Method to Remove ads from Kindle
Amazon offers Kindle device with special offer at $20 cheaper price, but they allow users to remove ads from Kindle at price which covers the price differences between the device with and without special offers. So you will never take any advantage of Amazon. Below is the detailed steps to use the offical method to remove ads from Kindle eReaders and Kindle Fire.
1Log in your Amazon account and then go to Manage Your Content and Devices.
Find the device you want to remove the ads, and click the action button at the left of the device name. The Kindle device information will pop up. As you can see from the picture below that my Kindle is purchased with Special offer.
Just click on " Edit" next to Subscribed under Special Offers, you will go to the next page to unsubscribe from special offer. If you have set up the 1-click payment, you will be charged to unsubscribe the ads directly. Otherwise, you will be requested to set up the 1-click payment at first. Anyway, you will be notified the amount you need to pay.
The above is the Amazon official method to cancel Kindle Special offers.
Method 2. Contact Amazon Customer Service to remove Kindle ads for free
Since the above method will cost about $20, is there any way to remove ads from Kindle for free? If you want to remove ads from Kindle for free, you should try this workaround. Why I call this method as workaround? Because some of you may be failed to remove ads from Kindle for free via this way in the end.
Just contact Amazon Customer service center and ask if they can remove the ads. It will take about a few minutes to do this, but the ads will be removed forever.
Let's see what those people who succeed in removing ads from Kindle via this methods tell the Amazon customer service.
Situation 1: Tell them the Kindle is for a child and you don't want them to see ads due to inappropriate things etc. They're more than happy to do it.--nebula08
Situation 2: I simply told the Amazon Customer Care that I live far away from US, so I can't claim what's in the ads and it's meaningless to me. Boom, ads removed.--mainasus
Situation 3: Just asked how do I go about getting them turned off. When asked why I wanted, just told them that in the time I have had my Kindle, there has not been a useful as to me that I have seen. Few minutes later, they were removed for free.--Weavingknitter
Here comes to the conclusion, Amazon customer service staff will remove Kindle ads for free if you express these ads are either useless to you or will cause the negative effect to you. I know some of you may think this workaround is a little bit shame and even a kind of abuse Kindness because Amazon customer service offers to remove ads when Kindle users request them to do so. Some people also argue that because removing ads is a negotiable thing for Amazon end, so that's why they can do it for free. Anyway, you are the boss, it depends on your own decision to contact them about this issue or not.
It is said that this request only can be fulfilled once so if you have many Kindles, you can only remove ads from one Kindle device. For other Kindle devices, try other methods in this article.
Method 3. Ultimate Way to Remove ads from Kindle Paperwhite free
If you want to either spend any penny on removing ads from Kindle devices nor "take advantage" of Amazon, you should try this method.
Before other steps, you should make sure your computer is configured to "Show hidden files, folders, and drives". Let me show you how to do this. It is much easier than you think.
Open any folder at your computer, select "View"-->>Options-->>Change Folder and search options.
The folder option window will pop up as below. Click "View" tab and then select "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" at the advanced settings. And uncheck "Hide protected operating system files(Recommended)". Then click "OK" to finish the setting.
Connect your Kindle to your computer with USB cable. Open your Kindle drive on your computer and you will see there is a System foder. This folder is hidden foder which can not be seen if you do not configure your computer to "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" in step 1.
Open the System folder, you can see there is a folder named .assets. Just delete this .assets folder which contains the advertisements.
To stop the Kindle generate a new .assets folder, we need to create empty folder to block access. When I try to create a folder and rename it with ".assets", it keep pop up a new window to inform that “You must type a file name". It seems we can not create a .assets folder as usual.
Here is the right way to create a .assets folder. In the your Kindle System folder, press "Shift" and right click the mouse at the same time, a menu will pop up. Just select"Open PowerShell window here" and a new command window will pop up.
In the pop up command window, just input "md .assets" and press "Enter". All things done, a new folder will created. Refresh the system folder, you will see the new .assets folder there.
When you eject your Kindle, you will see that the ads has been removed successfully. Below is the picture before and after the ads removed.
By using this way, your Kindle maybe miss the future updates because the new .assets folder is empty and may give Kindle a wrong feeling that there is no connection.
New Method: Remove ads from Screen lock of Kindle Free
This way will not help you remove ads from the Kindle, but you can avoid seeing the lockscreen ad by this way. Just hold on the power button down for about 10 seconds and choose Screen Off from the prompt window.
The screen of your kindle will be blank, no ads.
But when you turn on the Kindle, you will go directly to reading without having to swipe the screen.
Method 4. Remove "Customers also bought" Recommendation from Kindle Fire
Besides special offer, you may also see "Customers also bought" recommendation on your Kindle Fire. These recommendations include books, apps, videos, etc below carousel.
In the following part, I will show you how to remove "Customers also bought" recommendations from Kindle Fire.
1Slide down from the home screen and tap " Settings" button at the menu bar.
Tap "Applications".
Tap "Home Recommendations".
Tap "Hide" to remove the recommendations.
All done. It is easy, right?
Note:
For Kindle Fire released after 2015, you can find the "Home recommendations" options by following way: Go to "settings"-->>"Apps& Games"-->>"Amazon application settings"--"Home screen settings"-->>"Home Recommendations". Just tap it to turn off the "Home Recommendations".
If you are interesting in any other methods to remove Kindle fire ads, please read How to Remove Kindle Fire Ads.
If you are interested in changing the screensaver, you can read How to Change Kindle Paperwhite Screensaver.
I hope the above 4 methods can help you remove ads from your Kindle. If you have any better idea, please share them in the comments.
To be mentioned, if you want to read books purchased from online ebook store beyond Amazon kindle, it is impossible for you to read these books on Kindle eReaders because of the DRM restriction. To break the restriction and read eBook any devices as you like, I recommend you use the tool--Epubor Ultimate which can help you not only remove DRM from eBooks purchased from Amazon Kindle, google play, kobo and Noo but also convert eBook to any other formats. Do not hesitate, just download the free trial today to enjoy your books freely.
Iris Yan has been a passionate member of Epubor since 2017. Her mission is to enhance your ebook reading experience by sharing insightful tips and tricks. Join her on a journey towards reading excellence today!
Works perfectly! Did Method 3 on my Mac. Shift+Command+Period to show files
Use OS X Terminal Window as a Powershell equivalent (Head into System Preferences and select Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services. Find "New Terminal at Folder" in the settings and click the box.)
"mkdir" instead of "md" before the ".assets" as a Terminal command
First, register your device to Amazon.com account. Add any US Address to your Amazon account and the "Special Offers" button will show connected to your device. You now have the option to unsubscribe to it by paying 20usd or talking to a CS and convincing them to remove it for free. Best of luck!
Still working. System folder was hidden, even after showing hidden files, but just had to browse to it
Hey - just done this and worked brilliantly, thanks!!
I noted in the article that it mentioned that kindle updates may be missed by doing this as it may be seen as offline - to maybe help with this I renamed the .assets folder rather than deleting it. If I do miss an update I'll try putting this back and see what happens, it's only a 2 minute job so no loss really.
For method three there is something you are missing. I think with the new windows update you have to also UNSELECT the "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)". (also in the view tab under file explorer -> view -> options -> view)
Once I did that the system folder appeared. Please update your website so that other people can do this method without any issues!
On a Mac, connect your Kindle to your Mac via USB:
1. Right-click on the mounted device
2. Select "New Terminal at Folder"
(Terminal opens)
3. Type: cd System
4. Type: rm -fr .assets — don't make a typo, rm -fr deletes everything recursively!
5. Type: mkdir .assets
Done.
Asked to remove the ads, without explaining the reason
Tech support asked serial number
I provided
Tech confirmed that ads are removed from my account
hi thanks for your article, saved me £10!!!
only thing I had to add was to untick "Hide protected operating system files (recommended)
cheers
jimmy
I wanted to get rid of “swipe to unlock the screen”
I tried "Method 2" before I found this page but they couldn’t do it because it wasn´t bought directly from amazon.uk (it was bought in Sweden).
Then I tried "Method 3" and it worked to get rid of ads but I still has to swipe to unlock the screen so no luck for me.
The "New Method" worked until I closed the cover, when I opened it the recommendations were right back on the display. I have a Paperwhite.