I got this April 8th:

"Dear Customer,

Thank you for being a longtime Kindle customer. We're glad our devices have served you well for as long as they have. Starting May 20, 2026 — 14 to 18 years after their initial launches — we are discontinuing support for Kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier. Here's what this means for you:

You can continue to read books already downloaded on these devices, but you will not be able to purchase, borrow, or download additional books on them after that date. If you deregister or factory reset these devices, you will not be able to re-register or use these devices in any way.

Affected devices include Kindle 1st and 2nd Generation, Kindle DX and DX Graphite, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Kindle 5, and Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation.

To minimize any disruption, we're offering a promotional code for 20% off select new Kindle devices B4PT5XAJ74 as well as a $20 eBook credit that will be automatically added to your account after purchasing a new device (valid through June 20th, 2026, 11:59pm PST - Terms and Conditions apply). Our newer Kindle devices bring meaningful improvements in screen quality, performance and accessibility — and you'll have access to your complete Kindle library and the Kindle Store. You can also continue to read all your books on our free Kindle apps (Android, iOS, Mac, and PC) and Kindle for Web.

If you have any questions or require assistance, please visit https://www.amazon.com/help/kindle/devicedeprecation.

Sincerely, The Kindle Team"

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boneitis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"or use these devices in any way"?

My jailbroken Kindle has been sitting in a drawer for a while, but I do go into phases where I am using it heavily for months at a time. But, what I'm really getting at is, I don't find myself having to undertake the procedure to root a Kindle on a regular basis.

Could someone clarify for me -- if I nab another secondhand device from eBay after May 20, will I be able to jailbreak it?

	▲	snailmailman 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Generally speaking, they auto update, and the latest firmware is always patched to not be jailbreakable. However airplane mode easily dodges the auto update process, and new vulnerabilities are found to enable jailbreaking eventually. When I bought mine, it was updated to the latest firmware. I wanted to jailbreak mine, the method was “there isn’t one yet” so I set it in airplane mode. For a bit I manually copied all books over usb to the kindle, or disabled airplane mode to read new books if there wasn’t a new firmware version out yet anyway. A few months later, there was a jailbreak method. Now ive jailbroken. I can even connect it to the internet, and auto updates are prevented. If the kindle is old enough it doesn’t recieve updates anyway though, then it should be very easy. https://kindlemodding.org/kindle-models.html

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chatmasta 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

wtf. I’ve had my kindle since 2011, the battery still lasts weeks, it works perfectly, and I frequently praise Amazon for this. wtf.

Will I be able to load books via USB? Or there is some new DRM the kindle won’t be able to decrypt?

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sbarre 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah this is my question. My Kindle has been in airplane mode since the day I bought it.

As long as I can still keep loading books on it over USB, and it's just their DRM ecosystem that will stop working, that's fine with me.

But if they are aggressively bricking the units, if I accidentally turn on wifi by accident and it just completely stops working, I will be extremely pissed.

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fn-mote 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Jailbreak it now to avoid the risk.

	▲	DaSHacka 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is there a tool for jailbroken Kindles to prevent this bricking from happening?

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chocochunks 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can load DRM free books. Amazon already killed their method of loading DRM laden eBooks onto older Kindles by USB in the last year or so.

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bee_rider 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s sort of funny that this kind of thing could be, not just something that they will probably just get away with, but totally uncontested and not even surprising really. Just sorta like, yeah, obviously you don’t own your library and they’ll cut off access to it whenever they want!

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NetMageSCW 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Access to your library continues to be available with free apps on phone, or Windows, or a newer Kindle as well as any browser, so the loss of support of 14 year old mobile devices doesn’t seem like huge news. There can’t be too many still in use even.

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bee_rider 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The article appears to be about “Kindle for PC.” It does look like there’s a Windows 11 app, though, for folks who’ve switched to the post-QA OS.

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mh- 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would expect most of them have had their batteries fail long ago. Especially if they were disused for an extended period of time.

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aaronscott 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I replaced the battery on my kindle 4 not that long ago. It had the best UX for extended reading when compared to newer kindles.

The biggest downside was not having a frontlit display.

I recently switch to an xteink x4, and found that several others in that community migrated from kindle 4s as well. So there are still some number of users in the world that value the device.

	▲	mh- 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm sure there are, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. It's just that the numbers are relatively small. I'm actually surprised that Amazon didn't offer to do a buyback of them.

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exe34 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> To minimize any disruption, we're offering a promotional code for 20% off select new Kindle devices B4PT5XAJ74 as well as a $20 eBook credit that will be automatically added to your account after purchasing a new device (valid through June 20th, 2026, 11:59pm PST - Terms and Conditions apply).

That does minimize the disruption for me. In fact I will never buy a new kindle nor buy an ebook from amazon ever again.