Credit: Andrew Cunningham

If you own an older Kindle e-reader, including models with physical keyboards or physical page-turn buttons that you’ve been reluctant to give up, Amazon has bad news for you. The company sent a message to owners of those devices today, informing them that starting on May 20 they would no longer be able to buy or download books from the Kindle Store.

The change (as reported by Good E-Reader and elsewhere) affects all Kindles introduced and sold in 2012 or earlier, going all the way back to the original Kindle from 2007. Users will still be able to read books that have already been downloaded to those devices, but they won’t be able to download more, and if they reset those Kindles to their factory defaults, the devices won’t be able to sign back in to an Amazon account.

“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,” reads the message from the Kindle team. Older 2011 and 2012-era Kindle Fire tablets will also lose access to the Kindle Store.

Amazon’s Kindle generational branding is occasionally confusing—that “Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation” is also referred to as “Kindle Paperwhite (5th Generation)” on Amazon’s support pages because it’s part of the fifth generation of Kindle releases overall. But if you check your Kindle’s software version and see anything older than 5.12.2.2, it means your Kindle is losing access to Amazon’s store and your e-book library.

It’s been a while since any of these devices received active software support from Amazon; only 2024-and-later devices have received the latest 5.19.3.0.1 software update, though 2021 and 2022’s Kindles have been updated as recently as February. Historically, though, Amazon has been willing to allow older, un-updated Kindles to continue to buy and download more books, even if they’re no longer benefitting from new features.

Amazon’s suggested fix, perhaps unsurprisingly, is to buy a new e-reader. The company is offering US users of older Kindles a 20 percent discount on a new Kindle and a $20 ebook credit for people who upgrade their Kindles before June 20. New Kindles start at $110 for the entry-level version, $160 for a Kindle Paperwhite with waterproofing and a larger screen (among other features), and $250 for the not-entirely-satisfying Kindle Colorsoft. The Kindle Scribe writing tablet starts at $400.

Amazon has never totally cut off support for older Kindle models before, though owners of those devices have occasionally had to put up with some inconveniences. Older Kindles needed to install a software update in 2016 to maintain their access to the Kindle Store, and Kindles with 3G cellular connectivity (formerly known as Whispernet) lost that capability when 3G networks were shut down in the early 2020s.

Previously, owners of old Kindles could have worked around this loss of functionality by downloading books locally and transferring them via USB. But Amazon removed the ability to download books to a PC or Mac in February of 2025.