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Notescraper exports your Kindle notes into Evernote

One ereader feature that’s always been important to me is note taking, and more importantly getting the notes off the ereader. I found a new way to do that with the Kindle.

I just came across an app called Notescraper. It only works on a Mac, unfortunately, so I haven’t tried it. But the good news is that it’s up to version v0.4. Here’s how Notescraper’s developer describes it:

Its purpose is to export the notes and highlights you save while reading a Kindle ebook to your local computer so you can organize the information in some other form. Note: It doesn’t take the notes and highlights from the Kindle device directly, but rather from kindle.amazon.com. Further note: You need a Mac for this.

You’re probably wondering why we don’t just use the clippings.txt file. Well, last I checked that file didn’t differentiate between ebooks. Also, I’m betting that Notescraper extracts each note or highlight separately instead of into one file.

P.S. Is that the only to get notes off the Kindle? I 'd really like to hear about any others.

via Assistive Techno

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Comments


Mike Cane September 30, 2010 um 8:46 am

I’d be interested in an app like that. Need one for PC (untilI get a Mac … One Of These Days).


Tim Wilson September 30, 2010 um 2:55 pm

Thanks for the mention. When you run the script, you’ll get to choose whether you want all your Kindle notes and highlights exported to individual Evernote notes or all in one. You can also specify a set of tags for the notes and choose the Evernote notebook where the notes get stored.

I’d love to hear any suggestions about improvements.


Tom Semple September 30, 2010 um 3:02 pm

'My Clippings.txt' does include the item Title for each note and highlight. It could be easily parsed with a script, and the results put into some database like EverNote. But it is just a log of creation/modify events for highlights, annotations, and bookmarks that you have done on that particular Kindle. It does not reflect current 'state' of those HABs, annotations/highlights made on other Kindles or Kindle apps, etc. If you delete a highlight, for example, My Clippings will still have an entry showing time/date when you originally created it, and it does not record the delete event.

The current state (including current position) is kept in sidecar files associated with each item that are created when you first open the item. For items purchased from Amazon, the information in the sidecar files is synched to your Amazon account, with only the highlights and associated notes showing up on kindle.amazon.com. Sidecar data for non-Amazon items never leaves the Kindle, unless it is copied manually by the user.

So the reason NoteScraper for Evernote doesn’t read My Clippings is clear: it is a relatively worthless pile of data.

It’s not so clear why Tim chose AppleScript to implement this tool, except that he wanted to use it as a learning exercise. The same thing could be done with a Python script or whatever, for cross-platform compatibility.

Tim Wilson September 30, 2010 um 5:21 pm

Hey Tom. It’s true that using AppleScript was a useful exercise. I also know python, but I haven’t done any GUI work, so I was looking for something easy.

Actually, the Evernote integration was an afterthought. My first version dumped the Kindle content into OmniOutliner which is a Mac-only app. At that point it made sense to do it in AppleScript. (It also can also export to OPML.) A cross-platform solution definitely makes sense with Evernote as the destination. I’ll investigate what APIs might be available for Evernote and python integration.

The other benefit to AppleScript is the easy integration with Safari. Since you need to log in to your Amazon account in order to access your notes and highlights, it made sense to scrape the Safari HTML for the content. As far as I know, there’s no way to access that info from a 3rd party application. (I assume there are significant copyright concerns about that.) If there’s a way, I’d love to hear about it.


Steve Brady October 13, 2010 um 8:07 am

I wrote a Word Macro that will not only pull the myclippings.txt file off the Kindle, but will sort it in Alphabetical book order, and in sequence for each book. You can find the file on my blog at http://theprofessornotes.com/archives/543

Also, with the return of VBA code to Mac Office 2011, it SHOULD run on the Mac as well (but I have not tried that–yet.)

If you or any of your readers try this out, please let me know what you think.

Steve


Jim April 18, 2011 um 8:44 am

We have produced a dedicated website for this, quote from the site…

"Whilst the 'My Clippings.txt' file is extremely useful, the document itself is not easily readable. Clippingsconverter attempts to solve this problem by exporting your clippings into Microsoft Word, Excel and Adobe PDF files. We also allow you to choose which columns you would like to export and provide filtering and sorting functionality. This provides you the opportunity to organize your clippings into a manner that suits your specific needs. "

Thanks


Adam May 28, 2011 um 10:49 am

What I really wish I had is the ability to get a a full text rss or XML feed of my annotations. Anyone know of something like that?


Convert your Kindle’s MyClippings.txt file with ClippingsConverter.com – The Digital Reader December 21, 2011 um 9:13 pm

[…] are several conversion solutions available, like Notescraper, but that program is Mac-only.  ClippingsConverter, on the other hand, is a web-based solution […]


driloone January 19, 2012 um 2:49 am

for windows users, ClippingsConverter (http://www.clippingsconverter.com/) is a nice piece of program that can perform similar functions. the good thing is – its free. 🙂


Mark May 21, 2012 um 5:05 pm

Nate,

Another alternative, if you have an Android phone or tablet is the Buzzworthy app which lets you export your notes and highlights to email or Evernote. It also lets you share favorite quotes to facebook, Google+ or twitter which is a fun way to engage your friends and followers.


Nathan October 1, 2013 um 12:10 pm

Hi, Nate

It’s too bad that Notescraper is only avaible for Mac. There are other tools though that have been developed to serve the same purpose.

There is also an iOS app that will be released soon called Snippefy (http://www.snippefy.com), which will let Kindle users read their notes and highlights and share them to different tools and platforms such as Evernote, Dropbox and social media.

This will be something amazing as it will provide convenience and ease to Kindle users everywhere. I hope everybody can give it a try.

Thank you


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