Kindle.com or Free.Kindle.com - What's the difference?

When you first register your new Kindle and account at Amazon, you receive an email address too, usually in the form of YourName@Kindle.com. You use this email address to email documents to your Kindle for reading later or if you put Convert into the subject of the email, then Amazon will convert the document for you into a format that can be read on the Kindle.

What a lot of people don't know though, is that you also get a second address that's created automatically, it's in the form of YourName@free.kindle.com.

So what's the difference?

Simply stated, if you send an email to YourName@kindle.com and you have a Wifi/3G Kindle then your document will be delivered to you over 3G if Wifi isn't available, the thing to be careful of here though is that if you are travelling abroad, then you may be charged a small fee from Amazon for sending the document to you over 3G.

However, if you send an email to YourName@free.kindle.com then the document will always be sent over Wifi for free, the main disadvantage of this approach being that if you are not near a wifi network, then you will not receive your document until you are connected to Wifi again.

If you have a Kindle 3 Wifi only, then there really isn't too much difference between the two addresses as (at the moment unless Amazon's policy changes), delivery over WiFi is always free.

In the past if you had a Kindle 2, the free.kindle.com address was essentially for Amazon to email the document to you and you then had to transfer it over USB to the Kindle (sideloading). This appears to no longer be the case though, at least for the Kindle 3 as the document(s) are always sent directly to the device now.

NB: If you have set the Spending Limit (In the Manage Your Kindle section at Amazon) to 0.00, then any documents you send are always sent to the YourName@free.kindle.com address.

Otherwise it seems to be the case that if you email a document to yourself and it is delivered over 3G, then you will be charge a small amount by Amazon for the transfer. However, there is no charge when you use 3G for browsing or for connecting to the Amazon store and downloading an ebook or newspaper from there.

Hope this helps to clear things up. As always if you have any additional info, questions or if I am wrong about something, please let me know.

Comments

[Roger]

Hey cool, I didn't know that.

That's one issue that a lot of people really get angry over are those little fees. Folks with 3G Kindle's are (naturally) under the impression that it's always free because that's what Amazon advertises.

I'll have to link to this to share & remember that trick with the @free.kindle.com

thanks.
Roger @ Waterproof Kindle Cover