Convert MOBI to EPUB Online, Free
Move books out of Amazon’s retired MOBI format and into EPUB, the open standard every other reader speaks.
How to convert MOBI to EPUB
- 01 Choose your MOBIDrop the file above or tap to pick one from your device. .mobi and .prc both work.
- 02 ConvertThe MOBI container is read and its chapters, reading order and metadata are rebuilt as a clean EPUB 3 file.
- 03 Read it anywhereApple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books and Calibre all open it — or read it straight away in the online EPUB reader.
Why convert MOBI to EPUB?
MOBI is Amazon’s original Kindle format, and Amazon has effectively retired it. Send to Kindle stopped accepting MOBI in 2022, and modern Kindles no longer need it. Outside the Kindle ecosystem it was never widely supported at all: Kobo, Nook, Apple Books and Google Play Books do not open it.
EPUB is the opposite. It is an open standard published by the W3C, it reflows to any screen size, and it is the native format of every major reading app and e-reader except Kindle — and Kindle itself now accepts EPUB through Send to Kindle. Converting turns a format-locked file into one that will keep working on whatever device you own next.
- Reading an old library on hardware that never spoke MOBI
- A Kobo, a Nook, an iPad or an Android phone will open the EPUB and would not have opened the MOBI.
- Keeping one master copy in an open format
- A library in a proprietary format is a library with a dependency. EPUB is publicly specified, so it outlives the company that shipped your reader.
- Editing the book afterwards
- An EPUB is XHTML inside a ZIP. Rename it to .zip and every part of it is readable in a text editor — a MOBI is not.
- Fixing a wrong title or author
- Old MOBI files are notorious for empty metadata. Once it is an EPUB, the Metadata Editor rewrites those fields without re-encoding the book.
What survives the conversion
Checked against the converter itself rather than described in general terms, because two of these rows are limitations and a page that hid them would be no use to you.
| Element | Carried over? |
|---|---|
| Chapters and reading order | Yes — rebuilt as the EPUB spine, in the order the MOBI declares. |
| Paragraphs, bold, italics, lists | Yes — the chapter markup is carried across and re-serialised as well-formed XHTML. |
| Title, author, language, publisher | Yes — read from the MOBI’s own metadata record. Where the MOBI has none, the title falls back to the filename. |
| Contents entries | Partly — a navigation document is always written, but its labels come from the MOBI’s internal section identifiers, so they can read as chapter-0 rather than the chapter names you expect. Rename them in any EPUB editor, or ignore them if you only want to read. |
| Images and illustrations | No — see the note below. This is the one that matters for an illustrated book. |
| Cover image | No — nothing is embedded as the cover. Add one afterwards with the Cover Editor. |
| DRM-protected content | No — an encrypted file cannot be opened at all, by this or any other converter. |
About images. The converter rebuilds the text of the book, not its picture files: an illustrated MOBI converts to an EPUB whose images are missing, and a validator will flag the references left behind. For a novel or any text-only book this changes nothing. For a comic, a cookbook or a photo book, convert to a fixed format instead — MOBI to PDF keeps the pages intact. We would rather tell you that here than have you find it after converting a shelf.
MOBI vs EPUB at a glance
| MOBI | EPUB | |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Amazon — proprietary | W3C — open standard |
| Status | Retired; Send to Kindle dropped it in 2022 | Current; EPUB 3 actively maintained |
| Reflowable | Yes | Yes |
| Opens on | Older Kindles, and little else | Kobo, Nook, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Calibre, browsers — and Kindle via Send to Kindle |
| Editable | Difficult | Easy — XHTML inside a ZIP |
| Best use today | Legacy Kindle hardware | Everything else |
Your file never leaves your device
This converter is JavaScript running in the page you are already on. Your file is read from disk into the tab’s memory, transformed there, and handed back as a download. No server receives it.
You can check that rather than take our word for it: open your browser’s developer tools, switch to the Network tab, and convert a file. No request carries your book.
That makes it safe for anything you would not hand to a third-party server — DRM-free purchases, unpublished manuscripts, review copies, anything under an NDA. There are no accounts, no cookies, no analytics and no size cap. The only ceiling is your device’s memory, because the whole file is held in RAM while it converts.
What this tool cannot do
- Open a DRM-protected book
- Most Kindle Store purchases and all library loans are encrypted. This tool cannot open them, cannot convert them, and does not remove DRM. It works on DRM-free files: your own exports, sideloaded books, and purchases from DRM-free stores.
- Carry images across
- Text, structure and metadata are rebuilt; picture files are not. An illustrated book loses its illustrations — use MOBI to PDF for those.
- Cope with a very large book on a small device
- Conversion happens in memory, so a heavy file can exhaust an older phone where a desktop would manage it comfortably.
- Go the other way
- Writing MOBI needs Amazon’s own toolchain, which cannot run in a browser. EPUB to MOBI explains the route that does work.
After you convert
A MOBI that has been through several converters often arrives with a wrong title, no author or no cover. Everything below runs in the same tab, under the same no-upload guarantee.
Adding a cover from scratch is walked through in how to add a cover to an EPUB. If what you actually want is a printable file rather than a reflowable one, skip the middle step and convert MOBI to PDF directly.
Have an AZW3 instead?
Newer Kindle downloads are usually AZW3 — the KF8 format — rather than MOBI. The two are related but not identical: AZW3 replaced MOBI in 2011 with real CSS and better layout support. Send those through the AZW3 to EPUB converter, which reads the KF8 container.
Questions
Will books I bought from Amazon work? ＋
Only if they are DRM-free. Most Kindle Store purchases carry DRM and cannot be opened by any converter, this one included.
Does my cover survive? ＋
No. This converter rebuilds the text, structure and metadata of the book, but it does not embed a cover in the EPUB it writes — so the result arrives without one even when the MOBI had a cover. Add one afterwards with the Cover Editor; it takes a few seconds and you can use a better image than the MOBI carried.
What happens to the images inside the book? ＋
They are not carried across. The converter rebuilds the text of the book rather than its picture files, so an illustrated MOBI becomes an EPUB with its illustrations missing. For a novel this changes nothing. For a comic, a cookbook or anything picture-led, convert to a fixed format instead — MOBI to PDF keeps the pages intact.
Which EPUB version does it produce? ＋
EPUB 3, the current version of the standard. It opens in every modern reading app, and being EPUB 3 rather than EPUB 2 means no version warning at Apple Books, Kobo or KDP ingestion.
Can I read the converted EPUB on a Kindle? ＋
Yes. Send to Kindle has accepted EPUB since 2022, so you can email or upload the converted file and Amazon converts it on their side. That is also why converting MOBI to AZW3 is rarely worth the trouble.
What is the difference between MOBI and AZW3? ＋
MOBI is Amazon’s original format from 2007; AZW3 — KF8 — replaced it in 2011 with real CSS and better layout support. Newer Kindle downloads are usually AZW3. Send those through the AZW3 to EPUB tool instead, which reads the KF8 container.
Does it work offline? ＋
Once the page has loaded, yes. The conversion needs no network connection, and losing your connection partway through does not interrupt it — nothing was being sent anywhere.
Does this work with DRM-protected books? ＋
No. Files with DRM can’t be opened by any converter. This tool works with DRM-free files — like the ones you export from your own writing tools or buy from DRM-free stores.