Kindle Clippings to Obsidian

A Python script that extracts your Kindle highlights and notes, formatting them beautifully for Obsidian, a powerful knowledge management app.

Overview
Features
Requirements
Installation
Usage
- Step-by-Step Guide
- Example Output
Customizing the Output
How It Works
FAQ
Related Obsidian Systems
Star History
License

Overview

This script processes your Kindle’s My Clippings.txt file by:

Extracting highlights (and any accompanying notes)
Organizing them into separate text files—one per publication
Formatting the output using Markdown, which makes it easy to copy/paste into Obsidian

It’s an integral part of my personal Obsidian Book Note system, but it’s flexible enough for any user looking to integrate their Kindle clippings into Obsidian.

Features

Creates separate Markdown files for each book
Formats highlights with proper Obsidian syntax
Preserves metadata (book title, author)
Intelligently handles new highlights when run multiple times
Allows selective processing of specific books
Customizable output format

Requirements

Python 3
Unix-based terminal (Linux, macOS, BSD, etc.)
A Kindle with highlights saved in My Clippings.txt

Installation

Clone this repository or download the script:

git clone https://github.com/dannberg/kindle-clippings-to-obsidian.git

Install Dependency:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Make the script executable:

chmod +x extract-kindle-clippings.py

Usage

Step-by-Step Guide

Create highlights on your Kindle as you read.
Connect your Kindle to your computer and locate the My Clippings.txt file in the documents folder.
Run the script with the following command:

./extract-kindle-clippings.py [<path to My Clippings.txt>] -o [<output directory>]

Example:

./extract-kindle-clippings.py /Users/USERNAME/Desktop/Temp/My\ Clippings.txt -o /Users/USERNAME/Desktop/Temp/clippings/

Default values:

If no input file is specified, the script looks for ./My Clippings.txt or /media/$USER/Kindle/documents/My Clippings.txt
If no output directory is specified, files are created in a clippings/ folder in the current directory

Select which books to process from the interactive menu:
- Enter 0 to process all books
- Enter a single number to process one specific book
- Enter multiple numbers separated by spaces to process several books
Import into Obsidian by copying the content from the generated Markdown files.

Example Output

Highlights from The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business
============================================================

Authors:: [[Josh Kaufman]]
Recommended By::
Tags:: [[📚 Books]]

# The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

### Highlights
- It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. —JACOB BRONOWSKI, WRITER AND PRESENTER OF THE ASCENT OF MAN
- Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation.

Customizing the Output

You can easily customize how your highlights appear in Obsidian by modifying the output format in the script:

Open extract-kindle-clippings.py in any text editor
Locate the section around lines 226-231 where the output formatting is defined
Edit the strings to match your preferred format
- Use \n to create line breaks
- Modify the metadata fields to match your Obsidian workflow

For example, you might want to add additional YAML frontmatter or change the heading structure.

How It Works

The script works by:

Reading your Kindle's My Clippings.txt file
Parsing each highlight's metadata (book title, author, location, date)
Generating a unique hash for each highlight to avoid duplicates
Checking existing output files to see which highlights are new
Creating formatted Markdown files for each book with 3+ highlights
Appending highlights from books with fewer notes to a short_notes.md file

The script is smart enough to only add new highlights when run multiple times, so you can safely run it whenever you add new highlights to your Kindle.

FAQ

Q: What about Kindle Notes (not just highlights)?
A: The script captures both highlights and notes. Notes may require some additional manual formatting to make them look perfect in Obsidian. Feel free to open a PR if you get Notes working in a way you like!

Q: Can I edit the output files?
A: Yes! You can rename, move, split, combine, and edit the output files. The script uses hash values to track which highlights have been processed.

Q: Does this work with all Kindle models?
A: The script has been tested with first-generation Kindle Oasis, but should work with most Kindle models that generate a My Clippings.txt file.

Q: Will this work on Windows?
A: This script was designed for Linux/Mac/BSD and may have issues on Windows.

Related Obsidian Systems

Blog Posts

Video Tutorials

Additional Resources

Star History

License

Copyright 2025, Dann Berg (dannb.org)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Kindle Clippings To Obsidian