Sign in with Facebook
Share Your Kindle Notes and Highlights with Your Friends (Beta)
At Goodreads, we believe books are better with friends, and we’re always looking for ways to help you share more of what you read. If you like to make notes and highlights in the Kindle books you’re reading, we have good news for you. With today’s beta launch of Kindle Notes & Highlights on Goodreads, you can now share your notes and highlights on Goodreads and spark great conversations with your friends!
Let your friends see what you “wrote in the margins”
You can now access and share your Kindle notes and highlights right from the book pages on Goodreads.com (PC or laptop). You can even edit your notes directly on Goodreads, and your changes will sync back to your Kindle book. By default, your Kindle notes and highlights are only viewable by you—you’re always in control. You can choose to share them with friends by marking any (or all) of your notes and highlights as “Visible,” and your friends will be able to view, like, and comment on them. You can also share them by sending the URL of your Kindle Notes & Highlights page to anyone you like—for instance, a colleague, professor, or classmate.
Power up your book club
If you’re in a book club, Goodreads and Kindle make it easier to share your thoughts and discuss books—even between meetings. First, make sure you’re all friends on Goodreads, and then those who read on Kindle can choose to make their notes and highlights visible. You’ll all be able to see those notes on Goodreads.com (whether you read with Kindle or not), and you can start liking and commenting on them right away.
And if you’re worried about spoilers, we’ve got you covered! You can mark individual notes and highlights as spoilers, so your friends can decide when they’re ready to read them.
Writing a review? Easily access all your Kindle notes and highlights
Whether you’re writing a book review or diving back into an old favorite, your notes and highlights are right there in one place, alongside your rating and when you read it. That makes it easier to glance through and incorporate them into your review while you write it. More than ever, Goodreads helps you capture your thoughts and feelings about a book over time, allowing you to re-visit the key moments months or years later.
How do I find my Kindle notes and highlights on Goodreads?
- If you haven’t already, you’ll first need to link your Goodreads and Amazon accounts. To do this, click here, sign in, and scroll to the Amazon section to connect your accounts.
- Shelve your book on Goodreads. If you are reading on Kindle, you can easily mark it as “Currently Reading” from the “About this Book” feature on Kindle. (Here’s a tip for Kindle iOS readers: With Auto-Update, you can now set your Kindle iOS app to automatically mark each book you start as “Currently Reading” when you first open it, and as “Read” when you finish. This is a small but powerful new feature designed to give you one less thing to do!)
- Highlight and add notes to interesting passages as you read on Kindle. Because you linked your Goodreads and Kindle accounts, the notes and highlights you make will be accessible on Goodreads.com—viewable only by you.
- Go to your book’s page on Goodreads.com (from your PC or laptop) and click on the Kindle Notes & Highlights link in the My Review section:
Found them! Now how do I share my Kindle notes and highlights on Goodreads?
You can share any of your notes and highlights by switching them to “Visible.” The more you share, the more there is for you and your friends to discuss!
This is currently available on Goodreads.com from my PC or laptop. When will this be available more widely?
We’re working on it! We plan to support mobile soon.
What does it mean that this feature is in “Beta”?
“Beta” means this feature is still early in its development, and we’re excited to get your feedback about it! We’re already hard at work on enhancements to make it even better. In the meantime, let us know what you think by using the Feedback widget on your Kindle Notes & Highlights pages on Goodreads.com.
In which markets is this supported?
This beta launch is supported within the following Kindle marketplaces: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India, for customers who have linked their Goodreads and Amazon accounts.
We can’t wait to see all the notes and highlights you share!
Comments Showing 51-100 of 182 (182 new)
Interesting that the comments were allowed for this blog post, but weren't for the last one that brought massive changes to the website.
Tenae wrote: "Interesting that the comments were allowed for this blog post, but weren't for the last one that brought massive changes to the website."Thanks for this comment. Totally agree.
Jaclyn wrote: "That's correct. this is an opt-in feature, and your friends' notes will only be visible from the Goodreads book page and not on your actual Kindle."Thank goodness for that!
Sharon wrote: "Gosh, it would be nice if this site remembered that there were other eReaders besides Kindle ..."Damn right, it's a disgrace! How DARE Goodreads add features that don't personally benefit me. We should boycott all reading until this is fixed, or taken away from those people who can use it so we are all equal.
Barb wrote: "This is a joke, right? How can Goodreads offer a similar service to people who read the books on paper?"I hear you can take photographs of any hand-written notes and email them int to GR for them to OCR scan and auto convert to notes in your book.
Oh. no, that would be discriminatory against those people without digital cameras. Or common sense.
This is great! Earlier I've used (and even written) scripts to import highlights from Kindle into Goodreads as quotes. I hope highlights and quotes will be merged somehow in the future, or that highlights can be one-click saved as quotes or something.
Neat. Usually I copy and paste it into my review via the PC app. This'll make things easier.
I would LOVE to see this be a feature with Audible!
I have been waiting for this feature for a long time, but I won't be able to use it till it goes mobile as I do all my reading on a tablet :-)
Great idea! I've always kept my notes in a separate app and this allows me to consolidate everything into one place. So much more convenient.
Would love if there was a possibility for this to be done with Nook as well, i know its a different company base... but i don't have a kindle and would love to be able to use this feature with my nook.
Amanda (Hootie) wrote: "I can't wait to see you beef up the mobile app with all these fabulous changes!!"I agree with Amanda. BEEF UP THE MOBILE APP! I'd love to see push notification... So i don't have to rely on emails to tell me when i got a comment or whatever.. ESPECIALLY since I run a book club and group page.
I really love this feature. I've been wanting it for years. Eight suggestions to improve this: 1) Bulk turn-on feature
But now I'm supposed to go through all 64 of my books on Kindle INDIVIDUALLY and turn on the highlights & notes? May we please have a bulk turn-on feature?
2) Listing of all highlights/notes across all books
To be able to see a listing of all the books that have my highlights would be tremendously helpful. Right now, I have 64 books on Kindle. I'm supposed to guess which ones have highlights/notes.
3) Sort my books by most highlights/notes
4) Highlights/notes in feed
I just turned on all the highlights/notes in my books; however, there was no notice of me doing this in my feed. It would be great to have this appear in a feed, so my friends know to check out my marginalia.
5) Friends highlights/notes in feed
If my information is put into my feed, it makes sense to my friends highlights/notes be put into the feed too.
6) Option to add highlight as author quote on Goodreads
7) Option to tweet the highlight (or post to Facebook)
8) Make the highlights/notes open to the public, not just friends.
Jaclyn wrote: "Joe wrote: "you should be able to convert them into or at least share them as goodreads quotes?"At the moment, our quotes section is exclusively for published authors and celebrities. You're welc..."
Thank you for explaining this handy workaround. Even more smooth would be the ability to simply click a link next to your highlight that says something like, "add as Goodreads author quote"
Missa wrote: "wow! this makes me want a kindle lol"You know that you don't need to buy anything to use this, right? If you have an Android or iOS device, or even if you just use your computer (PC or Mac), there's a free app you can use to read and take notes on Kindle. That's all you need.
Nikki wrote: "Any chance this works (or will work in future) with library eBooks checked out to my Kindle through Overdrive?"Seconded. I'd really like this to work for library ebooks, since I get a lot of ebooks from my local library -- and they all go through the Amazon store, so that should help things along, no?
I apologize if this has already been addressed. I did read through all the comments and didn't see it.Is this data automatically synced to Goodreads, or would we have to access the book again in order to sync the notes & highlights?
Do I have to go into each book to see if I have any notes/highlights? I have no idea which ones I've done that for. Only a few of my 178.
Thanks!
Susan wrote: "I apologize if this has already been addressed. I did read through all the comments and didn't see it.Is this data automatically synced to Goodreads, or would we have to access the book again in ..."
Here's a tip for those who have a lot of books they didn't get from Amazon and they want to see what they have for Notes & Highlights. In your Amazon account, go to Manage Content and have it show only Books. Then choose Purchases, which will filter out your KU borrows. That at least lets you easily see those that might have this data and you can compare to your Goodreads list. For the future, I'll have to add a shelf to find these quickly I guess.
Or just check out https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highli... – which, I assume, is where Goodreads gets the highlights. I didn't have to do anything, all my highlights were here.
This whole thing needs an opt out option.Frankly, even with everything defaulted to private, this feels invasive and rather creepy to me.
Steven wrote: "Although I prefer the tactile feel of real books, I appreciate the portability of Kindle. One of the things that drives me crazy about KU is the unavailability of some form of parental screening. I..."That's how I was about my Kindle, which I bring with me each day when I nanny. But the parental controls on Voyage do a nice job for the most part and I have freetime for one of the kids and I'm able to limit what he sees by allowing him partial access to my books.
Tobias wrote: "Or just check out https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highli... – which, I assume, is where Goodreads gets the highlights. I didn't have to do anything, all my highlights were here."Oh cool!! thank you :)
Seriously, with ALL the things wrong with Goodreads homepage changes THIS is what you chose to focus on. *HEAD DESK*I would love to be able to mute certain authors so that when my friends read their books, the covers are not on my home page.
I would LOVE it if you would stop people leaving 5 star or 1 reviews for UNRELEASED BOOKS. Reviews should only be allowed when a book has been released.
I would love to be able to personalize my homepage, and have the discussions and my news feed side by side instead of ads for Oprah and Amazon.
I would LOVE it if you stopped recommending books to me. I have FRIENDS to do that and I can look myself. I have never ONCE clicked on a recommendation, and find them intrusive.
I would love it if i could edit my updates, instead of having to delete and start again if i make an error.
I would love to be able to add images without the rigmarole of uploading to photobucket and pasting the URL.
That's enough for you all to be getting on with. Thanks
The Kindle Notes & Highlights feature is not available for Kindle Unlimited titles.This is stupid and it sucks.
Scarletine wrote: "Seriously, with ALL the things wrong with Goodreads homepage changes THIS is what you chose to focus on. *HEAD DESK*I would love to be able to mute certain authors so that when my friends read th..."
So agree with all you have said, well done. Echo many other of us x
Sarah wrote: "I think it would be great to have like a separate place JUST to easily access ALL your highlights/notes that are on your Amazon account instead of just going to each individual book. It is harder t..."Until it's available here, you can use this link at Amazon to see all your highlights in one place. Then at least you will know which books to come to here.
https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highli...
Edit: I just saw someone already posted the link. :)
Ooohhh... not a fan of this feature. Does it automatically share notes and highlights? Or do I have to physically disable this feature for each book? I do NOT want my notes and highlights made public. While I'm sure many people highlight quotes they want to remember (and at times I do as well) most of what I personally comment on I consider to be "for my eyes only" and not for every one else to know.
I can't wait/hope for them to add a progress update feature from kindle to goodreads to easily report on what page you are on when you click the button, like the currently reading feature they have.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FEATURED POLLS!?!GIMME MAH POLLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Umm I just got 17 emails from one person about her notes. I don't want to see her notes. How do I turn this off? Share it like a status update if you want, but don't spam your friends with 17 emails in one morning.
I like this idea! It's so nice to be able to see the notes printed out like this.
Rob wrote: "Sharon wrote: "Gosh, it would be nice if this site remembered that there were other eReaders besides Kindle ..."Damn right, it's a disgrace! How DARE Goodreads add features that don't personally ..."
Don't forget Amazon owns Goodreads. All of us here are doing our bit to promote Kindle. No way would anybody here consider promoting any other eReader. And the home page will be taken over by stuff like this to advertise Amazon products. If you don't like it, you better leave. There is no other option.
By the way, they cannot access your private notes as long as you don't link your Goodreads and Amazon profiles. Which of course they spend a lot of time 
Rosemary wrote: "By the way, they cannot access your notes as long as you don't link your Goodreads and Amazon profiles. Which of course they spend a lot of time trying to make you do, but we are not that stupid, r..."However if you have a kindle they can see your notes on Amazon anyway and being they are run by the same people surely it makes no difference?
How would they know they are my notes?Amazon does not publish people's notes from their Kindles. Goodreads wants to do that, but as long as I have not linked my accounts, they cannot know which is my Kindle, so they cannot publish my notes. This is a major invasion of privacy, but if you separate the accounts, you should be OK.
Rosemary wrote: "How would they know they are my notes?Amazon do not publish people's notes from their Kindles. Goodreads wants to do that, but as long as you have not linked your accounts, you can keep them priv..."
I think I read your comment in the wrong way, sorry. I thought you were saying that both Amazon and Kindle were trying to publish notes and I got confused. However, if my account is linked on here and they aren't marked as visible do you feel they would still not be private? I thought this was a good idea at first but after hearing others points of view I am slowly beginning to change my mind as I don't want my notes to be publicised. I would rather them to be kept private and for only me to see and potentially my friends if we are sharing notes on a book we read together. I only linked my accounts together originally i liked using goodreads on my paperwhite as it was convenient while travelling. I'm now considering disconnecting my Amazon from goodreads after talking yours and others points into consideration
I would separate them, myself. The other danger, as somebody else said, is that your Kindle is spammed with notes from other people that you don't want. I prefer to read books without other people's notes in them, however much I like the people :)ETA: I see they are saying this won't happen (for now). I'm not sure then what the point of this is... it sounds like they just want to publish our notes on Goodreads? Maybe to give them more unique content? But somebody said they received 17 emails with notes. So how is that possible?
^^That has definitely convinced me to unlink the accounts! I cannot put up with other people's notes either, whether I like the people or not isn't even the case. When I read I like to have my own view on the book and then discuss it with people after I have finished reading it incase their view hinders the way I feel about the book before even having my own thoughts.
They have automatically opted everyone in for receiving emails about these notes/highlights. You have to go into your settings and go to the email settings and then scroll down and uncheck the box. Otherwise, you will receive emails about anyone you are friends with who link to their notes/highlights.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Sh3lly ✨ Bring on the Weird ✨ wrote: "They have automatically opted everyone in for receiving emails about these notes/highlights. You have to go into your settings and go to the email settings and then scroll down and uncheck the box...."Not quite the full story. You are only supposed to receive a notification if one of your friends shares notes and highlights for a book that you have also read (or are currently reading). The idea is to help readers connect around the books they've read to have conversations about them.
Eric wrote: " You are only supposed to receive a notification if one of your friends shares notes and highlights for a book that you have also read (or are currently reading). The idea is to help readers connect around the books they've read to have conversations about them. ."But this is exactly what she said. You have automatically opted people in to receiving emails about these notes/highlights.
Hi Rosemary,The piece of information that was missing was that the email only occurs when both conditions are true. You do not receive an email every time a friend shares notes and highlights. You receive them when a friend shares and that book overlaps with your own read books. For most Goodreads members, this is an incredibly low amount of email. For power users who may have received too many, we are looking at further improvements that will reduce that annoyance.
We did enable email by default because we wanted to ensure that people who spent the time making their notes and highlights available, had a reasonable chance of their friends actually discovering them, so they could discuss them together. We've been live with this beta for just over 36 hours. We plan on tuning the experience so please keep providing us with what is working and not working. Thanks!
Wonderful initiative! Deliberately waiting to have this awesome feature on Android App...!
I think at this point in time, privacy is an illusion. Google tracks everything. Facebook tracks everything. Amazon is hardly the exception to the rule. Nothing is ever really private - don't go online if you're concerned - that's really the only option. Plus the site is free - ads ease the cost. In any case, I like the new homepage although it would be awesome to be able to customise the layout - moving the different sections around and/or hiding them.
Adding my notes and highlights to Goodreads is awesome, I like that it can only lead to better recommendations. Plus I generally just like having everything in the one place, being able to import it across is good. Like everyone else, it'll be good to have a feature to see it all in the one place on goodreads. And maybe not just a feature to opt out of the notifications, but one to stop from sending your own notifications out? Allowing your notes to be visible/invisible but not drawing attention to it. And what about to choose only to see notifications about favourite authors or favourite books or only ones you have just finished and desperately need people to talk about it with? And you're probably a while away from this - but what about custom lists? so you can pull the best or themed highlights or notes together.
Eric wrote: "Hi Rosemary,
The piece of information that was missing was that the email only occurs when both conditions are true. You do not receive an email every time a friend shares notes and highlights. Yo..."
I had over 20 emails in my inbox this morning from one user who had highlighted a bunch of stuff. That happened before I unchecked the box.
The point being that you automatically opted people in, which is no big deal, that is your prerogative. I was letting people know this so they are aware and know where to change that if they want.
I preferred to discuss books in the feed with my friends, but that has become next to impossible with the new homepage where everything is chaotic and you've got tons of posts from people you don't even know showing up!
The piece of information that was missing was that the email only occurs when both conditions are true. You do not receive an email every time a friend shares notes and highlights. Yo..."
I had over 20 emails in my inbox this morning from one user who had highlighted a bunch of stuff. That happened before I unchecked the box.
The point being that you automatically opted people in, which is no big deal, that is your prerogative. I was letting people know this so they are aware and know where to change that if they want.
I preferred to discuss books in the feed with my friends, but that has become next to impossible with the new homepage where everything is chaotic and you've got tons of posts from people you don't even know showing up!
Great. Another push to daisy-chain on-line accounts for better, faster, more invasive data-mining. I get it. People are not customers or patrons anymore: we're products whose data is a resalable commodity. Still, what no one ever mentions is that every time you link on-line accounts together, you exponentially increase vulnerability to security compromises. Amazon has better security than probably 95% of other sites, but that also makes them an attractive target for hackers to try to compromise.
All this pushing the Hive Mind thing is doing is turning me off technology and social media altogether.
Would love to see these features come to personal documents as well!
That's correct. this is an opt-in feature, and your friends' notes..."
Thank heavens for the opt button. Perhaps you would consider opt in or out buttons for all your future plans then you may have a more contented group than you have now. Other alternative is for someone to set up a Goodreads site as we used to have, I'm sure the majority would be there in no time.