Complete Guide: Downloading & Reading AZW3 Ebooks on Windows/Mac

How to Read AZW3 Books on PC and Mac

Posted by Ada Wang on 8/10/2023 3:30:22 PM.

If you are an eBook lover, you are probably familar with AZW3 format. Compared with other Kindle formats, such as Mobi or AZW, it’s more advanced because it supports more fonts, layouts and styles. Currently, most of the books downloaded from Amazon website are in AZW3 format, while the previous mainstream MOBI format is becoming less and less.

But the fact is that the AZW3 files are only associated with Amazon Kindle devices and eBook reading applications. So if we have no Kindle device, how can we open and read AZW3 files? How to read AZW3 books on PC and Mac? Don’t worry. Here I will show you 3 different method to read azw3 on PC and Mac platform.

1. Read AZW3 on PC/Mac with Online AZW3 Reader

Is it possible to open AZW3 file online in a browser? Yes, of course. But to be honest, there are not many online AZW3 readers available on the internet. Here are the only 2 online AZW3 readers we’ve found and fully reviewed.

1. Online AZW3 Reader

2. MOBI Viewer and Reader

Frankly speaking, above 2 online AZW3 readers are not that perfect, but these are the only 2 online AZW3 readers I could find. If you have any other recommendations, don’t forget to leave a comment and share with us.

Tips: Based on my own tests, most of azw3 eBooks we downloaded from amazon are with drm, which causes us unable to open them online with online readers.

2. Read AZW3 on PC/Mac with Kindle for PC/Mac

Kindle for PC/Mac is the Amazon official reading app. It’s obvious that we can open and read AZW3 files on PC and Mac with the Kindle desktop app.

Here I will show you how to read AZW3 with kindle for pc. The steps are the same for Mac users.

After installing Kindle for PC successfully, please launch it and log in with your Amazon account. Then all your purchased kindle books will show up in the main window of the application. Just double-click the book cover to download them to your computer. When the downloading completed, it will open automatically for reading. Or you can click the book title or cover to open it.

Note: Sometimes when you double-click your AZW3 file stored on your computer, it can not be opened directly with the Kindle for PC/Ma. Instead, a window will pop up letting you select a program to open this file. Just select the option “Select a program from a list of installed program” and click “OK” button to select Kindle for PC to open the file. Or you can just right-click your AZW3 book, select “Open with”–>”Kindle” to open it.

3. Read AZW3 on PC/Mac with Calibre

Calibre is a very popular, open-source digital publication library management program. It supports many kinds of eBook formats, including AZW3 format. You cannot only use it to convert eBooks format but also read eBooks.

Open Calibre, click “Add books” button to add books or just drag them to the tool. Then all your added books will appear in the main interface of the software.

If your AZW3 files are DRM-free, after adding them to Calibre, you can directly double-click their title to open and read them.

Notice: If you can’t open and read DRM-free AZW3 books with Calibre, please try to click Preferences -> Behavior and add AZW3 format to view in Calibre. Or you can try to change their extension to .Mobi or .AZW, because AZW3 eBook file format also uses .AZW and .Mobi file extension.

As a free AZW3 reader for PC and Mac, Calibre can only read DRM-free ebooks. If your AZW3 books are DRM-protected, you can’t read them unless you remove the DRM first.

If you want to successfully read the DRM-protected AZW3 files on Calibre, you need to remove DRM from AZW3 first, and then reload those drm ripped files to calibre library again.

4. Read AZW3 Files on PC/Mac with Any Reading App

To install the Calibre DRM removal Plugin is much difficult for beginners. Here I’d like to recommend you a powerful software Epubor Ultimate . It is very easy to use eBook DRM Removal and eBook Converter. Its clean and friendly interface makes us deal with the DRM problem and ebook format smoothly. If we can convert the AZW3 to other common format like epub/pdf, we are able to read the AZW3 books with any third-party reading app. Now just follow me to learn how to remove DRM and convert the ebook fromats with the tool.

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

Launch Epubor Ultimate, connect your Kindle device to your computer, and then add the AZW3 files you’ve downloaded from the Amazon official website to Epubor Ultimate, then your books will be decrypted immediately.

After the DRM is removed successfully, you can click the word “decrypted” to find where the DRM-free are stored. Then add the DRM-free AZW3 books to any azw3 reader and start your reading journey.

Tip: If you convert the Kindle AZW3 to pdf/epub/mobi with Epubor Ultimate, you can read your books with any PDF reader, or EPUB reader on your PC/Mac. Compared with AZW3 readers, there are more EPUB/PDF readers for you to choose from.

Epubor Ultimate is super easy to use, right? Within a few seconds, the DRM is removed successfully. Now you can transfer the DRM-free books to any other third-party reading app or share them with your friends freely.

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Complete Guide: Downloading & Reading AZW3 Ebooks on Windows/Mac