Can you highlight on a Kindle Paperwhite?

Yes. Press and hold a word until it is selected, drag to the end of the passage, then tap Highlight in the menu that appears. Every Kindle e-reader, from the basic Kindle to the Oasis, Colorsoft and Scribe, can highlight; only the Colorsoft models and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft let you choose a colour.

How do I highlight across two pages on a Kindle?

Start the selection as usual, then drag your finger to the bottom-right corner of the screen and hold it there. The page turns and the selection carries on. Keep holding to span more pages, or drag to the top-left corner to go back a page.

How do I turn off highlights on my Kindle?

It depends which highlights you mean. The dotted or underlined passages you did not make are Popular Highlights: open a book, tap the top of the screen, tap Aa, then More, and switch Popular Highlights off. If the highlight menu pops up every time you select a word, the same Aa > More screen has a setting to stop it opening automatically on models that offer it. To remove a highlight you made, tap it and choose Delete.

Why did the highlight and bookmark buttons move?

Amazon changed the Kindle reading interface in late 2025 (software 5.18.6). Selecting text now shows a compact menu with a highlight button, a note button and Look Up, and the bookmark icon left the top toolbar: you bookmark by tapping the top-right corner of the page instead. The Kindle Oasis stayed on older software and still has the previous menus.

Can you take notes on a Kindle Paperwhite?

Yes. Select a word or passage, tap the Note button (a sticky-note icon on current software), type with the on-screen keyboard and save. The note is marked in the text and listed in the book's Annotation Notebook with your highlights. Handwritten notes need a Kindle Scribe.

Where do my Kindle highlights go?

Into the book's Annotation Notebook on the device, into a file called My Clippings.txt on the Kindle, and, for books from the Kindle store, to Amazon, which syncs them to your other devices and the Kindle app and shows them at read.amazon.com/notebook. Our guide to finding your Kindle highlights covers each place.

Can I export my Kindle highlights?

Amazon's apps email one book's notebook at a time. Clippings.io imports every book at once from read.amazon.com/notebook with a browser extension, adds My Clippings.txt for personal documents, and exports the whole library to Notion, Evernote, Word, PDF, Markdown and more. Importing is free.

How to Highlight on Kindle: Highlights, Notes, Bookmarks

To highlight on a Kindle, press and hold a word, drag to the end of the passage, and tap Highlight. That works on every Kindle. This guide covers the details Amazon moved in its late-2025 redesign: notes, bookmarks, colours, the Kindle Scribe, the Kindle app, and how to turn off the highlights you did not make.

How to highlight on a Kindle

These steps are for the Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Colorsoft on current software (5.19). The Kindle Oasis uses the same gestures with the older menus.

1Open the book and press and hold the first word of the passage until it is selected.
2Without lifting your finger, drag to the last word. The selection grows as you go.
3To carry on onto the next page, drag to the bottom-right corner and hold: the page turns and the selection continues. The top-left corner goes back a page.
4Lift your finger. To adjust the selection, press and hold the handle at either end and drag it.
5Tap Highlight in the menu that appears. On current software it is the button marked with an A, next to the note button and Look Up. On a Colorsoft you pick the colour here too.

Highlighting a single word? Press and hold it. The menu that opens shows the dictionary entry, and the highlight button is in the same menu.

How to highlight on a Kindle Scribe

The Scribe accepts both a finger and the Premium Pen, and has two ways to mark a passage.

With the selection menu

1Select the text with your finger or the pen, as on any Kindle.
2Tap the highlight icon, or the underline icon if you prefer underlining. On the Scribe Colorsoft, choose one of the five highlighter colours.

With the Highlighter tool

1Tap the pen tools and choose the Highlighter.
2Draw over the text. Strokes snap to the lines of text, so they are saved as ordinary highlights, and a diagonal stroke highlights several lines at once.

Underlines are separate from highlights. They show in the Scribe's notebook but not on Amazon's web notebook page unless the passage is also highlighted.

How to highlight in the Kindle app

iPhone, iPad and Android

1Press and hold a word, then drag the handles to cover the passage.
2Tap a colour in the menu that appears. The highlight is saved and syncs to your other devices.
3To change an existing highlight, tap it. The menu shows a colour dot (press and hold it to pick another colour), Look Up, Note, Copy and Share.

In mid-2025 Amazon removed the quick delete button from that menu in the iPhone app. To delete a highlight now, tap the top of the screen, tap the three dots, open Annotations, tap the three dots next to the highlight and choose Delete Highlight.

Kindle for Web, Windows and Mac

1Select the text with the mouse.
2Choose a highlight colour in the pop-up. Choose Note instead to attach a note.
3To remove a highlight in Kindle for Web, click it and choose the colour marked with an X.

The old Kindle for PC app stopped being supported on 30 June 2026; the new Kindle for Windows app needs Windows 11.

How to add a note on a Kindle

1Select a word or passage as if you were highlighting it.
2Tap Note, the sticky-note icon in the menu.
3Type your note with the on-screen keyboard and tap Save.
4The note is marked in the text with a small icon (a superscript number on older software). Tap the marker to read it again.

Notes are listed with your highlights in the book's Annotation Notebook, and are copied to My Clippings.txt like highlights. On a Kindle Scribe you can also write by hand: a sticky note (handwritten, typed or both), a note in the side panel anchored to the nearby text, or a Canvas that opens space between the lines. To edit or delete a Scribe note, tap its icon and use the three-dot menu.

How to bookmark a page on a Kindle

1Tap the top-right corner of the page (top-left in right-to-left languages). A bookmark ribbon appears.
2Tap the same corner again to remove it.
3Or tap the top of the screen, open Page Flip, and tap the bookmark icon on the page thumbnail.

Amazon took the bookmark button out of the top toolbar in late 2025. Your bookmarks are now listed in the Annotation Notebook with your highlights and notes: tap the top of the screen, then the notebook icon. On a Colorsoft or Scribe Colorsoft, tap an existing bookmark to change its colour.

Some readers report having to press and hold the corner rather than tap. Amazon's user guides and release notes say tap; if a tap does nothing, try holding.

Highlight colours

Only the Kindle Colorsoft models and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft have a colour picker. The Colorsoft offers yellow, orange, blue and pink, and a 2026 update added green; the Scribe Colorsoft has five highlighter colours. On a Colorsoft, tap a highlight and then the colour circle next to Delete to change it. Other Kindles show coloured highlights in grey. Kindle highlight colours has the full picture, including filtering by colour and what survives an export.

How to delete a highlight

Tap the highlight and choose Delete. The deletion syncs to Amazon and your other devices the next time they connect. The line already written to My Clippings.txt stays in that file. How to delete Kindle highlights covers the app, Amazon's notebook page, the clippings file, and why deleted highlights sometimes come back.

How to turn off Popular Highlights on a Kindle

Popular Highlights are the passages many other readers highlighted, shown underlined in the text. They are not yours, and turning them off deletes nothing.

1Open any book.
2Tap the top of the screen to show the toolbar.
3Tap Aa, then More.
4Switch Popular Highlights off. The setting applies to every book.

On older Kindles the switch was under Settings > Reading Options > Notes & About This Book. Popular Highlights also appear as a card in About This Book, which you can turn off under Settings > Reading Options.

Quick reference

To	On a Kindle	In the Kindle app
Highlight	Press and hold, drag, tap Highlight (A)	Press and hold, drag handles, tap a colour
Highlight across pages	Drag to the bottom-right corner and hold	Unreliable since 2025: highlight each page
Add a note	Select, tap the sticky-note icon	Select or tap a highlight, tap Note
Bookmark	Tap the top-right corner	Tap the page, then the bookmark icon
Change colour	Colorsoft: tap highlight, colour circle	Tap highlight, hold the colour dot
Delete a highlight	Tap it, Delete	Annotations, three dots, Delete Highlight
See all highlights	Top of screen, notebook icon	Top of screen, Annotations or Notebook
Hide Popular Highlights	Aa, More, Popular Highlights off	Aa menu, Popular Highlights off

Looking for highlights you already made? Where to find and view your Kindle highlights covers the device, the app, read.amazon.com/notebook, personal documents and Goodreads.

Keep every highlight in one place

Highlights you make are spread across the book's notebook, My Clippings.txt and Amazon. Clippings.io imports all of them, from every book at once, and exports them to Notion, Evernote, Word, PDF, Markdown and a dozen other places. Importing and browsing are free.

Kindle highlighting questions

Can you highlight on a Kindle Paperwhite?: Yes. Press and hold a word until it is selected, drag to the end of the passage, then tap Highlight in the menu that appears. Every Kindle e-reader, from the basic Kindle to the Oasis, Colorsoft and Scribe, can highlight; only the Colorsoft models and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft let you choose a colour.
How do I highlight across two pages on a Kindle?: Start the selection as usual, then drag your finger to the bottom-right corner of the screen and hold it there. The page turns and the selection carries on. Keep holding to span more pages, or drag to the top-left corner to go back a page.
How do I turn off highlights on my Kindle?: It depends which highlights you mean. The dotted or underlined passages you did not make are Popular Highlights: open a book, tap the top of the screen, tap Aa, then More, and switch Popular Highlights off. If the highlight menu pops up every time you select a word, the same Aa > More screen has a setting to stop it opening automatically on models that offer it. To remove a highlight you made, tap it and choose Delete.
Why did the highlight and bookmark buttons move?: Amazon changed the Kindle reading interface in late 2025 (software 5.18.6). Selecting text now shows a compact menu with a highlight button, a note button and Look Up, and the bookmark icon left the top toolbar: you bookmark by tapping the top-right corner of the page instead. The Kindle Oasis stayed on older software and still has the previous menus.
Can you take notes on a Kindle Paperwhite?: Yes. Select a word or passage, tap the Note button (a sticky-note icon on current software), type with the on-screen keyboard and save. The note is marked in the text and listed in the book's Annotation Notebook with your highlights. Handwritten notes need a Kindle Scribe.
Where do my Kindle highlights go?: Into the book's Annotation Notebook on the device, into a file called My Clippings.txt on the Kindle, and, for books from the Kindle store, to Amazon, which syncs them to your other devices and the Kindle app and shows them at read.amazon.com/notebook. Our guide to finding your Kindle highlights covers each place.
Can I export my Kindle highlights?: Amazon's apps email one book's notebook at a time. Clippings.io imports every book at once from read.amazon.com/notebook with a browser extension, adds My Clippings.txt for personal documents, and exports the whole library to Notion, Evernote, Word, PDF, Markdown and more. Importing is free.

Steps checked against Amazon's user guides and help pages on 29 September 2026, for Kindle software 5.19.6.

Sources

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