legimi-go

Simple, alternative downloader of Legimi ebooks written in Go.

Basically, a rewrite of previous downloader in Lua.

It is completely unofficial, I am not affiliated with Legimi in any way.

Note

This is still work in progress, however, it is already usable.

You can find more information about how it came about in Background.

Installation

Simply download archive from Releases section, unpack and make it executable (if needed): $ chmod +x legimi-go. You can add installation directory to your PATH variable to be able to run it from anywhere, of course.

Alternatively, if you have Go installed, you can install it using go install command:

$ go install github.com/tp86/legimi-go@<version>

<version> can be specific version tag from releases or latest to get code from main branch. Note that main branch may contain unfinished features. I'm doing my best to commit only working code, though.

Usage

To view usage, invoke:

$ legimi-go --help

Options

All command line switches are optional.

• --config path

  Path to configuration file. Default value is "$HOME/.config/legimi-go/config.ini". Configuration file contains your credentials and Kindle Id as assigned by Legimi service. It will be automatically created (with missing directories) on first command run, so generally you don't need to modify it by hand. If you don't want to store your login and password in file, you can provide credentials in command line (see --login and --password switches).

Tip

You can create many configuration files so you can easily switch between multiple accounts.

• --login login

  Your Legimi login. If you don't provide login from command line, it will be read from configuration file. If it is missing in configuration file as well, you will be asked to provide it during command execution. It will be then stored in configuration file, so you don't have to repeat it during future command runs. If you do provide login from command line, it will not be written to configuration file.

• --password password

  Your Legimi password. Same logic as for login applies. Note that login and password are stored in configuration file as plain text.

• --debug

  Enable debugging mode. In debugging mode, selected information about exchanged requests and responses is printed to stderr. Currently, probably the most useful information is contained within session response.

Note

You can give switches with one (-config) or two dashes (--config).

Commands

Available commands are:

• list

  List books currently on your Legimi shelf.

• download <id> ...

  Download book(s) given their id(s). Book id can be obtained by listing books (first value in book entry line).

• version

  Print legimi-go version.

Providing command is mandatory, there is no default command.

On the first command invocation, you will be prompted to provide credentials (if not given via command line switches, see above) and Kindle Serial Number (Settings -> Device Options -> Device Info in Kindle). Legimi Kindle Id will be automatically queried and stored in configuration file for future use.

Basic usage scenario

1. List books on your shelf

   $ legimi-go list

   If you're running script for the first time, or passing configuration file that does not have credentials yet, you will be prompted for login and password.

2. Download selected book(s)

   $ legimi-go download <book-id>

   Downloaded book will be saved to <book-id>.mobi file in current working directory.

Tip

You can cd into mounted Kindle's documents directory before downloading to avoid copying files.

3. Copy files to your Kindle's documents directory

   This is optional if you have downloaded books while in documents directory.

Limitations

Obviously, only subset of functionality of official Legimi app is supported.

Most error responses are not recognized / handled yet. This should improve in the future.

Script is not intended to create account or register device unknown to the Legimi service. You should use official app for this. Device registration works, but may cause issues.

If you want to know how many book downloads are left in subscription period, you can use -debug switch and look for downloads left information under Session response section. If you are trying to download more books than you limit, Legimi service will block downloads.

Troubleshooting

If something is not working as expected, try to use -debug switch to get more information.

Official Legimi app should be checked also, as it is a reference point. Using official app can also potentially fix issues (#3 (comment)).

Background

Official Legimi app does not support Linux. I wanted to be able to download ebooks from Linux without the need to switch between OSes (or even have Windows installed).

First version of downloader was created in Lua. It worked fine, but proved to be hard to install sometimes (dependencies installed to different paths). It is also hard to maintain and it causes issues with Legimi protocol updates. Therefore, I decided to rewrite script in Go. I hope it will be easier to install, use and maintain.

I extracted the logic of downloading books based on traffic exchanged between official Legimi application and service. As such, there are certainly missing pieces and features. Also, most error responses are not supported. See Limitations for more missing features.

TODO

• handle more error responses from Legimi service
• refactors
• documentation update
• increase test coverage
• reuse session id if possible
• parallel downloader
• handle occassional EOF while getting list of books
• option to specify directory for downloaded books