Kindle highlight parser and exporter

kindle-highlight-exporter.md

Simple script to export highlights from a Kindle.

Requirments

• macOS host
• Kindle plugged into Mac
• Deno installed on Mac

Usage

chmod +x ./parse-kindle-highlights.ts
./parse-kindle-highlights.ts > highlights.json

parse-kindle-highlights.ts

#!/usr/bin/env -S deno run --allow-read=/Volumes/Kindle/documents

const withPageMatcher =
  /- Your Highlight on page (\d*) \| Location (\d*)-(\d*) \| Added on (.*)/;
const withoutPageMatcher =
  /- Your Highlight on Location (\d*)-(\d*) \| Added on (.*)/;

const raw = await Deno.readTextFile(
  "/Volumes/Kindle/documents/My Clippings.txt",
);

const clippings = raw.split("==========").map((clip) =>
  clip.split("\r\n").filter((a) => a.length > 0)
).filter((a) => a.length === 3).map((parts) => {
  const withPageParts = withPageMatcher.exec(parts[1]);
  const withoutPageParts = withoutPageMatcher.exec(parts[1]);

  return {
    book: parts[0].trim(),
    page: withPageParts ? withPageParts[1] : null,
    location: withPageParts
      ? [parseInt(withPageParts[2]), parseInt(withPageParts[3])]
      : (
        withoutPageParts
          ? [parseInt(withoutPageParts[1]), parseInt(withoutPageParts[2])]
          : null
      ),
    added_on: withPageParts ? withPageParts[4] : (
      withoutPageParts ? withoutPageParts[3] : null
    ),
    content: parts[2],
  };
});

console.log(JSON.stringify(clippings, null, 4));