How to Bring KOReader and Kobo Highlights into Nostos

Update: Nostos now imports Kindle and Readwise highlights too, from the same place. The steps below cover Kobo and KOReader. In the app, open Settings → Library → Highlight import for all four.

If you read on an e-ink device, your highlights and notes probably live on that device and nowhere else. Nostos can import them from a Kobo and from anything running KOReader. Kindle and Readwise work too; see the end.

Where to find it

Open Settings → Library → Highlight import. Press Import… and you get a box you can drop files into.

What you drop depends on the device.

From a Kobo

Connect the Kobo to your computer by USB. It shows up as a drive. On that drive is a hidden folder called .kobo, and inside it is a file called KoboReader.sqlite.

That one file holds the highlights and notes for every book on the device, so you only need to pick it once.

If you can’t see the .kobo folder, your computer is hiding it. On macOS press Cmd + Shift + . in Finder. On Windows turn on “Hidden items” in File Explorer’s View menu.

From KOReader

KOReader keeps its notes per book. Next to each book there is a folder ending in .sdr, and inside it a file named like metadata.epub.lua or metadata.pdf.lua. That file is what Nostos reads.

You can select several of these at once, one for each book you care about.

If you’ve changed where KOReader stores book metadata in its settings, the .sdr folders will be wherever you pointed it instead of next to the books.

Check before anything is added

Nothing is imported the moment you drop a file. Nostos first shows you where each book’s highlights are going, sorted into three groups:

• Ready: the book is already in your library and the match is clear.
• Check these: Nostos has a guess and asks you to confirm it, or lets you pick a different book.
• Not in your library: you can search for the right book yourself, or add it as a new book so the highlights have somewhere to go.

When it looks right, press import.

Importing twice is fine

Importing the same file again doesn’t create duplicates. So you can keep reading on the device and re-import every so often to pick up what’s new. Matches you confirmed the first time are remembered.

If an import went into the wrong book, the same window lists your recent imports with an Undo next to each.

What you get in Nostos

The highlights land with the book as notes, like ones you’d made in Nostos itself.

For an EPUB, Nostos also tries to find each highlighted passage in the book’s own text. When it finds it, the highlight is drawn on the page, and you can jump to it from the note. For a PDF, a KOReader highlight opens on the right page with the passage marked.

Sometimes a passage can’t be found in the book’s text. The note is still imported. It just won’t have a spot in the book to jump to.

The E-reader Highlights page in the docs has the same steps with the file size limits and a few more details.

What about Kindle and Readwise

Both are supported now. Open Settings → Library → Highlight import, press Import…, and follow the prompts for Kindle or Readwise. Everything above about checking matches before anything is added, importing twice, and undo applies to them as well.