How Many Books Can You Store On A 16 GB Kindle? It's A Lot More Than You Think

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

There's no denying the value of a traditional, bound book. It's a tactile experience that many enjoy that includes the feel and smell of the paper and the weight of the book in your hand. In our digital age, others simply enjoy taking time away from a screen. But carrying around a stack of books can be a pain (literally!), so many of us only tote around one or two. E-readers, on the other hand, like the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, offer their own perks. You can slip one into your tote bag or briefcase and bring a library of potentially thousands of books with you, rather than just one. Just how many books depends on the storage size of the e-reader, of course, but just how many books can one 16 GB Kindle hold?

Amazon offers several models of Kindle with 16 GB of memory, including the standard Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite, and the Kindle Colorsoft. The Kindle Kids model also offers 16 GB. The operating system takes up a few gigabytes of space, depending on the model, so you won't have access to all of that storage. According to Amazon, a 16 GB Kindle will hold "thousands" of books. Here's what that means, and why it doesn't offer an exact number.

Different types of files and media take up different amounts of space on your phone or laptop, and the same holds true for a Kindle. You may think, well, a book is a book, right? Wrong. Text-heavy books, like Harry Potter or that new autobiography by Michael J. Fox, will take up less space than graphic-heavy tomes, like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books or popular manga. This is why Amazon doesn't come right out and say exactly how many books its 16-GB readers can hold.

For most people, however, 16 GB is more than enough space. If you fill your Kindle with average-length books, which each take up about two to four megabytes, you'll be able to store between 2,875 books to more than 5,700 books. If you're more keen on graphic novels, you can store far fewer on your e-reader — probably only a few hundred given an average size of 50 MB — so you may want to consider opting for the 32 GB Kindle Paperwhite model.

Having said that, if you don't plan on storing large files on your Kindle, storage space doesn't actually matter a great deal. All Kindle devices use the cloud for storage, just like your Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy. The company provides unlimited storage for all Amazon content, allowing you to download your current reads and then store them in the cloud when you're done. If you want to re-read an old favorite, simply download the file again. Your Kindle will also support other types of files, including PDFs.