Help & FAQ

Bookbeam is a Chrome extension that converts web articles and YouTube videos into EPUB files and sends them directly to your e-reader — Kindle, Kobo, reMarkable, PocketBook, Dropbox, Google Drive, or a download link.

When you click Send on an article page, Bookbeam extracts the text, removes ads and clutter using AI, builds a properly formatted EPUB, and delivers it to your device — all in under 30 seconds.

You can use the Download link delivery method without an account. Bookbeam will generate a temporary download link you can open on any device to get the EPUB file.

To send directly to your Kindle, Kobo, Dropbox, or Google Drive, you need to create a free account. Sign up takes under a minute — no credit card required.

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Bookbeam.
2. Click Add to Chrome.
3. Pin the extension to your toolbar by clicking the puzzle icon → pin Bookbeam.
4. Click the Bookbeam icon on any article or YouTube page and hit Send to Reader.

Bookbeam works with two types of content:

• Articles — any news article, blog post, essay, newsletter, or long-form web page. Bookbeam detects the main body text and strips everything else.
• YouTube videos — Bookbeam fetches the public transcript and formats it as a readable script with timestamps. You can also get an AI-generated summary, or both together.

Bookbeam does not work on homepages, login pages, paywalled content you don't have access to, or pages with no readable text (e.g. image galleries, maps).

1. Open the Bookbeam popup → Settings → Delivery → select Email → choose Kindle.
2. Enter your @kindle.com address. You can find it in your Amazon account under Manage Your Kindle → Preferences → Personal Document Settings.
3. On that same Amazon page, add deliver@bookbeam.tools to your approved sender list. This is required — Amazon will silently reject emails from unknown senders.
4. Click Save. Your next send will arrive on your Kindle within a few seconds.

The setup is the same for all three — select your device in Settings → Delivery → Email, enter the device email address, and save. Here's where to find your email address for each:

• Kobo — kobo.com → Account → Kobo email settings. Add deliver@bookbeam.tools as an approved sender.
• reMarkable — reMarkable app → Settings → My reMarkable → email address. No approved sender setup required.
• PocketBook — PocketBook Cloud → Settings → Email to Reader. Add deliver@bookbeam.tools as a trusted sender.

1. Open the Bookbeam popup → Settings → Delivery.
2. Select Dropbox or Google Drive.
3. Click Connect and complete the OAuth authorisation in the popup window.
4. Once connected, every article you send will be automatically uploaded to your /Bookbeam folder.

You only need to connect once. Bookbeam stores your OAuth tokens securely server-side and refreshes them automatically — you will not need to reconnect after logging out.

• Articles — typically 10–25 seconds from click to delivery.
• YouTube transcripts — 30–90 seconds depending on video length, since transcripts need to be fetched and optionally summarised by AI.

Kindle delivery can take an additional 1–2 minutes to appear on device, as Amazon syncs over Wi-Fi. Dropbox and Google Drive appear instantly once Bookbeam confirms the upload.

Bookbeam uses Google's Gemini AI to extract the main article body and reformat it as clean, e-reader-optimised EPUB HTML. The AI automatically removes:

• Ads, sponsored content, and promotional widgets
• Cookie banners and newsletter popups
• Navigation menus, headers, and footers
• Related articles, sidebars, and social share buttons
• Comment sections

What's preserved: the full article text, headings, blockquotes, code blocks, links, and tables. The original language is preserved by default, but you can set a translation language in Settings → Language.

By default, images are stripped to keep EPUBs lightweight and clean. You can enable the article's main header image by going to Settings → Articles → toggle Include header image.

For YouTube videos, the video thumbnail is included at the top of the EPUB by default. You can disable this in Settings → YouTube → toggle Include thumbnail.

You can choose what to include in the YouTube EPUB under Settings → YouTube:

• Full script — the complete cleaned transcript with timestamps. Best for dense technical talks or lectures you want to follow in detail.
• AI summary only — a TL;DR and key takeaways generated by AI. Best for quickly deciding whether a video is worth watching in full.
• Summary + full script — both together. Opens with the AI summary, followed by the complete transcript.

Yes. Go to Settings → Language and select a target language. Bookbeam will translate the article during the AI cleaning step before building the EPUB. This works for articles in any language.

Supported languages include English, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, and more.

Bookbeam can only send content that is visible to you in your browser. If you have a subscription to a publication and can read the full article when logged in, Bookbeam can send it. If you only see a truncated preview, Bookbeam will only send the visible portion.

Bookbeam does not bypass paywalls or access any content you are not already authorised to read.

New accounts get a 7-day Power trial — no credit card required. After the trial, your account switches to the Free plan automatically.

Every new Bookbeam account automatically receives a 7-day Power trial. During the trial you have full access to all delivery methods and the highest sending limits — no credit card required and nothing to cancel.

At the end of the 7 days, your account automatically reverts to the Free plan (3 articles/day, download link only). If you want to keep using Kindle, Kobo, Dropbox, or Google Drive delivery, upgrade to the Reader or Power plan from the extension's Settings tab.

Open the Bookbeam popup → Settings → click Upgrade (if on trial/free) or Plans (if already subscribed). This opens the Bookbeam checkout where you can pick a plan, billing interval, and pay securely via Polar.sh.

To cancel or change your plan, click Plans in Settings to open the customer portal. Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then.

Yes — daily limits reset at midnight UTC every day. You can see your current usage for the day in the Settings tab under your account card.

Email hello@bookbeam.tools with the subject line Delete my account and include the email address you signed up with. We will delete your account and all associated data within 30 days.

If you have an active paid subscription, please cancel it first via the customer portal to avoid further charges.

Bookbeam requires a minimum amount of readable text to generate a useful EPUB. This error appears when:

• You are on a homepage, category page, or search results page rather than a specific article.
• The page is mostly images, video embeds, or interactive content with very little text.
• The page requires a login to show the full content.

Navigate directly to the article page (the URL should point to a specific post, not the site's homepage) and try again.

Bookbeam uses AI to extract the main article body, which works well for the vast majority of sites. Occasionally it can be overzealous and remove some content, or miss sections on unusually structured pages.

If the article arrived incomplete, try toggling Remove ads & promotions off in Settings → Articles — this uses a lighter cleaning pass. If the problem persists on a specific site, please report it to hello@bookbeam.tools with the URL.

If Bookbeam showed a success message but the file isn't on your Kindle, check the following:

1. Approved sender — the most common cause. Log in to Amazon → Manage Your Kindle → Preferences → Personal Document Settings and confirm deliver@bookbeam.tools is in your approved sender list.
2. Correct Kindle email — double-check the address you saved in Settings is your actual @kindle.com address, not your regular Amazon login email.
3. Wi-Fi sync — Kindle syncs when connected to Wi-Fi. Make sure your Kindle is online; new documents can take 1–2 minutes to appear.
4. Check your Amazon inbox — go to amazon.com/sendtokindle to see if the document was received but not yet synced to your device.

Bookbeam uses YouTube's public transcript data. A transcript may be unavailable if:

• The video creator has disabled captions or transcripts.
• The video is very recently uploaded and auto-captions haven't been generated yet (usually takes a few minutes for YouTube to process).
• The video is age-restricted, private, or region-blocked.
• The video has no spoken content (music-only, silent, etc.).

If the video has captions visible on YouTube but Bookbeam still fails, please email hello@bookbeam.tools with the video URL.

OAuth tokens are refreshed automatically, so this should be rare. If you get a connection error:

1. Go to Settings → Delivery → click Disconnect next to the provider.
2. Click Connect again and complete the authorisation flow.

This re-issues a fresh token and should resolve the issue. If it keeps happening, contact hello@bookbeam.tools.

Daily limits reset at midnight UTC. If you regularly hit your limit, consider upgrading — the Reader plan raises the limit to 20 articles and 10 YouTube videos per day, and the Power plan to 100 articles and 20 YouTube videos.

You can check your current usage in the Settings tab under your account card.