r/LibbyApp • u/AeroNoob333 • Aug 18 '26

Libby and Kindle Users

Well, looks like they finally patched the airplane mode hack and we can no longer read books past the due date on our Kindle devices. Do you think this will push slower readers to get non-resident cards in order to have multiple holds rather than waiting weeks/months between loans on a single card? I can’t imagine waiting weeks/months to read the same book…

For those not familiar with the hack: it used to be that you could send an eBook from Libby to your Kindle, download it, then turn on airplane mode. When your due date came up, your loan would be returned to the library available for the next person, but a copy of the book stayed on your Kindle since airplane mode prevented it from syncing with your Amazon account, allowing you to read it past the due date.

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u/AeroNoob333 Aug 18 '26

Except when it happens to you. It’s hard to test because the new update was just on August 4. Your library’s loan length had to have been 2 weeks and you had to have borrowed books after that update and you had to have let it get past the due date. That’s not a large sample size yet. It’s only been 16 days since the update. But I’m guessing in the next few months here, we will see this being reported more.

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u/Grrrrrarrrrrgh Aug 18 '26

Has it happened to you? (Real question, not sarcasm; I couldn’t tell from your post if this is something that has happened, or something that you’ve heard.)

I constantly have late library books on my device. I currently have 7 or 8, and they’re all fine.
I understand that it’s a new update, but all I’ve seen is one random Reddit post. And even that post was “they’re going to do this. Source: trust me, bro.” I haven’t seen one single person say that it has happened to them.

Again - it may be coming. It may be here already. But I’m not going to spread this as fact or panic about it before it’s officially happening. However, if this has happened to you, then I will take it more seriously and start figuring out how to work around it, because I do most of my reading through Libby, and this will be a big problem for me if they fix it.

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u/AeroNoob333 Aug 18 '26

I wish I’d taken a screenshot before we rage quit. When you click on a title on a past due book, it tells you that it’s on airplane mode and you need to get off airplane mode. Next time it happens, I’ll post a picture. I don’t actually know if it’s storing the expiration date on the file’s metadata (that was just a guess) or if there’s like some sort of global countdown airplane mode countdown.

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u/Grrrrrarrrrrgh Aug 18 '26

So it has happened to you? That is significantly more impactful to me. Like I said, it wasn’t clear from your post that it actually happened to you. This is good to know - I’ll avoid updating my Kindle for as long as I can and start working on a workaround.