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How to Manually Update the Kindle Fire

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Warner told you that a new Kindle Fire update dropped and should show up on your device soon. However, I’ve not received it. Impatient person that I am for the latest and greatest, I chose to manually update since I’m not planning to root my Fire until they get the mods more stable and functional.

You can update your Fire in one of two ways and I will show you how.

You might be tempted to want to wait till Amazon sends the update to your device over the air, but trust me. You want it now thanks to a smoother interface. In just a few minutes of testing, most of the stuttering input and difficulty selecting buttons disappeared. The  Silk browser performance didn’t improve despite predictions and you still get a jittery scrolling of web pages. The Wi-Fi dropout when the device turns off still occurs, but reconnect seems faster. The smoother interface alone is a big step forward.

Tethered Update

The first way is to download the update directly to your computer and transfer it to the Fire via USB. Plug in your Kindle Fire and open either Windows Explorer or Mac OS X Finder. It should show up as KINDLE under your connected drives. From the Amazon update page, you can download the 6.2.1 update and manually transfer it to the “kindleupdates” folder on the device.

Amazon Kindle Fire

Next open the Quick Settings, which you find by tapping in the upper right corner of the screen (the icon looks like a little gear cog). Tap More and then Device. Finally choose Update Your Kindle and it will find the update and apply it. The Kindle Fire restarts a couple of times during the update.

To confirm the update, follow the above steps and make sure the button is grayed out and the version says 6.2.1.

Update Using the Fire Itself

ES File Explorer

If you don’t want to bother with a computer, do what I did. Download the update (that’s a direct link to the update file) on your device and movie it over to the right folder. You will need a file explorer app to do this. I like ES File Explorer, a free app with a pretty interface (Christmas themed this month).

Once you install ES File Explorer, go to the Downloads folder. Tap and hold the file name and choose Cut. Now navigate to the kindleupdates folder where you tap the menu button at the bottom of the ES File Explorer screen and choose the update file name, which will paste it into the folder.

Now follow the same instructions above by updating from the Quick Settings menu.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Luke

    01/07/2016 at 5:30 pm

    I couldn’t find the kindle updates folder. Can you tell me what directory it’s in

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