Kobo My Words export: there is no button, there is a file.
Nov 3, 2026 · 5 min read
Yes, Kobo has a vocabulary builder, called My Words, and it is still a beta feature. No export button for it could be found. Forum posts say the list sits in the WordList table of the hidden .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite file on the device, which a few lines of sqlite3 will read.
Where My Words is in the menu
Kobo introduced My Words as a beta in firmware 4.26. The Ebook Reader's post of 17 February 2021 says to enable it under More, Beta Features, My Words. The feature saves words you have looked up in the dictionary, and they are found under More, Activity. The same post does not mention any export.
Kobo's own help article on missing content, last updated 28 October 2026, still calls it "My Words (Beta)". It adds a warning: on some beta software builds (5.18.270971 and 6.0.274403, on the Libra Colour, Clara BW and Clara Colour) customers lost their My Words entries, and Kobo says version 6.0.279225 recovers saved words if the device was not reset or signed out. See Kobo's article before updating. This is one more reason to copy the list out.
Where the data is stored
Plug the Kobo into your Mac by USB. It shows up as a drive with a hidden folder called .kobo, which Finder reveals with ⇧⌘. Inside is KoboReader.sqlite. In a MobileRead thread from December 2018 a user says the My Words list is in the WordList table of that file. In a 2017 thread, the plugin developer davidfor wrote that the table "just has the word, the id of the book, language and date".
Copy the file somewhere else before you touch it. Reports also say that a factory reset, or signing out, creates a new database and wipes the list.
Reading the list with sqlite3
The columns are reported, not documented by Kobo. A word-list exporter on GitHub reads SELECT VolumeId, Text FROM WordList, and an Obsidian plugin checks for columns named DictSuffix, VolumeId and DateCreated. Open your copy first and look:
sqlite3 KoboReader.sqlite '.schema WordList'
If it shows what the reports say, this exports a CSV. It was run on a scratch database built with those four columns (Text, VolumeId, DictSuffix, DateCreated), not on a real Kobo, so adjust the names if your schema differs:
You get one row per word, with the book it came from as a file path and the date. For a backup you can restore later, the 2018 thread suggests sqlite3 KoboReader.sqlite '.dump WordList', with the warning that the table is joined on VolumeId, so it may not work on a device with a different file layout.
If you would rather not touch SQL, an open-source kobo-wordlist-exporter script groups the words by book into a text file. Check what it does before you run it.
The gap: the word without its sentence
By those reports the table holds the word, the book, a language suffix and a date. No column for the sentence turns up, and none of the threads read for this page mentioned one. A word like "tender" or "bank" that you saved in March tells you nothing in June. Whether the device itself offers a way back to the page could not be confirmed, so this page takes no position on it.
Kobo has an official annotations export as well, announced in September 2025 for purchased Kobo and Kobo Plus books. The Ebook Reader's report says it covers notes and highlights, in PDF, HTML, TXT and Markdown, and the author could not get the option to appear. It does not mention My Words, and it excludes sideloaded books.
For words you look up on a Mac
If part of your reading is on a Mac, LeafyApp fills that gap for that part. Press ⌥A, drag a box over the sentence in a PDF, an article, a scan or an app, and macOS text recognition reads that patch of screen. An AI explains the word as the sentence uses it, and the word is saved automatically with its sentence, source and date.
The saved list exports to Anki, CSV, Excel, JSON or PDF, and an import takes CSV or XLSX word lists (see importing a word list), so you can put your Kobo words in the same library. They will not gain sentences by doing that. LeafyApp does not read from your Kobo and cannot add the sentence back to words already saved there. The picture is read on your Mac and thrown away. Only the word and its sentence go out, with nothing attached that says who you are. See privacy.
Questions people ask
Does Kobo have a vocabulary builder? Yes, it is called My Words. It arrived as a beta feature in firmware 4.26 in February 2021 and is enabled under More, Beta Features, My Words. Saved words appear under More, Activity.
How do I export my Kobo My Words list? No export button turns up. Forum posts say the list is the WordList table in .kobo/KoboReader.sqlite on the device, which you can read with sqlite3. Check .schema WordList on your own copy first, since the columns are reported, not official.
Where is the KoboReader.sqlite file? In the hidden .kobo folder on the Kobo's USB drive. On a Mac, press ⇧⌘. in Finder to show hidden folders. Copy the file before opening it.
Does Kobo My Words save the sentence? Not according to the reports found. A plugin developer wrote in 2017 that the table has the word, the book id, language and date. This could not be checked on a device, so look at your own database.
Keep the sentence next to the word.
Free while LeafyApp is in beta. One download, macOS 14 and up.
Kindle, Kobo and Amazon are trademarks of their respective owners. LeafyApp is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon or Rakuten Kobo, and the names are used here only to describe compatibility and for comparison.