Free method to read Google Play Books (ACSM) on Kobo eReader

Books on Google Play is Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected by default to prevent unauthorized sharing of ebooks. If you want to read a DRM-enabled ebook on Kobo eReader, you must remove the DRM protection.

Download the book from Google Play Books

1. Go to https://play.google.com/books, click the “3 dots button” and click “Export”

   • DRM-enabled books larger than 128 MBs can’t be made available for download from Google Play.

   

2. Select “Export ACSM for EPUB”

   

3. File downloaded (in .acsm format)

   • e.g. /Document/mybook.acsm

4. If your ebook is not DRM protected, the popup would look like that:

   

Get EPUB from Adobe Digital Editor

1. Adobe Content Server Message (ACSM) **file is not an eBook format. Instead, it is a downloader file that let you download the ebook** in Adobe Digital Editions. The downloaded ebook (usually is a .epub file) will be stored on your local drive.

2. Install Adobe Digital Editor

   • Set the document location (e.g. My Document)

   • You would see a folder is created

     

3. Open Adobe Digital Editor

4. Authorise the computer to download and read the DRM protected ebook

   • IMPORTANT!!! This step is like claiming who is the owner of this ebook. Of course, you can still read the ebook on Google Play either way.
     • With Account ID: you can only allow one account to download the ebook, while you can use the same account on up to 6 devices.
     • Without Account ID: you can only allow downloading the ebook on this device. You can’t even reauthorize the ebook to the same device.

5. Select File > Add to library OR drag the .acsm file to Adobe Digital Editor

   • the readable ebook will popup

6. Epub file is downloaded in the Document folder

   

Remove DRM

1. The epub is still DRM protected so the Kobo eReader can not read it

2. Install Calibre (latest version 5.38) download link / github link

   • It is an open source e-book manager
   • Set document location

3. Install plugin “DRM_tool” for removing DRM (latest version: 7.2.1) download link / github link

   • Download .zip

     • extract it

     • there should be a “DeDRM_plugin.zip” and other files

       

   • Open Calibre

     • Click Preferences > Preferences

       

     • Click Plugins

       

     • Click Load plugin from file

       

     • select the DeDRM_plugin.zip

       

     • Install successfully

       

       

     • Restart Calibre

4. Remove DRM

   • Drag the epub file to Calibre

   • Successfully load into the booklist

     

   • Go to the Calibre Document folder

   • A folder with the DRM removed epub is generated

     

   • If you forgot where is the Calibre Document folder, you can still right-click the book > Save to disk > Save to disk

     

   • A folder with the DRM removed epub is generated