Breaking Audible DRM

[!WARNING] this post is old – instructions may not work as described anymore.

Audible allows you to download your purchased audio books, but provides them in an encrypted .aax format.

Authcode / Activation Bytes

It’s possible to download your personal key from the audible servers using audible-activator, a python script that opens Audible in a browser and extracts the key. To get the code, run the script, log in, and wait a second You’ll get an output like this:

$ ./audible-activator.py
        Username: email@url.com
        Password:
        [*] Player ID is jrzt34fl3gS34z/p9KLLIw/ugaf=

        activation_bytes: c0ffee1234

I recommend saving the activation bytes to a file called .authcode in your home directory.

AAXtoMP3

With tthe activation bytes, you can use AAXtoMP3 to decrypt the .aax to a usable format like mp3.

$ AAXtoMP3 -s -- audiobook.aax

The -s option creates a single file. By default a file will be generated for each chapter.