Looking to read Harry Potter for free? No matter whether you’re reading Harry Potter for the first time or about to read it for the millionth, Harry Potter is a beloved and magical read. And if you’re looking specifically for free Harry Potter books, then these 5 methods are some excellent ways you can get your hands on the Harry Potter books free and legally!
Looking for free Harry Potter audiobooks? Check out how you can get the audio versions free now!
1. Borrow From Your Local Library
When you’re looking to read Harry Potter for free, there’s no better place to start than your local library. It’s likely you already know about this option, but it is definitely a worthwhile place to check before you try the other methods in this post.
The Harry Potter series is super popular, so it’s guaranteed that your local library should have some copies for you to borrow. However, its popularity also means that you may have to wait on a holds list for a little while as you wait for others to return it to the library.
But if you have the time to wait and prefer to read from a physical book rather than a digital copy, then this is the perfect method to choose for getting Harry Potter books for free. And you never know—it’s possible that the specific Harry Potter book you’re looking for may happen to be available immediately from your library!
2. Borrow From the Overdrive/Libby Apps
Overdrive and Libby are some of my favorite reading apps, and you can use them to get Harry Potter ebooks free! In fact, you can use these apps to get a variety of ebooks and audiobooks for free on your phone, computer, etc. There is a catch, though—you need to have a library card.
Both Overdrive and Libby sync with your local library to allow you access to the materials in your library’s online lending library. All you have to do is enter your card number and then you can start browsing and downloading books for free, including getting free Harry Potter ebooks! You don’t even have to go anywhere, and can instead download Harry Potter for free from the comfort of your home.
However, there are some limitations to this method of getting Harry Potter books online free. Just like borrowing a physical copy of books from a local library, downloading a copy from Overdrive or Libby also requires you to wait your turn if someone else is already reading the book you want. Libraries only have a certain number of electronic “copies” that they can lend out at one time, so you may have to join a holds list in order to download Harry Potter books for free.
If you’re willing to wait if necessary, then using Overdrive or Libby is one of the best ways to download Harry Potter ebooks for free. It’s also a wonderful app in general if you’re looking to read other cool books, so it’s worth downloading whether or not Harry Potter is immediately available from your library’s online database!
Tip: Join multiple libraries in your area to search all their catalogs. I use the city library from my nearest large city (San Diego) as well as being a member of the county library and the library in the actual city I live in. With 2-3 libraries on the app, your chances of finding an available free Harry Potter ebook are greatly increased!
3. Sign up for a Kindle Unlimited Free Trial
If you haven’t used Kindle Unlimited before (or haven’t used it recently), then this is an amazing way to read Harry Potter online free! All you have to do is sign up for a free 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited, and then you can immediately start to download free Harry Potter books.
You won’t have to wait to borrow books like you might at a library, and lucky for you Kindle Unlimited has all the Harry Potter books for free…which means you can get started reading them all right now! Plus, if you can read them all within 30 days then that means you can read the entire Harry Potter series for free! Not a bad deal at all.
The only limitation here is that you cannot have had a Kindle Unlimited trial in the recent past or it may not show you the option of a free trial now. But as long as you meet this criteria, this is definitely one of the best (and quickest) ways to get started and read Harry Potter free.
Looking for a specific book in the series? Here are all the Kindle Unlimited offerings for you to download Harry Potter books free:
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (read online free with trial)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (read online free with trial)
4. Borrow the Books From a Friend
If you’re a book lover in general and a Harry Potter lover in specific, then it’s likely you have friends who share your interests. And it’s also quite possible that one of them has purchased the Harry Potter books and might allow you to borrow them for a little while.
Although this will require you to hunt down the books and pick them up from a friend, it is still an excellent way to get Harry Potter free books to read if you can’t spend money to buy your own copies right now. If you don’t know of anyone off the top of your head who owns copies of the Harry Potter series, then you can always post on Facebook or other social media asking if anyone has them. It can’t hurt to try, and you just may be surprised how many people have the books and are willing to let you borrow them!
5. Ask a Friend for Access to Their Overdrive/Libby Account
Like borrowing a physical copy of Harry Potter from a friend, you could also check if anyone you know (who has access to different libraries than you) would be willing to let you borrow their library card number to see if the Harry Potter books are available in their online lending library.
If you find someone willing to share their card number for you to put into Overdrive or Libby, then you can check to see if their libraries have available copies to download Harry Potter books online free. It’s the same process as using your own Overdrive/Libby account, but just with a different card number. Then once you’ve finished reading the book, simply delete their library’s account from your Overdrive app and it will return sole control to the owner.
If you haven’t been able to find a Harry Potter ebook free using any of the methods above, then this is a good last resort to try to find a free Harry Potter books download.
What to Do if You Need the Harry Potter Books Right Now
If you have tried all the above methods and you still haven’t been able to read Harry Potter books online free or find a physical copy for free, then what should you do?
If you find yourself at this point and have already used your Kindle Unlimited free trial, then my best recommendation is to just go ahead and sign up for a month of Kindle Unlimited. This might not give you a Harry Potter free ebook, but it is one of the cheapest ways to borrow Harry Potter books immediately.
While a month of Kindle Unlimited costs $9.99, one Harry Potter Kindle book costs $8.99 to buy. So if you have limited funds and want to read at least two Harry Potter books within the month, then Kindle Unlimited is an excellent deal for you to get a chance to read the books for far less than it would cost to buy them. It’s not the same as getting the Harry Potter books for free, but it is a pretty good deal if you need them right away and want to pay less to read them.