SZ2Kindle

I bought my grandfather a Kindle so he could read the Süddeutsche Zeitung without squinting at newsprint. The only missing piece: getting the daily ePub from his SZ-Plus subscription onto the device automatically.

This script does exactly that. It logs into reader.sueddeutsche.de, grabs the latest ePub edition, and delivers it — by default via email to a Kindle address, or via WebDAV upload. Run it once a day and the newspaper just shows up.

Every line of code in this repository was written by Claude Code — no manual edits. This doubles as a real-world case study of what AI-assisted development looks like end-to-end: from reverse-engineering the SZ authentication flow to debugging TLS fingerprinting issues to writing the Dockerfile.

Setup

Docker (recommended)

Fill in the environment variables in compose.yaml and run:

docker compose up -d

Alternatively, mount a config.ini instead of using env vars (see below).

Local

cp config.ini.example config.ini
# Fill in config.ini
pip install -r requirements.txt
playwright install chromium
python sz2kindle.py

How it works

1. Authenticate — Reuses a cached session if still valid. Otherwise launches headless Chromium via Playwright to log in through the Piano ID SSO iframe. Tokens are saved to session.json for reuse (~20 day lifetime).

2. Find the latest edition — Parses the reader page HTML to locate the newest "Süddeutsche Zeitung" ePub download link.

3. Skip duplicates — Asks the delivery strategy whether the edition was already delivered (email strategy checks sent.json, WebDAV strategy checks if the file exists on the server).

4. Download — Fetches the ePub via curl subprocess (the download endpoint uses TLS fingerprinting that rejects Python's HTTP libraries).

5. Deliver — Hands the ePub to the configured delivery strategy (see below).

Delivery strategies

Set the strategy via [general] strategy in config.ini or the SZ2KINDLE_STRATEGY env var. Default: email.

Email (default)

Sends the ePub as an email attachment to a Kindle address via SMTP. Tracks delivered files in sent.json.

WebDAV

Uploads the ePub to a WebDAV folder (e.g. Nextcloud, ownCloud). Checks for duplicates by querying the server — no local state file needed.

Configuration

Configure via environment variables, config.ini, or both. Env vars take precedence.

General:

Env var	config.ini equivalent	Description
SZ2KINDLE_STRATEGY	[general] strategy	Delivery strategy: email or webdav

SZ credentials:

Env var	config.ini equivalent	Description
SZ_EMAIL	[sz] email	SZ-Plus login email
SZ_PASSWORD	[sz] password	SZ-Plus login password
SZ_UTP_TOKEN	[sz] utp_token	Optional: manual __utp cookie
SZ_TAC_TOKEN	[sz] tac_token	Optional: manual __tac cookie

Email strategy:

Env var	config.ini equivalent	Description
SMTP_HOST	[smtp] host	SMTP server hostname
SMTP_PORT	[smtp] port	SMTP port (typically 587)
SMTP_USERNAME	[smtp] username	SMTP login username
SMTP_PASSWORD	[smtp] password	SMTP login password
SMTP_FROM	[smtp] from	Sender email address
KINDLE_TO	[kindle] to	Kindle device email address

WebDAV strategy:

Env var	config.ini equivalent	Description
WEBDAV_URL	[webdav] url	WebDAV folder URL
WEBDAV_USERNAME	[webdav] username	WebDAV username (optional)
WEBDAV_PASSWORD	[webdav] password	WebDAV password (optional)

Docker

The container uses cron to schedule runs — it idles between executions rather than running Python 24/7.

• Default schedule: daily at 06:00 (Berlin time)
• Override: set SZ2KINDLE_CRON in compose.yaml to any cron expression
• Persistent data: session.json and sent.json (email strategy) live in a Docker volume so sessions survive restarts
• Config: use env vars in compose.yaml, or uncomment the volume mount to use a config.ini file instead

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• curl (system)
• Chromium (installed automatically by playwright install chromium)
• An active SZ-Plus subscription with ePaper access