Set content and scan

When you "Set Content", you can set your video content as Music Videos, Movies, or TV Shows. Scroll through the options until you get to the correct one. If you did not "Set Content" when you added a source, you can do so later by selecting the source and bringing up the contextual menu ( on a keyboard by default).

Setting content for subfolders
You can also "set content" for subfolders, even if the parent folder has content set that is using a different setting. For example, you can have a folder for your TV shows, and in that folder have a folder for "Star Trek" that contains the different Star Trek TV shows. If you do this normally then Kodi will think that "Star Trek" is one single show, but if you set content on that specific folder, then it will scan everything in correctly.

Avoid adding a subfolder as a separate source, as Kodi will might make duplicates if there are two sources that lead to the same files.

Movie content options

 * Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title
 * If you keep each of your movies in its own folder with the movie name in it
 * Example: /Movies/Big Buck Bunny/Big Buck Bunny.mkv
 * If you keep all your movies in one big folder then leave this option unchecked.


 * Scan recursively
 * Scans sub folders for movies as well as the main folder. Great for if your movies are categorized into sub folders (e.g. genres, a-z), etc.
 * Example: /Movies/Action/Big Buck Bunny.mkv


 * Selected folder contains a single movie
 * This option is intended for adding one movie at a time.


 * Exclude path from library updates
 * Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.

TV show content options

 * Folder contains a single TV Show
 * This option is intended for adding one TV show at a time.


 * Exclude path from library updates
 * Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.

Music video content options

 * Run Automatic Scan
 * Scans the source's files into the library after selecting 'OK'


 * Scan recursively
 * If your music videos are categorized into sub folders (e.g. genres, a-z).


 * Exclude path from library updates
 * Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.

Local NFO only options
NFO files are an alternative to going online for the library data. Kodi will always look for the existence of an NFO file before going online to download that data, even if you have setup an online scraper.

After the videos and NFO files are scanned into the library, the NFO file is no longer used and only serves as a backup. If you make changes to the NFO file you will need to refresh that library entry for the changes to be loaded into Kodi.

The local-NFO-only option is only needed if you want to prevent Kodi from using scrapers for video files that do not yet have NFO files.

For example, if you use a 3rd party media manager to make NFO files and you haven't generated NFO files for your new video additions. The NFO-only mode will prevent the videos without NFO files from being added to the library until they have NFO files.

If you are only using NFO files to restore from a backup of the library, or doing something like moving from a local library to MySQL, then you will want to use the normal scraper settings and not use the NFO-only option. This way Kodi will still use the online scrapers for new videos, but only for those new videos that don't have NFO files.

(None) content options
Settings a scraper to (None) on folders or subfolders can be used explicitly to set no scraper so that when excluding a path that contains no valid scrapable media info, can be easily achieved. In combination with other options this maximizes the effectiveness of excluding a path from scans.


 * The directory contains (None) Current scraper
 * Ensure that the selected source doesn't have a content set, works with exclude path from scans, even when it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.
 * To exclude folder from scans, check the option as well.
 * Also a intermediary choice when changing content on a source. see also: Switching scrapers and removing sources from the library

Excluding directories/folders
Kodi can exclude certain directories from the library all together using a few different methods.


 * Use the "Exclude folder from scans" option when the content type is set to "none"


 * Place a file (even an empty one) named   in the directory you want to exclude


 * Folders with   or   in the name will be automatically skipped. For the exact pattern match, see here.


 * Users can also add additional patterns to be excluded by using the advancedsettings.xml tag  

Scanning and updating files
There are several ways you can scan your videos into the Video library:


 * When a source or file has "content set" or changed, Kodi will ask you if you wish to update the library after you are done.
 * In Library view you can choose "Update library" from the lefthand sidebar menu by pressing (left).
 * Select the item in file view and either press on the keyboard, or bring up the contextual menu (press ) and select "Movie information" or "TV show information"
 * If the file is already scanned in, you can also use the info screen to refresh/update that entry in the library.
 * You can select the share, folder, or TV show (anything that is basically a folder) that your videos are in and choose "Scan for new content" from the contextual menu (press or ), which scans all files in that specific share/folder.
 * Have Kodi scan for new items upon start up by going to Settings -> Video -> Library -> Update library on startup
 * Add-on:XBMC Library Auto Update can be used to schedule automatic updates to the library.
 * Add-on:Library watchdog can be used to watch folders for new files to trigger library updates.

Refreshing the library
To refresh the information for existing videos:
 * Refresh individually
 * 1) Select the item in file view and either press  on the keyboard, or bring up the contextual menu (press ).
 * 2) Select "Movie information" or "TV show information".
 * 3) Then select "Refresh".

When refreshing individually you can also choose to just refresh or manually select images for various views (cover art, fanart, thumbnails, etc).


 * Refresh by source/folder
 * 1) Remove a source/folder from the library by changing the content setting to "None".
 * 2) When Kodi asks you if you want to remove those items from the library, say yes.
 * 3) Kodi will then show a progress bar and remove those entries.
 * 4) Change the content setting back to what it was before.
 * 5) Kodi will then rescan in those entries.

Switching scrapers and removing sources from the library
Setting the content back to (None) after previously having selected a scraper for a source, will prompt users if they want to remove the contents from the Library.

This is recommended if you wish to switch scrapers. First set content to (None) and then choose the new scraper.

Setting content to (None) also removes the contents of the selected folder from the Library altogether. This is useful if you want to remove the contents of an entire folder from the video library as removing entries from the contextual menu will only remove single items.