Artwork

Kodi supports automatic downloading or extraction of several types of images for use as thumbnails, movie posters, and more. In addition to automatic downloading or extraction, users can also manually set several images in different parts of the interface.

Naming conventions

 * For folders (e.g. tvshows, movies in folders, or just folders on the filesystem):
 * poster.(png/jpg)
 * banner.(png/jpg)
 * fanart.(png/jpg)


 * Season images reside inside the tvshow folder:
 * season[XX]-(poster/banner/fanart).(png/jpg)
 * season-all-(poster/banner/fanart).(png/jpg}
 * season-specials-(poster/banner/fanart).(png/jpg)


 * For files (episodes, movies not in folders, video files):
 * [movie file name]-(poster/banner/fanart).(png/jpg)
 * [episode file name]-thumb.(png/jpg)
 * [filename]-(poster/banner/fanart).(png/jpg)

Music thumbnails
Music Thumbnails are assigned as part of a multi-tier process. First, the Tag Reader runs and caches any embedded art using the album name and album artist (or song artist, if that is all that is available). If the album name or artist is unavailable, it is cached using the path name of the song. This assumes, of course, that you have tag reading enabled.

You can also use "Get Thumb" to download the album thumbnail from allmusic.com (AMG) for a specific album/folder or do a scan of all your music files in all shares.

Thumbnails also get downloaded when you rip AudioCD's to your Kodi device (which is described in the Ripping CDs section).

Recommended is that you store each of your music-albums or artists in a separate subfolder to keep things organized. You can also of course make the folder have a custom thumbnail image.

The code which assigns thumbnails to files runs and assigns thumbnails in the following order:


 * 1) Cached Album Thumbnail
 * This is all the embedded album art read by the tag reader and cached using the album name and album artist.


 * 2) Cached filename.jpg
 * This includes an embedded thumbnail cached with the fully qualified name.


 * 3) Remote filename.jpg
 * This is a filename.jpg on a remote share/folder which is then cached.


 * 4) Cached folder.jpg
 * This is a folder.jpg which is cached based off the folder path.


 * 5) Remote folder.jpg
 * This is a folder.jpg on a remote share/folder which is then cached.


 * 6) Remote foldername.jpg
 * This is a foldername.jpg on a remote share/folder which is then cached.

Examples:

In this example audiofilename.mp3 will use audiofilename.jpg as thumbnail: Music\path\audiofilename.mp3 Music\path\audiofilename.jpg

The same goes for playlists, cue-sheets, SHOUTcast, and internet-stream files, example: Music\path\audioplaylistname.m3u Music\path\audioplaylistname.jpg Music\path\cuelistname.cue Music\path\cuelistname.mp3 Music\path\cuelistname.jpg Music\path\shoutcastlinkname.pls Music\path\shoutcastlinkname.jpg Music\path\audiostreamname.strm Music\path\audiostreamname.jpg


 * Music fanart

Picture thumbnails
Kodi will generate thumbnails for pictures and folders in the pictures area using the following methods:


 * Images
 * EXIF thumbnail in JPEG images are then read. If no EXIF thumbnail is available, Kodi will load the image and generate a thumbnail from the image. These are then cached.


 * Folders
 * \folder.jpg is checked first. If that file doesn't exist, Kodi will generate a thumbnail from up to 4 random images inside that folder.

Thumbnails for file sources
You can change the thumbnail displayed for a file source by bringing up the context menu ( or ) and selecting "Choose thumbnail".