Quick start guide

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ First time user ▶ Quick start guide


Welcome to Kodi

Kodi is award-winning, open-source media centre software that supports various audio and video formats, plays Live TV, and can be enhanced with powerful add-ons. Guides for installing Kodi on several different operating systems are available on the first time user wiki page.

Kodi is designed to be the center of a home theater with a 10-foot interface, not to be used on a small monitor at your desk. Because everything is designed with the home theater experience in mind, Kodi is optimized for use with a remote control, rather than a keyboard and mouse.


Think of Kodi as the ultimate digital media player.


We recommend you follow these guides to set up and personalize your Kodi installation to ensure that it works as intended. This wiki has many details guides, useful for both new and experienced users. The Kodi Menu on the wiki Main page explains in detail how to use each Kodi module.

First, download and install the Kodi software. There are installation guides for first time users for all supported operating systems.

Do not follow YouTube guides for Kodi that encourage piracy and copyright infringement. There is no support for that here at Kodi.

Kodi does not sell hardware, nor are we affiliated with, or promotors of, any of the so-called ‘Kodi boxes’ that are advertised for sale. We strongly urge you not to purchase these devices as they often come pre-installed with add-ons used for piracy and copyright infringement, and some have been known to contain malware. The Kodi forum does not provide support for these types of devices.


The Kodi interface

Read this page to familiarize yourself with Kodi’s menu system and interface.

Using libraries

Kodi is capable of deep engagement with media metadata by adding media files to audio or video libraries. You can sort movies by director, search for everything starring a particular actor, or zip through the album covers in your music collection to choose a soundtrack for your evening.

Kodi’s libraries are accessible from the Main Menu, where you can select from Music, Movies, TV Shows or Music Videos.

There are two kinds of Kodi library – music and video. Media files must be added to make use of all the features of a library.

icon Creating, modifying and re-building your video library
Kodi has the ability to create separate Movie, TV Show and Music Video libraries that can display your collections in an Artwork and information rich display. Follow these pages to step through the creation of your libraries.
icon Creating, modifying and re-building your music library
The aim of these modules is to provide the required information to enable you to correctly set up, modify, and reinstate your Music library as required. As this guide is created for the new user, most pages have been created with minimal jargon and short explanations in an effort to reduce information overload and confusion. Where extra information is provided, note is made to what can be safely ignored.

If you do not want to create libraries and take advantage of these features, you can hide menu items and access your media through the built-in file browser from the main menu, by selecting Videos then Files.

Be aware that using this mode, Kodi becomes a simple file browser and media player with limited functionality – many Kodi features are only available through libraries, like extended artwork and movie information.

Adding pictures

The Pictures module allows you to add a photo or picture collection to Kodi. Pictures do not yet have library functions. If you set up video or music files sources, you will be familiar with setting up a source for pictures.

Adding games

Games are not supported in Kodi versions before v18 Leia. The Games module allows you to add stand-alone games and games running in emulators which can be launched from Kodi.

The Games module does not yet have library functions and is effectively a file browser. As of Kodi v18 Leia there is an input manager with game controller settings for configuring gamepads, joysticks, keyboards, and mouses, for use with games running natively inside Kodi's runtime.

Using a remote control

Kodi is primarily designed for the home theatre using the 10-foot user interface principles controlled with a remote control. Alternatively a (wireless) keyboard can be used.

Kodi add-ons

An Add-on is another piece of software that can be added to a program to further expand and enhance the features of that program. Imagine a smart phone and all the additional Apps that can be installed to enhance its functionality. Kodi has the same ability and these apps are referred to as Add-ons. Kodi has a growing list of community driven add-ons which can be installed from a common official repository, while still enabling third-party developers to also host their own unofficial repositories for add-ons that any user can choose to add themselves.


Changing skins

Kodi comes with over forty different cosmetic skins. For a list of installed skins and to download more, go to: Settings → Interface settings → Skin → Skin - Estuary




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Next step: Video Library Main Menu


Next step: Music Library Main Menu