How To Use Kodi To Organize Watchlist

With the advent of streaming television there’s dozens of different companies all offering a way to bring on-demand TV into your living room at the touch of a button. One of these new services is none other than Kodi. The way the program works is essentially by serving as an entire operating system for your television in a way not unlike how a smart TV gets the job done.

Unlike a smart TV however, Kodi allows a level of customization unparalleled by other streaming services or TV media dashboards. How you choose to leverage this level of personal control can end up making your television watching experience much more relaxing and straightforward. In fact, many people choose Kodi solely because it can be configured in such a way that it is easy for elderly people or children to use. This knocks down one of the biggest barriers in streaming TV adoption.

So how do you actually configure Kodi to make viewing your watchlist easier? Here’s my step by step guide:

Set Up A Media Library

Unlike Netflix or Crave TV who deliver content directly to your device, Kodi requires that you bring the content yourself. To do this you need to set up a folder on your computer that your Kodi has access to. Some people directly hook up their computers to their Kodi while others make use of cloud based technology to stream content directly from a server hosted on the internet.

Choose to plug your content in to your Kodi, you’ll have to sync the two folders by creating a media library. First boot up your Kodi and go to the Kodi guide, sometimes referred to as the Kodi menu. First navigate to the “movies” tab on the home screen and then select the “Enter Files Section”. Next, select “Add Videos” and then choose “Browse”. At this point you’ll need to navigate to the folder that contains the media in question and then press “OK”. At this point you’ll be able to set the type of media and Kodi does the rest.

Depending on how you’ve structured the movies, for instance if you’ve put them all in separate folders, you should enable/disable “Movies Are In Separate Folders That Match The Movie Title”. Confirm yes in the change content question and then when you go back to main menu you’ll find your content in a new “Movies” menu with everything you just added.

Changing How Your Media Library Is Viewed

There are a multitude of ways to change your media library layout so it is easier to navigate and digest. Presentation can be changed by going into the specific movie library, navigating to the options screen to the left of the screen, and then changing the settings in “Viewtype” to change how your media is laid out on your screen.

If you have movies that are part of a series or a trilogy, you can tell Kodi to organize these films by going to the “Settings” option and then “Library Settings” and choosing to enable “Group Movies In Sets”. Once you’ve done this you’ll notice that all of the movies in your library that are part of a series are grouped in collections.

Parting Words

While it may seem daunting to the technologically unsavvy to start organizing your Kodi, once you’ve accomplished this task it makes for a very streamlined and straightforward viewing experience. This guide is an extremely bare-bones way of making use of your Kodi, I highly suggest you go into the settings yourself and look up what some of the features do. Some of the most interesting and intuitive features on the Kodi device go completely unused, I’d say there is a lot to be gained from a little curiosity.