How to Download Movies and TV Shows from Kodi Addons

Prior to downloading movie and TV show streams from Kodi, you need to have some decent video addons installed.

If you haven't already, please check out Best Kodi Addons and Best Kodi Repositories for curated installation choices and learn how to add addons to Kodi.

I'll demonstrate the addon's download feature configuration process with Exodus Redux, since it's the most popular and classic Exodus fork. The method applies to various Exodus forks and many other popular addons with similar structure settings menu.

For non-Exodus fork addons, the enabling download feature processes slightly vary but usually go with the same principle. Poke around in settings menu and you'll see it if it's there.

What's more, best working addons with download functionality are listed in the third part of this guide for you to check out.

How to Enable Download Feature for Addons

Step 1. Launch Kodi, go to Add-ons > Video add-ons. Locate the addon that you intend to enable download feature for (here Exodus Redux), highlight but not select it, then right-click (long press select on remote or C on keyboard) on it to open its context menu.

Step 2. Right-click (long press select on remote or C on keyboard) on it to open its context menu, then select Settings from the context menu.

Step 3. From the addon settings menu, as you can see, there're multiple tabs on the left side. Scroll down and highlight the Download tab. Then hit the toggle from the right side to tick on Enable downloads feature.

Step 4. Once you've enabled the download feature, the two grayed out options underneath will become configurable, with them you can define a destination folder for your movies and TV shows downloads.

We suggest you point to two retrievable folders on writeable storage location (read Part 2 to learn more) on your device, so that you can easily access the download files later.

Step 5. Lastly, click OK from the right side of the settings menu to save the setting and exit the settings menu.

How to Download Movies and TV Shows with Download Enabled Addons

Step 1. From Add-ons > Video add-ons, launch the addon we just enabled download feature for, and use it to find links for a movie or TV show.

Step 2. When all available streams are listed, highlight the link of your preferred video quality and codec, right-click (long press select on remote or C on keyboard) on it to open its context menu.

Step 3. Select the new option Download from the context menu to start downloading the highlighted stream. Subsequently, download progress will show up from the upper-right quadrant of the screen.

Kodi Addon Download Failed or Won't Start

If you're not using a dead addon, then download failed/won't start issue generally occurs with free movies and TV show streams, as there isn't any available stream or the stream downloads too slow.

Unfortunately, as free hosters dying off, free links are oftentimes unreliable, at times you might fail to download from a link and receiver error messages like unable to download, no response from server, no stream available and stream authorization.

As long as there's an available stream, Kodi addons won't have problem download it. Thus we recommend the use of debrid services to acquire more available and high-quality streams. Check the bottom of the guide to learn more about debrid services.

Download Finished but Can't Find the Downloaded File

In most cases, Kodi failed to download or can't find download issue results from Apps being strictly prevented from writing data to folders other than an exclusive one.

To resolve it, create folders respectively for storing movies and TV shows under the following directory:

/storage/your storage location/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files

And define the download destination in addon settings menu to the created movies/TV shows folder. That should fix the Kodi addon failed to download issue.

If using a peripheral storage with Nvidia Shield, the directory could slightly vary as Shields automatically create temp folders for it, so do not get confused.

Free Streams Addons

• The Crew - How to download free movies and TV shows from The Crew

• Elementum – can also be added as context menu item

• Loonatics Unleashed

• Loonatics 3000

• Alfa

• Tempest

• Release BB

• Apex

• Greased Lighting

Debrid Only Addons

• Venom

• Fen

• Numbers

• Marauder

• Genesis Resurrected

• Skynet

• The USS Defiant

• Arachnid

• Locutus

The download feature of Kodi addons can be practical if you intend to save some titles for watching later, but it requires large internal or external storage space on your device since movie and TV show files are relatively large in size, so the method best fits desktop Kodi users.

Follow the tutorial to see if the method works for you, and if you have further questions or better ideas, you're more than welcome to reach me from the top of the page.