Kodi web interface is one of the best tools available on kodi, though relatively underutilized. Recently updated to Chorus2 version, this feature allows you to remotely take control of your media library from any other device over the internet.
If you have Kodi installed on your smart TV and you want to control it from your laptop, or if you have Kodi on your desktop and want to browse your files from your phone then the web interface makes it easy and you don’t even do it Need to install software.
How to use the Kodi Web Interface?
This comprehensive guide with screenshots will walk you through the necessary steps to activate and use web interface feature to control your kodi media center remotely over the internet
Enable the web interface feature
To be able able to use the web interface tool for kodi, the first step is to allow remote control of your kodi platform. Follow the steps below:
Launch Kodi and go to the Settings page (gear icon)
Select Services
Under Control tab in the left side menu tun on the toggle to activate the option Allow remote control via HTTP
Make sure that the web interface section has Kodi web interface – Chorus2 selected
Once done with the necessary adjustments of the control settings, the next step will be to find the IP Address of your media center. If you don’t know how to get it, follow the steps below:
Launch Kodi and go to the Settings page (gear icon)
Select System Information
Under the network section you will see all the information about your Kodi system. Copy the IP address (usually it looks like 192.168.42.61) and the port number (which is 8080 by default)
Open the Kodi web interface in a browser window
Now you have everything you need to be able to control Kodi through your web browser.
Open your web browser (you can use Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser)
Enter your IP address and port number in the address bar, in the format IP address: port . The address you use will usually look like 192.168.42.61:8080
Now you can see the web interface.
You can open a web interface on multiple devices in the same time so that many users can remotely control the same kodi system.
Control kodi using the web interface
Once you have the web interface open, you can start controlling your Kodi. The first thing you should look at is the gray bar at the bottom of the screen. Information about the media currently being played is displayed.
You can use the previous, forward, and play / pause buttons on the left to control what is currently playing.
On the right side you will find the controls for volume, repeat and shuffle.
In the middle you will see a thumbnail and a description of the media currently being played.
if you need to use a remote control – for example, using the up and down buttons to navigate Kodi menus – just click on the thumbnail of the media currently playing. This brings up a full remote control with arrow buttons, a select button, a home button, and more.
If you want to play a new song or video, follow these steps:
Look at the white bar on the far left of the screen. There are icons here for music, movies, TV shows, browsers, add-ons, and more. When you click the TV Shows icon for exemple, your collection will appear with a thumbnail for each icon.
When you find the episode you want,click the thumbnail to view the details, then click the blue play button. This will start the show playing on your Kodi system.
You can do the same thing to start watching movies or listening to music. Just use the movie icon to browse your video collections. Click a thumbnail to view more details about a movie or episode and click the blue play button to start playback.
Finally, a very useful feature is the add-ons section. This allows you to browse and open files even within add-ons using the web interface. To do this, first click on the add-ons icon on the far left. You will see a list of thumbnails for all of your add-ons.
If you click on a thumbnail, you can navigate through the submenus of this add-on within the web interface. You can choose a new track for the media to start playing or change your settings through the web interface.
A few more useful functions of the web interface that you should know: At the top right there is a search bar. You can always use this to browse your video and audio files so you can find something quickly.
On the far right is a black box that shows your current queue of pending items to be played. You can use the icon with three dots on top of each other to control this queue, e.g. delete or update the playlist. There’s even an option to save the playlist for later if you’d like. Party mode is a way to play a random selection of your music in a random order.
Finally, you can customize the web interface and change a lot of settings for both the user interface and your Kodi system using the settings icon on the far left. Clicking on it brings up the full settings menu for you to browse.
How to use the Web Interface to play music over the Internet
Here’s an incredibly useful feature that even some advanced Kodi users don’t know: you can actually play music and some videos from your Kodi collection on another device over the internet by using the web interface. This means that if you have Kodi installed on your desktop, for example, and you control it through your laptop’s web interface, you can play the media stored in Kodi on your desktop on your laptop too. Usually this type of playback requires complicated media server setup, but the web interface makes it easy.
Here’s what to do:
Launch Kodi on your main device
Open the web interface on your secondary device
In the web interface, you will see tabs labeled Kodi and Local in the upper right corner. Click on Local
You will see the interface colors change from blue to pink. Now that you know you are working on your secondary device
Browse through the music and video files on your main device via the web interface.
When you find a track or file that you want to play, simply press the play button in the web interface
When you click Play, the media will start playing on your secondary device. You can queue the incoming media items in the Local tab on the right and you can control the playback with the pause, back, forward and shuffle buttons on the web interface.
Wrap-up
As explained in this post, the web interface allows you to remotely control your media center easily over the internet from other devices to manage, search, and even play media from your Kodi on your browser device.
The UI is not really that user friendly but it is easy to use and contains a lot of options that you will master in no time.
