How To Use The Global Search Add-On To Find Your Content In Kodi

Kodi is addicting, and after a while you may find you’ve amassed a dizzying array of add-ons and streams in your collection. But thankfully, there’s Global Search, a handy utility add-on that lets you sort through the mess and find just what you’re looking for. We show you how to install and use it in the walkthrough below.

Have you ever wanted a quick and easy way to find a particular media file in your Kodi library? When you have a large library of hundreds of movies and thousands of songs, it can be a pain trying to find the particular file that you’re looking for. Scrolling through a full list of media items takes too long, and you might not be able to remember which particular folder a file that you want to access is in.

Fortunately, there is a Kodi feature that can help you with this problem. The Global Search add-on for Kodi searches through your library of both audio and video files in order to return results which match your search query. The search is extremely fast, even with a large library, and the results that it shows you are neatly organised into their respective categories (movies, TV shows, albums, and so on).

Global Search should come installed by default on your Kodi system, but if you can’t find it on your system then we’ll show you how to install the add-on from the official Kodi add-on repository. Then we’ll show you how to use the Global Search add-on to find your content in Kodi. Finally, we’ll show you how Global Search can be integrated into Kodi skins, to make it even quicker for users to get to the search and to find the results that they want. Read on for full instructions on using Global Search for Kodi.

Why You Should Get A VPN When Using Kodi

We’re going to get right into the details of using Global Search below, but before that there is a security issue which we need to address. The Kodi software itself is open source and fully legal to use, however, some of the add-ons which you can download for it are created by third parties and are not officially supported by Kodi. These add-ons may allow you to stream content illegally, and so using them can be risky. If you are caught using add-ons to stream by your ISP, you could face a fine or prosecution.

NordVPN – Critical Cybersecurity for Kodi

NordVPN solves the core problem facing Kodi users: a lack of privacy online. Your ISP, government, and neighborhood (un)friendly hacker can all easily put you under surveillance, tracking your activity or worse. But you can lock down your connection with NordVPN’s unbreakable security, and regain your right to stay anonymous while streaming, downloading, gaming, or whatever else.

It’s all possible thanks to NordVPN’s legendary network, which now numbers over 5,800 servers in 59 countries. By connecting to any one of these nodes, you instantly establish a nigh-unbreakable tunnel of 256-bit AES encryption between the VPN network and your device. There is no known way to brute-force through such defenses, leaving your ISP powerless to throttle your Kodi traffic–as they are so fond of doing.

What’s more, this opens the door to spoofing a new IP address, which anonymizes your traffic and lets you get past geoblocks with ease. Simply pick the country where you want to digitally relocate, and enjoy movies, TV, and music as though you were a local. It works even with infamously stubborn websites like Netflix, bypassing the proxy error reliably thanks to NordVPN’s SmartPlay feature. No matter what you watch, NordVPN has your back with leak-proof servers, a kill switch, and one of the industry’s strongest no-logging policies.

Read our full NordVPN review.

How To Install The Global Search Add-on For Kodi

Global Search should be installed onto your Kodi system already. By default, Global Search comes installed as part of the basic Kodi package. However, if you haven’t updated your Kodi system in a long time of if you’ve changed some settings, you might find that Global Search isn’t available for you. If that is the case, here’s how you can install Global Search. The add-on is taken from the official Kodi add-on repository so you can be sure that the add-on is officially approved, safe, and legal to use. Here’s how to install Global Search:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Click on Add-ons
3. Click on the icon that looks like an open box
4. Click on Install from repository
5. Go to Kodi Add-on repository
6. Go to Program add-ons
7. Scroll down to Global Search
8. Click on it and a box describing the add-on appears. Click install on the bottom menu
9. Wait a minute and you’ll see a notification once the add-on in installed
   
10. That’s it!

How To Use The Global Search Add-on For Kodi

Once you have checked that Global Search is installed on your Kodi system, it’s easy to use it to search your library and to find particular files that you’re looking for when you’re in a hurry. The results you see will be organised into media type categories to make it even faster to find the results that you’re looking for. Here’s how to use the Global Search:

1. Start on your Kodi home screen
2. Go to Add-ons
3. Go to Program add-ons
   
   
4. Click on Global Search
   
5. An input box will appear where you can type your search term. Enter the term that you want to search for. As an example, we’ll search for “avengers”
   
6. Click OK to start the search
7. Now you’ll see search results for your term. These results will be organised into categories: so, for example, you can see the results for “avengers” in the categories Movies, TV shows, Episodes, Albums, and Songs
   
   
   
8. You can click on any file to start the video or audio playing
9. If you enter a search term which is not found anywhere in your library, you’ll see a popup that says No results found and you’ll be given the option to search again for a new term. To search again, click Yes, or to go back, click on No
   
   

Run Global Search From Your Kodi Home Page

There is also another way in which you can access Global Search. To make it even quicker and easier for you to search, some skins have the global search function integrated into them. Using the v17 (Krypton) skin, Estuary, for example, you can access the global search from your home page. To do this, just click the icon that looks like a magnifying glass on the right side of the left panel at the top.

This will bring up a series of options:

• Search local library
• Search add-ons
• Search YouTube
• Search TheMovieDB

Click on Search local library and enter your search term. This will search for this term and show you your results as above.

Global Search Integration With Your Kodi Skin

If you are creating your own skin and you want to integrate Global Search into it, then first you need to add this text into your addon.xml file:

<requires>

<import addon=”xbmc.gui” version=”3.00″/>

<import addon=”script.globalsearch” version=”0.1.7″/>

</requires>

Now, in order to run the Global Search add-on from your skin, you use the following command:

RunScript(script.globalsearch)

You can also alter the search command in order to specify which particular category (e.g. movies, TV shows, albums, etc.) that you are searching for. Here’s the syntax for that:

RunScript(script.globalsearch,movies=true)

RunScript(script.globalsearch,tvshows=true&musicvideos=true&songs=true)

Conclusion

Global Search is a very useful but not well known function of Kodi. It allows you to search through your entire media library, including movies, TV show episodes, and music, for a particular term. The results of the search are shown in a handy set of categories to let you find what you’re looking for more easily. The Global Search function should come pre-installed as part of the default Kodi build, however, it is possible that you won’t have Global Search on your system if you haven’t updated it in a long time or if you have changed some settings. If this is the case for you, then you can easily install the Global Search add-on from the official Kodi add-on repository.

Once you’ve confirmed that Global Search is installed on your Kodi system, you can use it by going to the Program Add-ons subsection of the Add-ons section. From here you can enter your search term and see your results in categories. There is also the option to use Global Search from your home page on some Kodi skins. Whether a particular skin supports this depends on the skin settings and whether the developer has included search as part of the skin. If they have, such as in the Estuary skin which is installed by default on Kodi version 17 (aka Krypton), you will find an icon that looks like a magnifying glass. Clicking this magnifying glass icon will bring up the search options, including the Search Local Library option which uses the Global Search function. Either of these two methods lets you easily use Global Search to search through your whole media library.

Do you use the Global Search add-on for Kodi? Or is there another way that you prefer to use to search through your Kodi media library? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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