Kodi (earlier known as XBMC) is one powerful, open source media server and player that has gained popularity over the past few years. Because of the efforts of the community, Kodi now supports majority of devices ranging from Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Raspberry pi etc. One big reason behind the popularity of kodi is its unlimited customization prospects. You can use Kodi Skins, Kodi repos, Kodi builds, and more to customize the entire UI. However, over all the changing things in Kodi, one thing that remains constant is Kodi keyboard shortcuts.

Below we have added quick links to help you easily move inside the article. The article is long so make use of these quick links to quickly move to Kodi keyboard shortcuts that you want to learn.

  • Contextual Menu
  • Live TV Window
  • Seek Forward or Backward
  • Move to Queued Video
  • Toggle Fullscreen Playback
  • Mute
  • Exit Kodi
  • Toggle between Full-screen and Windowed Mode
  • Audio delay control
  • Fast forward
  • Play
  • Stop
  • Rewind
  • Toggle Subtitles On/Off
  • Previous Menu or Home Screen
  • Take a screenshot
  • Volume Down, Volume Up or Mute
  • Shut down Menu
  • Pause / Play
  • Zoom / Aspect Ratio
  • Kodi Shortcuts For Pictures
  • Some Handy Default Kodi Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Useful Mouse Controls
  • Platform Specific Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Frequently Asked Questions

1. Contextual Menu

Shortcut Key: C

2. Live TV Window

Shortcut Key: H

Shortcut Key: Ctrl + → or Ctrl + ←

Shortcut Key: Page Up or Page Down

You can use page up and page down key to skip to the next queued video. It will mostly come handy when you are watching a TV series or have queued videos in your playlist.

Shortcut Key: tab

Shortcut Key: M

7. Exit Kodi

Shortcut Key: Ctrl + End

Shortcut Key: \

Shortcut Key: A

Sometimes audio and video of a particular video don’t sync well. In such cases, you can use this keyboard command to adjust audio delay, so that it syncs well with the video.

Shortcut Key: F

Shortcut Key: P

12. Stop

Shortcut Key: X

Shortcut Key: R

Shortcut Key: T

If you want to turn subtitles on/off for a movie or a video, just press ‘T’. However, Subtitles settings must be properly configured before trying this shortcut.

Shortcut Key: Esc

Shortcut Key: Ctrl + S or Prt Sc

Or an alternate way of taking a screenshot is to hit ‘PrtSc’. The screenshot will be saved to the clipboard which you can retrieve by opening ‘Paint’ and pressing ‘Ctrl+V’.

Shortcut Key: – (minus), + Plus

18. Shut down Menu

Shortcut Key: S

Shortcut Key: Space bar

Shortcut Key: Z

If you wish to adjust the aspect ratio of a video according to its resolution, just press the ‘Z’ key. Every time you press the key, the video will adjust to a different resolution such as (320 x 240), (1024 x 768), etc. Choose the one with better clarity.

21. Zoom Picture From Level 1 to level 9

Shortcut Key: 1-9

Shortcut Key: . period

23. Previous Picture

Shortcut Key: , comma

It’s also quite simple to zoom in while viewing pictures. To zoom into the photo, press the (+) key.

When you want to zoom out of a photo, simply press the (-) key.

Times when you want better control over Kodi, these default keyboard shortcuts can come in handy.

26. Toggle Debug Logging

To toggle debug logging, all you need to do is press the Ctrl+⇧ Shift+D keys.

If you ever feel the need to have access to code info such as bitrates and cache, press the Ctrl+⇧ Shift+O.

Adjusting the playback speed with a keyboard shortcut is just as straightforward. Simply, press the alt+← or → to decrease/increase playback speed

You can hit the “Y” key to select or switch player.

Kodi also offers support for quite a few handy shortcuts related to mouse controls. Keep them in mind, if you prefer to use a mouse to control media.

30. Select an Item

To select any item, just left-click on an item.

If you want to queue to playlist, middle-click on an item.

You can right-click on an item to quickly access the context menu.

Right-click on the blank area to go back. Though there are multiple ways to go back to the previous screen, it seems quite easy especially when you are using a mouse.

To go up, all you have to do is just mouse wheel up.

35. Go Down

To go down, simply mouse wheel down.

For Windows

If you wish to access an option on your system, outside of Kodi but without having to exit it. Just press the Windows key and you are good.

37.  Quit

If you want to quit the app, press the ⌘ Cmd+Q keys on your Mac keyboard.

⌘ Cmd+H and ⌘ Cmd+M keyboard shortcuts come into play when you want to hide/minimize the app to the dock.

Pressing the ⌘ Cmd+F keys allows you to toggle full-screen.

To capture screenshot, all you have to do is just press the ⌘ Cmd+S keys at once.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Go Back in Kodi?

It’s quite simple to go back to Kodi. Simply, click/tap on the back button. You can also hit the Esc key to go back to the previous screen. When using the mouse, right-click on the blank area.

Keymaps are XML base files that are used to define the mapping of keys including keyboard keys as well as joysticks, mouse, and remote buttons.

To minimize Kodi on your computer running Windows, simply press the Win + M keys. If you want to minimize Kodi to the dock on your Mac, press ⌘ Cmd+M  keys.