The Complete Guide to Umbrella on Kodi [2023]

Umbrella is a Kodi add-on that lets you stream movies and TV shows using premium sources. Based on Venom, Umbrella has many of the features of its predecessor and also many new features.

A premium account from Real Debrid, Premiumize, All Debrid, Easynews or Furk is required to use Umbrella. These services grant unrestricted, high-speed access to files on the cloud.

This add-on features Trakt support, library integration, file downloads, subtitles, cloud storage manager, continuous episode playback and more. It uses a new provider package called CocoScrapers, which is also used by Fen, another great add-on for Kodi.

In this guide, we’re going to install Umbrella on Kodi. Let’s get started!

1. Umbrella Overview

2. How to Install Umbrella on Kodi

If this is the first time you install add-ons on Kodi, you’ll have to allow the installation of unofficial add-ons. Please read How to allow 3rd-party add-ons on Kodi and come back here when you’re ready.

2.1. Install Umbrella repository

Let’s add a link to Umbrella’s source on GitHub, this allows us to download the repository zip file directly with Kodi.

1. Press the cog icon near the top left corner of the screen.

2. Select File Manager.

3. Press Add source.

4. Enter https://umbrellaplug.github.io/ on the top box and umbrella on the bottom one. Press OK to add the source.

Now that we added the link, let’s use it to install the repository.

5. Go back to the Settings menu and this time select Add-ons.

6. Click on Install from zip file.

You’ll see a message about the auto-update feature. Press Yes to proceed.

7. Now select umbrella.

8. Click on repository.umbrella-x.x.x.zip to download and install the repository.

2.2. Install Umbrella add-on

Now we’ll use the repository to download and install Umbrella and its dependencies.

9. Select Install from repository.

10. Click on Umbrella Repository.

11. Select Video add-ons.

12. Now select Umbrella.

13. Press the Install button.

14. Press OK to install Umbrella and its dependencies.

Wait a couple of seconds while the add-on is downloaded. You’ll see a notification when the installation process finishes.

15. Go back to the Home Screen, you’ll see a shortcut to Umbrella on the Add-ons tab.

We have installed Umbrella on Kodi, but we still need to authorize a Debrid account or the add-on won’t find any sources to stream content.

3. Using Real Debrid with Umbrella

Umbrella requires a premium account from Real Debrid, Premiumize, All Debrid, Easynews, Furk, FilePursuit or PlexShare to function properly.

In this guide, we’re going to use Real Debrid, a popular service that grants access to cached torrents and various file hosting services for a very low price.

1. Open Umbrella and select Tools.

2. Press SETTINGS: Accounts.  

3. Make sure the Accounts (Debrid) tab is selected and press Authorization under Real-Debrid.

4. Copy the authorization code.

5. Use a web browser to visit https://real-debrid.com/device and enter the authorization code. (You must be logged in to your Real Debrid account).

6. Set a name for this connection. Enter Umbrella and press Set that name to continue.

7. Back on Kodi, press OK to save the settings.

All done! Now you’re ready to stream content on Kodi with Umbrella.

Use the add-on’s main menu to select a movie or TV show, Umbrella will display a selectable list of available sources.

8. Select a source to start playing the video.

Tip: You can access the files on your Real Debrid cloud directly with Umbrella, go to Premium Services > Real Debrid.

By using cached torrents, your device does not connect directly to the P2P network, instead, Real Debrid will fetch the files on their servers and will make them available to download over HTTPS.

Umbrella supports automatic subtitles, but if you need more control over the subtitles’ selection process, please read How to enable automatic subtitles on Kodi.

4. Additional Settings

Let’s take a look at other features on Umbrella. These are optional, but can improve your user experience when using the add-on.

4.1. Using Trakt with Umbrella

Trakt.tv is a free service that helps you organize and keep track of your favorite movies and shows. Using a Trakt account is optional, but it’s very helpful if you want to sync your watched status across devices.

Umbrella can integrate with your Trakt account, giving you access to your collection, lists, bookmarks, and other Trakt features.

1. Open Umbrella and select Tools.

2. Press SETTINGS: Trakt. 

3. Make sure the Trakt tab is selected and press Authorization.  

4. Copy the authorization code.

5. Using a web browser, visit https://trakt.tv/activate and enter the authorization code. You must be logged into your Trakt account.

6. Press Yes to link your Trakt account to Umbrella.

Let’s not forget to enable scrobbling on Umbrella. Scrobbling is the automated process of keeping track of your watched videos on Trakt. If you’re using the official Trakt add-on, you can skip this step.

7. Back in Kodi, scroll down and activate Enable Scrobbling. You should also set Resume Point Source to Trakt scrobbles to keep your watched status synchronized across devices. Press OK to continue.

Note: if you’re using Kodi on a single device, you can keep the Resume Point source on Local to avoid unnecessary calls to the Trakt API that might slow down navigation.

8. All done! Use My Movies and My TV Shows on Umbrella’s main menu to access your collection, lists, and other Trakt features.

4.2. Continuous episode playback

By default, Umbrella shows a selectable list of sources before playing an episode. Let’s change the settings to play episodes automatically and also show the PlayNext popup at the end of each episode.

1. Select Settings: General on Umbrella’s Tools menu.

2. Highlight the TV Shows tab, scroll down to the Continuous Episode Playback settings section and activate Enable PlayNext popup.

Tip: PlayNext Popup Trigger decides when to show the popup, you can choose between Seconds Remaining, Percentage Watched, and Subtitle End. You can also change the popup style with PlayNext Popup Theme.

3. Now select the Sorting and Filters tab. Adjust the Max Quality and other setting to your preferences, then press OK to close the settings.

Automatic playback is now enabled and configured.

Tip: Take some time to familiarize yourself with the Sorting and Filters settings, prioritize your preferred formats and remove the ones that are not compatible with your device. You can filter files according to your internet speed using the Filter Episode by Size and Filter Movie by size settings.

When playing an episode, the add-on will automatically select a source according to the Sorting and Filter settings. Episodes will play continuously and the Play Next/Still Watching dialogs will be displayed at the end of each episode.

If you want to manually select a source, you’ll have to open the Context Menu on the episode and use Source Select. (You can open the Context Menu by long-pressing on the remote or using the C key on the keyboard)

5. Umbrella Settings Summary

5.1. General

Customize Umbrella’s general settings.

Icon Package: Change the icons on the add-on’s menu.
Menu Icon Type: Traditional/Meta Provider Logo.
Add Meta Provider Labels. ex. (IMDb): Show meta-data provider’s name on menus.
Indicators: use Local database or Trakt to display watched status and bookmarks.
Highlight Color: Select a highlight color.
api Language: Change the language of titles, descriptions, and other meta-data shown on menus. (It doesn’t change the video language).
Certification Country (MPAA): Movies and show certification rating country.
— Certification prefix:
Movie Search Provider: Select a provider for Movie’s meta-data.
TV Shows Search Provider: Select a provider for TV Shows’ meta-data.
Page Item Limit: Select how many items to show on a single page.
Title Search Limit (Movies and TV Shows): Select how many items to show on search results.
Enable Fanart: Download poster and preview image for movies and episodes.
Enable extended artwork (fanart.tv): Download extra artwork like logos, banners, and disc art. (Disabling this can improve loading times).
Clear Metadata and Cache: Use this if you changed the metadata and fanart settings.
Prefer TMDb artwork (poster, fanart): Download background images from TMDb.
TMDb image resolutions: Background image size, bigger sizes may increase loading times.
Hide Movies in cinema and unreleased: Removes movies that are currently playing in theaters.
Movie theatrical unreleased color: Select a color to highlight unreleased titles.
Hide Watched in Widgets: Hide watched items on widgets.
Enable Notification Sound: On/Off.
Notify Me About Available Updates: Show notification when there’s a new Umbrella version available.
Launch Umbrella on Kodi Start: Go straight to Umbrella’s main menu when opening Kodi.

My movies and list sort options

IMDb list sorting: Sort options for certain lists inside the “My Movies” category like Genres, Certification, Language. Use Default to sort by popularity.
– Sorting Order: Ascending / Descending.
Movie Sorting: Sort options for movies.
Collections Sorting: Sort options for collections.
Watchlist Sorting: Sort options for watchlist.

Reuse Language Invoker Setting

ReuseLanguageInvoker current Status: Off/On.
Turn reuselanguageinvoker Off: ReuseLanguageInvoker is a component that can improve the add-on speed.

5.2. Navigation

Enable or disable different categories on the add-on’s Main menu. (There’s an Anime menu that you can enable to watch anime with Umbrella)

5.3. Navigation (Movies)

Enable or disable different categories on the add-on’s Movies menu.

5.4. Navigation (TV Shows)

Enable or disable different categories on the add-on’s TV Shows menu.

5.5. TV Shows

Setting related to television shows. Includes play next and show list options.

Flatten TV seasons: Show all episodes in a single list instead of ordering by seasons.
Include Special Episodes (Season 0): Show special episodes.
Show unaired seasons/episodes: Show episodes that haven’t been released yet.
Unaired Season/Episode Color: Highlight unreleased episodes using selected color.
Allow multiple Episodes to Show Unwatched Count: On/Off.
Enable Calendar (TV Maze) fetching extended meta: On/Off.

Continuous Episode Playback Settings

Enable PlayNext popup: Activate this option to enable continuous episode playback.
— Playnext Popup Theme: Select a style for Umbrella’s PlayNext window.
— Playnext Background Color: Select a background color for the Playnext popup window.
— Playnext Popup Trigger: When to show the PlayNext popup. You can choose between Seconds Remaining, Percentage Watched or Subtitle End.
— PlayNext Default action: Play/Stop/Pause.
— Show Close/Hide Button: On/Off.
— Number of episodes till Still Watching: Select how many episodes to play continuously before showing the Still Watching dialog.
— Still Watching default action: Pause/Stop/Play.

My TV Shows and list sort options

IMDb list sorting: Sort options for certain lists inside the “My TV Shows” categories. Use Default to sort by popularity.
– Sorting Order: Ascending / Descending.
Show Sorting: Select the sorting method for TV Shows.
Watchlist Sorting: Select a sorting method for the watchlist screen.
Progress Sorting: Select a sorting method for the progress screen.
Air Information: Show airing date of episodes.

5.6. Playback

Settings related to video playback.

When playback starts…

Resume Playback: Will ask to resume video from last stop point or start from the beginning.
Auto Resume: Will automatically resume playback from last stop point.

When playback ends…

Force container refresh: Reloads the episode/movie selection screen to show the updated watched status markers, but increases loading time.

Mark Watched

Percentage to use to mark items watched: Mark items as watched after X percent has been played.

5.7. Sorting and Filters

Adjust settings related to sorting and filtering results from sources, use these options together with autoplay.

Source Sorting Options

Prioritize HDR and Dolby-Vision to top: Push High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Dolby Vision videos to the top of the scraped results.
Prioritize AV1 to top: Push videos encoded with the new AV1 format to the top of the scraped results.
Prioritize HVEC to top: Push H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HVEC) videos to the top of the scraped results.

Source Filtering Options

Max Quality: Set the maximum video resolution for scraped results.
Require Year in source for known Reboot shows: On/Off.
Filter Movies by Size: Filter movies results by file size or enter your internet speed and Umbrella will filter all the results that are too big to stream with your connection.
Filter Episodes by Size: Same as above, but for episodes.
Remove Duplicate Sources: Removes duplicated results.
– Do not spam log with removed duplicates: On/Off.
– Do not show removed duplicates popup: Off/On.
Remove uncached torrents: Filter results that are not yet cached on your Debrid provider’s cloud.
– Hide popup for uncached torrents if no results: Off/On.

Source Filtering (Video)

Use Video filters to hide results with video codecs or types that are not compatible with your device. (Dolby Vision, HDR, HEVC, AV1, AVC, DIVX, MP4, MPEG, WMV, CAM, SD, 3D)

Source Filtering (Audio Codec)

Use Audio filters to hide results with audio codecs or types that are not compatible with your device. (OPUS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos, TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD, DTS-HDMA, DTS-X, MP3)

Source Filtering (Audio Channels)

Use Audio channel filters to hide results with specific number of audio channels.

5.8. Source Options

Adjust settings related to sources and how results from the sources are presented.

Movie select action: Source Select (Window xml skin) / Auto Play.
Episode select action: Source Select (Window xml skin) / Auto Play.
Use default “Rescrape” option vs Menu: On/Off.
Use provider priority run ordering: Scrape sources using provider priority set on CocoScrapers. Can be used together with preemptive termination.
Disable CloudFlare protected providers: On/Off.
Check IMDb Movie meta: Use IMDb data to validate scraped results for movies.
— check title: On/Off.
— check year: On/Off.
Check IMDb Show meta: Use IMDb data to validate scraped results for TV shows.
Substitute Title Name(s): On/Off.
— List of Substitutes: a list of words to substitute on Title names.

Scraper Progress Dialog

Progress Dialog (Scraping and Resolving): Foreground/Background.
Scraper Timeout: Number of seconds until timeout.
Scraper Dialog Highlight Color: Customize scraper dialog color.
Terminate on Cloud Sources: Terminate scraping process if source is found on your personal Debrid cloud.
Pre-emprive termination (Movies): Terminate scraping process as soon as the specified number of results with the specified resolution are found.
Pre-emptive termination (TV Shows): Terminate scraping process as soon as the specified number of results with the specified resolution are found.

Source Select

Use artwork for background: Show artwork while selecting a source for episode or movie.
Highlight Method: Select a method to highlight found sources.
Sources Highlight Color: Select a color to highlight selected sources.
Torrent/Hoster sorting method: Select a sorting method for the results.
Sort by file size: On/Off.
— Reverse Size Sort (Low to High): Off/On.
Uncached Torrents sort by seeders: Off/On.
Autoplay SD Quality only: Off/On.
Only try one source: Off/On.
Add Back button for touchscreens: Off/On.

5.9. Trakt

Trakt authorization and settings.

Trakt

Trakt Username: Your Trakt username.
Account Info: Press to see your account details.
Revoke Authorization: Press to Unlink Trakt and Umbrella.
Trakt service sync interval (in minutes): Set how many minutes between Trakt synchronizations.
Server Notifications: On/Off.
General Notifications: On/Off.
Direct Progress scraping: Allows an item in your Trakt Progress list to instantly scrape instead of loading an episode list from that current NextUp/Progress position. (Do not use with continuous playback)
Browse Progress – load all remaining episodes of a series: On/Off.
Rating: Default/Force.
Enable scrobbling: Scrobbling stores your bookmarks and watched status on Trakt. Do not enable scrobble if you’re using the official Trakt add-on.
Show notification of scrobble: Off/On.
Resume Point Source: Local/Trakt scrobbles. Set resume point to Trakt scrobbles if you’re running Umbrella on multiple devices.
Trakt Progress Show unaired episodes: Show unaired episodes on Trakt Progress.
Trakt Upcoming Progress prepend date: Add date to upcoming episodes.
Paginate Lists when possible: Break long lists into pages for faster loading.
Show List Owner: Show the owner of the list.

5.10. Simkl

Simkl is a service to keep track of your watched shows and movies. It’s a great alternative to Trakt. Compatibility with Umbrella is currently under construction.

5.11. Accounts (Debrid)

Accounts settings and authorizations for Debrid services like Real Debrid, All Debrid, and Premiumize.

5.12. Accounts (Non-Debrid)

Account settings and authorizations for other cloud services like Easy News, Furk, GDrive, PlexShare and File Pursuit.

5.13. Accounts (Meta)

Account settings and authorizations for Meta-data providers like Fanart.tv, TMDb, IMDb, and MDBList.

5.14. Library

Set up library integration with Umbrella. You must create a folder for movies and another one for TV Shows on your device and assign them as media sources on Kodi.

Movies: Path to Movies folder.
TV: Path to TV shows folder.
– Add folders to Kodi Sources Now: Press to add folders as media source for the library.

Show notifications for library: Off/On.
Auto Update Service: Automatically scan the library folders for new files.
– Show Notifications for Service: Off/On.

Auto-update library from Trakt list(s): Use your Trakt lists to populate the library instead of your Trakt collection.
Select Lists to Manually Import Now (One-time): Select the list to import to your library.

Update library after adding content: On/Off.
Avoid Creating duplicate content: On/Off.

Delay before import: Sources and meta-data for new releases are not instantly available. Delaying import makes sure there’s metadata available.
Include Special Episodes (Season 0): Off/On.
Include episodes with unknown air dates: On/Off.
Include unaired episodes: Off/On.
Create .strm file for TMDB Helper: Use this option if you’ve enabled library integration with TMDB Helper.

5.15. Downloads

Adjust file downloading settings on Umbrella.

Enable Downloads: Activate this option to download files with Umbrella.
Movies: Set a folder for downloaded movies.
TV: Set a folder for downloaded episodes.
– File Name Format: Use the torrent name or apply a format to the file name.

5.16. Subtitles

Automatic subtitles settings. To use other subtitles add-ons read How to enable subtitles on Kodi.

Enable Subtitles: Activate this option to enable automatic subtitles on Umbrella.
Enable Notification of subtitle downloads: On/Off.
Convert subtitles to UTF-8: Off/On.
Primary Language: Select subtitle’s language.
Secondary Language: Select a secondary language for the subtitles.

5.17. Cache

Adjust cache settings for different meta-data services.

5.18. Widget Context Menu

Manage Umbrella’s Context Menu options.

5.19. Debugging

Developer and advanced user settings.

Enable Debug: Enable debug mode.
View Kodi Log File: Press to view the log file.
Developer mode: Developing and testing options. Enabling this can break the add-on.

5.20. Shortcuts

Quick access to maintenance options.

6. Alternatives to Umbrella

Looking for more add-ons? These are some of our favorite Kodi add-ons for June 2023.

Please visit our list of the best Kodi add-ons for more information.

	Fen: This add-on is very fast and offers many features. (Premium sources)
	Umbrella: Great add-on based on Venom. (Premium sources)
	Seren: Excellent add-on with great user interface and many innovative functions. (Premium sources)
	Elementum: An exceptional add-on that offers high-quality streams using torrents. (Free sources)
	Scrubs v2: Great add-on specialized in free sources. (Free sources)
	The Crew: Great all-in-one add-on with many extra features for kids, sports, live TV, and more. (Free and premium sources)