How to enable automatic subtitles on Kodi 18.3 Leia

Last Updated: Jul 1, 2019

Some popular video addons for Kodi already have automatic subtitles capabilities and that’s great, but some times you need more control over your selection process to get the right subtitles for your video. In this guide we’ll enable subtitles on Kodi using a couple of addons so you can watch all your shows and movies on Kodi with subtitles in any language.

Install subtitles addons on Kodi

1. Open the System menu by pressing the cog icon on the top left corner of the Home Screen.

2. Select Add-ons.

3. Select Install from Repository. 

4. Click on Subtitles. (If you’ve installed 3rd party repositories on your system you’ll have to select the official Kodi Add-on Repository first).

5. Let’s install some subtitles add-ons. There are many providers, install the ones that suit your language needs. Podnapisi and BSPlayer are great for English subtitles, Addic7ed is also great for TV Shows.

We strongly recommend installing the official OpenSubtitles addon and Subscene2, they are not on the official Kodi repository but they offer a huge catalog of subtitles in many languages. Please read the instructions below to install these add-ons.

6. Click on the Install button. 

Set up subtitles preferences on Kodi

Now that we installed a couple of add-ons for subtitles let’s set up the preferred language and default add-on for subtitles.

7. Go back to the Home Screen and open Settings by clicking the gear icon near the bottom-left corner.

8. Open the Player settings.

9. Highlight the Language tab and click on Language to download subtitles for.

10. You can pick more than one language. Select your preferred languages and click OK to confirm.

11. Now set the Default TV show service and Default movie service to one of the subtitles addons installed earlier.

12. You’re ready to go. When playing a video press the Subtitles button near the bottom right corner of the screen.

13. Select Download subtitles…

14. Select a file to download the subtitles.

[Optional] Enable automatic subtitles on Kodi with Autosubs

If you use subtitles often you may find that clicking on Subtitles > Download every time you start a video can be a bit annoying. Lets solve that by installing the Autosubs service.

15. Go to the Home Screen and click on the Add-ons tab.

16. Select Addon Browser. 

17. Then select Install from repository.

18. Click on Services. (If you’ve installed 3rd party repositories you’ll have to select the official Kodi Add-on Repository first)

19. Select Autosubs.

20. Press Install. 

21. Now that Autosubs is installed the Subtitle Selection Dialog will automatically open when you start playing a video.

When choosing a subtitles file keep in mind the video quality and try to match it with the subtitle file name, this way you’ll have better chances of getting the right subtitles for your video. Most addons scrapping file locker websites for sources will show a truncated filename which makes finding the right subtitle harder.

Install the official OpenSubtitles add-on

OpenSubtitles.org has its own add-on for Kodi called OpenSubtitles by OpenSubtitles. This add-on doesn’t require authentication and it gives you access to their extensive collection of subtitles in several languages.

I. Download the addon from its GitHub page, remember the downloaded file’s location. 

II. Open the System menu by pressing the cog icon on the top left corner of the Home Screen.

III. Select Add-ons.

IV. Select Install from zip file. 

V. Locate the zip file we just downloaded and click on it to install the add-on. 

If you want to set the official OpenSubtitles Kodi addon as the default subtitles addon follow the instructions on step 11.

If you have problems with the OpenSubtitles add-on please visit the OpenSubtitles add-on thread on their official forum.

Install Subscene2 add-on

Subscene.com hosts a large catalog of subtitles, but the add-on in the official repository has been broken since the last update of the website. Luckily, there’s an unofficial add-on called Subscene2.

A. Go to the Home Screen and press the cog icon to open the System menu.

B. Select File Manager.

C. Press Add source.

D. Write https://thuongtin.com/kodi/subtitle/ on the top box and thuongtin on the bottom one. Press OK to continue. 

E. Go back to the System menu and select Add-ons.

F. Press Install from zip file.

G. Now click on service.subtitle.subscene2.zip and wait a couple of seconds until the add-on is downloaded and installed.

Now you’ll be able to download subtitles from Subscene. You can also install service.subtitle.thuongtin.zip, it combines results from OpenSubtitles and Subscene in a single add-on.

These are some of the most popular Kodi add-ons for July 2019:

• Exodus Redux:  Based on Exodus, it uses OpenScrapers to get sources from file hosting websites.
• Venom: Based on Exodus, scrapes sources from file hosting websites.
• Seren: New add-on written from scratch with very innovative features like playing next episodes automatically, requires Debrid and Trakt accounts.
• Elementum: High-quality videos using Torrents.