I’ve reset Kodi back to the default settings dozens of times over the years. I’ve done it on my Android boxes, my NVIDIA Shield Android TV, and even on my Windows PC.
Compared to most other operating systems, it’s a super-easy process on Android and Android TV.
In fact, it’s so easy, you can reset Kodi and get a clean slate in only a few seconds.
But you’re probably wondering, it takes time to get Kodi set up just right on your Android TV box. Why would you ever want to reset it?
Why You Might Want To Reset Kodi
If you’re like me, you’ve probably changed a setting and broken something in Kodi before. Worse yet, sometimes you might not remember which setting you changed that broke it in the first place.
If that happens, sometimes the best solution is to set everything back to factory defaults and start over.
Similarly, if you think you’ve messed up your initial Kodi setup, wiping the slate clean might be the best way to go.
Another popular reason to reset Kodi and start over is if you use a lot of add-ons. Because it’s open source, it’s really easy to create add-ons for Kodi. But that doesn’t mean that those add-ons will always work.
Eventually, event he most popular add-ons stop being updated. At that point, you should uninstall them. But sometimes just uninstalling an add-on won’t get rid of all of it’s components.
If you have more than a couple of add-ons that you need to get rid of, a clean installation might be easier (and more secure too).
Clear Cache vs. Clear Data: What Do They Do?
When you get to the Settings menu, you’ve got two options: Clear Cache and Clear Data.
But what does each option mean?
Clearing app cache will force the app to reload everything from scratch the next time you open it. Performance may seem a bit slower, but it usually fixes minor problems.
It’s possible that you may need to sign in to the app after you clear it’s cache.
By contrast, clearing app’s data will delete your entire history, settings and any additional “”stuff”” you’ve added after you installed the app. In Kodi’s case, this means all of your libraries, addons and settings will get deleted.
After you clear an app’s data, it’s reset back to how it was when you first installed it.
How to Reset Kodi To Factory Settings
Once you’re absolutely sure that you want to delete Kodi’s app data, follow this simple process.
Remember, once you hit the delete button, there’s no going back. You’ll need to re-load your libraries and add-ons again.
Step 1: Start by going to the Settings menu, either from the home screen or from your app drawer.
Step 2: Click on Apps. This will pull up a list of every app that you have installed on your Android device.
Step 3: Scroll down until you find Kodi, and click on the icon. This will pull up the settings specifically for this app.
Step 4: Force Stop the Kodi app.
It’s a good practice to Force Stop an app before you clear it’s cache or data.
Android, like most computer operating systems, constantly has programs residing in memory. This means that Kodi could be accessing some files or data, even when it doesn’t look like it’s open.
Force Stopping Kodi makes sure that any hidden functions will have stopped and it won’t be accessing any of it’s data.
Step 5: Clear Data.
This is the point of no return. Once you click Clear Data, Kodi is reset back to factory defaults.
Step 6: Verify
At this point, you’re taken back to the app details page. There are two things to verify here.
First, the the App Cache should be at zero. Since we ‘force stopped’ Kodi earlier, it hasn’t had the chance to pre-load anything yet.
You’ll notice that the App Data is not quite zero. In the image below, you’ll see that it’s around 12 KB.
Considering that we started with over 600MB, taking it down to 12KB is a great result.
Step 7: Re-launch Kodi
Once you re-start Kodi, it’s essentially like you’re starting it for the first time.
You should get a warning box asking for permission to access photos, media and files on your Android device.
You should also get the “Preparing for First Run” message.
Conclusion
Resetting Kodi back to factory default settings is a super-easy process on Android boxes and Android TV’s.
While other operating systems make you do into the file system and delete folders, Android lets you do the same thing on only a few clicks.
If, after reading this, you decide that you’d rather just uninstall Kodi, you can follow the steps in this article to uninstall the app from your Android TV device.
After a brief hiatus from the industry he's back at the helm of AndroidTVNews.com to bring Android TV and TV boxes to the forefront of the streaming world.
When he's not writing, he spends as much time as he can with his beautiful wife and his bulldog.
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