[Bad Wolf]

Does a feature within Kodi exist to keep a record of what movies you have watched? Every time I have to reload an OS or reinstall Kodi it loses track of all the movies I have watched, is there a database or a record that can be backed up and moved from installation to installation preserving the watch history?

[DarrenHill]

It's stored in the kodi database, or you could use an external service such as trakt.

Backing up and restoring the database is possible from the settings menu.

[Klojum]

Does a feature within Kodi exist to keep a record of what movies you have watched?

You can use the filter in the slide-out menu in both movie and tvshow listings.
Select All videos, Watched or Unwatched.

[Bad Wolf]

It's stored in the kodi database, or you could use an external service such as trakt.

Backing up and restoring the database is possible from the settings menu.

Do you know under which section, I looked through all of them and I can't see any database or backup option?

[Bad Wolf]

Does a feature within Kodi exist to keep a record of what movies you have watched?

You can use the filter in the slide-out menu in both movie and tvshow listings.
Select All videos, Watched or Unwatched.

I'm trying to retain the viewing history. I need to reinstall Linux and when I do I am going to lose all my history again.

[Klojum]

Perhaps your video database got corrupted in some way.
Normally retaining the watched and resume statuses is not a problem whatsoever.

[Bad Wolf]

Perhaps your video database got corrupted in some way.
Normally retaining the watched and resume statuses is not a problem whatsoever.

When you wipe out the OS the database goes with it, that is why I am trying to find out what to back up and where.

[Klojum]

When you wipe out the OS the database goes with it, that is why I am trying to find out what to back up and where.

That depends on the OS. LibreELEC/CoreELEC/OSMC(?) has a Backup/Restore tool, albeit only for the entire userdata folder.
Of course you can always manually copy your database file(s) to a safe location.
Kodi's databases can be found in the userdata/Database folder.

As far as MySQL/MariaDB goes, there are tools available for making sql dumps.

[DarrenHill]

Go to the settings menu, switch the view to either advanced or expert level and then go to settings>media settings > library.

There you should see options for exporting and importing the libary for both the video library and the music library.

Also see Import-export library (wiki) and its sub-pages. Note the tweaks needed in advancedsettings.xml (wiki) for reimport of certain data items.

If you export to single files then you'll create NFO (wiki) files alongside each of the library entries (presuming Kodi has write access, and that your storage is suitably done - basically with each movie in its own folder). Or for simple backup and restore then export as a single file, give it a suitable location to save it to, and then keep that file safe. When you rebuild then you can import that file again in the same menu section to bring back your database (and watched states etc). The file paths etc to the media need to be the same for both the old and new Kodi installs for it to work though, as the path is also stored in the database.

[Bad Wolf]

Go to the settings menu, switch the view to either advanced or expert level and then go to settings>media settings > library.

There you should see options for exporting and importing the libary for both the video library and the music library.

Also see Import-export library (wiki) and its sub-pages. Note the tweaks needed in advancedsettings.xml (wiki) for reimport of certain data items.

If you export to single files then you'll create NFO (wiki) files alongside each of the library entries (presuming Kodi has write access, and that your storage is suitably done - basically with each movie in its own folder). Or for simple backup and restore then export as a single file, give it a suitable location to save it to, and then keep that file safe. When you rebuild then you can import that file again in the same menu section to bring back your database (and watched states etc). The file paths etc to the media need to be the same for both the old and new Kodi installs for it to work though, as the path is also stored in the database.

Thanks for that. I was on Standard when I thought I was on Advanced. I did a test back up, so I think this should work just fine when the time comes.

[da-anda]

if you would like to create a full backup of your KODI installation and it's configuration, backup your userdata folder, see https://kodi.wiki/view/Userdata - it also contains ALL databases. Or better, backup the .kodi folder