Kodi: Hide Thumbnails of Unwatched Episodes

For my Kodi TV Shows, I usually get the Thumbnails from TVDb. But unfortunately sometimes, the thumbnails have revealed some big plot spoilers. For example, the face of a person who we all thought was dead in the next episode, or a traitor revealed, or a surprise guest shown. I know that TVDb has a spoiler-free thumbnails and screenshot policy, but it still happens time and time again.The best way around it is to use the TV Show’s default thumbnail for Unwatched episodes. And once you watch it, the actual thumbnail gets revealed. This solution was from Kodi’s forums:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=320996

Steps:

For older Kodi version 17.6, go to folder:

C:\Program Files(x86)\Kodi\addons\skin.estuary

Suppose you are using InfoWall view go to xml:

C:\Program Files\Kodi\addons\skin.estuary\xml\Variables.xml

Find InfoWallThumbVar in Variables.xml and add these two lines before the two <value> lines:

<value condition="String.IsEqual(ListItem.DbType,episode) + !Integer.IsGreater(ListItem.Playcount,0) + !String.IsEmpty(ListItem.Art(tvshow.landscape))">$INFO[ListItem.Art(tvshow.landscape)]</value>

<value condition="String.IsEqual(ListItem.DbType,episode) + !Integer.IsGreater(ListItem.Playcount,0) + !String.IsEmpty(ListItem.Art(fanart))">$INFO[ListItem.Art(fanart)]</value>

If you want to make it a skin option, in SkinSettings.xml, inside the block that starts with <control type=”grouplist” id=”600″> add this:

<control type="radiobutton" id="6051">
<label>Hide thumbnails for unwatched episodes</label>
<include>DefaultSettingButton</include>
<onclick>Skin.ToggleSetting(hide_thumbs)</onclick>
<selected>Skin.HasSetting(hide_thumbs)</selected>
</control>

Then in the two lines that you added to InfoWallThumbVar add the condition + Skin.HasSetting(hide_thumbs), so basically

<value condition="String.IsEqual(ListItem.DbType,episode) + Skin.HasSetting(hide_thumbs) + !Integer.IsGreater(ListItem.Playcount,0) + !String.IsEmpty(ListItem.Art(tvshow.landscape))">$INFO[ListItem.Art(tvshow.landscape)]</value>

<value condition="String.IsEqual(ListItem.DbType,episode) + Skin.HasSetting(hide_thumbs) + !Integer.IsGreater(ListItem.Playcount,0) + !String.IsEmpty(ListItem.Art(fanart))">$INFO[ListItem.Art(fanart)]</value>

Kodi’s latest version: Leia 18.4 which uses default theme Estuary already has this feature. In Settings -> Media -> Videos -> Show Information for unwatched items:

Here just deselect everything: Movie and TV Show plot and thumbnails. So now you’ll see a thumb like so instead of actual thumb:

But I prefer having the default TV thumbnail instead of this one. So, I make the same change to 18.4 code as well and get the TV Show’s default artwork.

If using x64 Kodi, all files will be in:

C:\Program Files\Kodi\addons\skin.estuary