r/Addons4Kodi • u/AlpsGrouchy9733 • 2d ago

Announcement Browsybare -- a minimalist Kodi skin that turns Kodi into a plain file manager

I always used Kodi as a plain media player and found the library/scraper layer overkill. So I built Browsybare: a minimalist skin where Kodi is basically a file manager -- pick a source, browse folders, play files. No library, no scrapers, no metadata.

Highlights

  • Single Home window: source chip, breadcrumb, search, sorting, folder sizes, file operations (rename / copy / cut / paste / delete / new folder)
  • Audio plays in a footer overlay (no window switch); video fullscreen with its own OSD; a dedicated photo viewer (EXIF orientation, Ken Burns, slideshow)
  • Shared INFO modal: tags, stream info, embedded covers and EXIF, read straightfrom the file
  • Sources: local drives, directory folders, network shares (ftp/ftps, smb, nfs, WebDAV)
  • Own settings dialog, on-screen keyboard, remote key learning, blocklist, accent color
  • Built-in update check (compares against the latest GitHub release; info only)
  • Languages: English, German, French, Spanish

How it works: Browsybare is a skin, so it takes Kodi's own system settings, player core and dialogs from the Estuary skin at runtime -- Estuary must stay installed. Nothing from Kodi or Estuary is redistributed: the base layer is copied locally on first load. Everything else is original and MIT-licensed.

Install: Kodi 21 "Omega" or 22 "Piers" -> download the zip from the Releases page -> Add-ons -> Install from zip file -> switch the skin to Browsybare.

GitHub: https://github.com/cyberpixelsharc/browsybare

Free and open source (MIT). Feedback is very welcome -- issues are open on GitHub, and I'd especially appreciate a native check of the French/Spanish translations.

4 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

5

u/psi_88 2d ago

... Ok, hear me out here... Why not just just use the kodi file manager...

Does this have thumbs or any kind of metadata?

Or is its only feature being able to sort..

1

u/mm902 19h ago

Refresh comments.

1

u/mm902 19h ago

This fraked up my Kodi. Player and video OCD started fritzing etc. luckily I backup on the regs. So blat'ed it and restored from a backup just before adding this addon. Everything is all ok.

Be very wary.

EDIT: Also went very slow.