Kotatsu · Settings Guide · 2026
Best Kotatsu Settings for Smooth Manga Reading
Kotatsu works fine out of the box but the default settings aren’t optimized for everyone. A few changes in the right places make a real difference — faster source loading, a more comfortable reading experience, proper tracker sync, and downloads that don’t eat your storage without warning.
This guide covers the settings worth changing, what each one actually does, and the specific values that work best for most readers. All of this is based on version 9.4.1.
First Launch Setup
When you open Kotatsu for the first time, the Welcome screen gives you three options. Pick Local Storage if you’re starting fresh on a single device — it gets you into the app immediately with no account needed. Pick Login to Sync Account only if you’re moving from another device and want your library to carry over. Restore from Backup if you exported a backup from a previous Kotatsu install.
After that, the language and source type screen appears. English is checked by default. Check any other languages you read in — Spanish, French, Indonesian, Japanese, whatever applies. Under content type, Manga is checked. Enable Manhwa if you read Korean content, Comics if you read Western comics. You can change all of this later from Settings so don’t overthink it here.
The personalized suggestions prompt comes up last. Enabling this uses your reading history to surface related titles. If you prefer not to have Kotatsu analyzing your reading habits, tap No Thanks — it doesn’t affect any other feature. You can enable it later from Settings if you change your mind.
Pro tip: The language selection screen is the only time you’ll see it. Pick everything you might ever need — you can’t add new languages without resetting the app.
Reader Display Settings
Reading Mode Per Title
The most important reader setting is mode selection, and the key thing to know is that Kotatsu saves this per title. Set a manga to Right-to-Left once and it stays that way every time you open it. Set a webtoon to Webtoon mode and it remembers. You don’t have to change it every session.
To set the mode, open a chapter, tap the screen to bring up the menu, and tap the Read mode row. Standard works for most manga that isn’t strongly directional. Right-to-Left is the correct setting for traditional Japanese manga. Webtoon mode is the one to use for Korean manhwa and any long-strip format — it scrolls continuously without page breaks and preloads content ahead as you read so there’s never a pause between panels.
Color Correction and Display
Color correction is in the reader menu under the same tap-to-open panel. The warm option shifts the display toward amber tones, which reduces eye strain in low light — similar to night mode on your phone but applied to the manga pages themselves. Grayscale is useful for scanned manga that has inconsistent coloring between chapters. Inverted is there if you prefer dark-background reading but the source doesn’t offer dark mode pages natively.
Crop borders is the other display setting worth turning on for scanned manga. It removes the white margins around pages so more of your screen is actual panel content. Enable it in Settings under Reader and it applies globally, not just to specific titles. The two-page landscape layout is in the reader menu as well — still labeled beta but stable enough for regular use on most titles.
Source Management
Which Sources to Enable
Kotatsu installs with a large source catalog enabled by default. Most readers don’t use all of them. Go to Settings, then Sources, and you’ll see the full list organized by language. Disable sources for languages you don’t read — this speeds up global search results and keeps the Explore grid clean. If you primarily read English manga, keep the English sources and disable the rest until you have a specific reason to use them.
Within English sources, priority goes to sources that update quickly and have stable servers. ManhuaTop is one of the faster sources for manhua. Weeb Central works well for shoujo and romance titles. You’ll figure out which sources are reliable for the genres you read — when a source loads slowly or returns broken images consistently, disable it from Settings and use a different one for the same titles.
Switching Sources for a Title
If a source you’ve been using for a specific manga goes down or stops updating, you don’t have to lose your reading progress. On the title’s detail page, tap the three-dot menu and find the option to change source. Kotatsu will search for the same title on other active sources. Select a working one and your chapter list updates — your reading history stays intact. This is one of the most useful features in the app and most readers don’t know it exists until they need it.
Pinning Your Favorite Sources
In the Settings source list, you can pin specific sources to the top of the Explore grid. Tap the pin icon next to any source and it moves to the front of your Explore tab. If you use three or four sources regularly and ignore the rest, pin those four and the rest stay out of the way. Reorder pinned sources by dragging them — the order you set is the order they appear in Explore.
Catalog Filters Inside Sources
Every source has its own filter system accessible from the source’s catalog view. Tap the filter icon at the top right and you get genre tags, content type selectors, and sort options specific to that source. Setting up filters saves time if you always look for the same type of content in a specific source — the filters don’t reset between sessions, so a source configured to show only Action and Fantasy titles in the Updated sort stays that way every time you open it.
Tracking Integration Setup
Kotatsu connects to AniList, MyAnimeList, Kitsu, and Shikimori. To link a service, go to Settings, tap Tracking, and select the service you want. You’ll be redirected to that platform’s login screen in your browser. Log in and authorize Kotatsu — you’re redirected back to the app and the connection is active. Do this for each service you use. After that, chapter progress syncs automatically every time you finish a chapter — no manual updates needed anywhere.
One thing to note: tracking sync requires an active internet connection at the moment you finish a chapter. If you’re reading offline, the sync will push when you reconnect. Your local reading position saves regardless — it’s only the tracker update that waits for a connection. This is normal behavior and doesn’t affect your in-app reading history in any way.
Backup and Sync Settings
Go to Settings and find the Backup section. Tap Export Backup to save a file containing your entire library state — favourites, collections, reading positions, bookmarks, and app settings. Store this file somewhere safe: your Google Drive, a computer, or a messaging app you can access later. Make a habit of exporting before any major change — updating the app, switching phones, or clearing app data.
If you want cross-device sync without manual backup exports, use the Login to Sync Account option instead. Log in once and your library mirrors automatically across every Android device using the same account. Downloaded chapter files don’t sync — only library data and reading progress. The sync account is separate from any manga source account and is specific to Kotatsu.
Storage and Download Settings
In Settings under Downloads, you can set a download limit per series — useful if you want to automatically delete old chapters after you’ve read them to keep storage under control. The default is to keep everything downloaded forever, which fills up quickly on phones with limited storage. Set a limit of 5 to 10 chapters ahead and Kotatsu will manage the cleanup automatically as you read through a series.
Download queue behavior is configurable too. By default Kotatsu downloads over both Wi-Fi and mobile data. If you want to restrict downloads to Wi-Fi only to protect your data allowance, enable the Wi-Fi only download toggle in Settings. Downloads already in progress when you switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data will pause until Wi-Fi reconnects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Five Minutes of Setup, Much Better Reading
The default Kotatsu settings work but they’re not tuned for anyone specifically. Set your reading mode per title, enable color correction for night reading, disable sources you don’t use, and link your tracker once. Those four changes cover most of what matters.
Everything else in Settings is there when you need it — storage limits, sync preferences, display tweaks. You don’t have to configure all of it at once. Start with the reader display and tracking setup, and the rest will make sense as you spend more time in the app.