Your watch history is yours: TrackShows now has one-tap data export
David White
When TV Time shut down this month, millions of people discovered how hard it can be to get your own watch history out of an app. Some managed to request an export in time; plenty did not, and years of tracking vanished with the service. We wrote a guide to rescuing your TV Time data during the shutdown, and the whole episode shaped how we think TrackShows should treat your data.
So here is our position, now built into the app: your watch history belongs to you, and you can take it with you whenever you like.
How it works
Open TrackShows, go to Settings, and tap Export my data. That is the entire process. There is no email request, no waiting period and no support ticket.
You get a single zip file containing five CSV files:
- shows.csv: every show you follow
- movies.csv: your movie watchlist and watched films
- watched-episodes.csv: every episode you have marked watched
- episode-ratings.csv: your star ratings
- comments.csv: everything you have written
Each row includes the TMDB id alongside the title, so the files are readable by a human in any spreadsheet app and usable by any other tracker that understands TMDB ids. Timestamps are included throughout.
In the browser the zip downloads immediately. In the Android app you pick the folder it saves to, such as Downloads.
Why it matters
An export button you never need to use still matters, because it keeps us honest. If leaving TrackShows is easy, the only reason to stay is that the app is genuinely useful. That is the deal we want.
This joins account deletion, which has been in the app since day one, so both halves of owning your data are covered: take a copy any time, or remove it entirely.
The export is live now in the web app and lands in the Android app with the next update. Full details are on the changelog.