How to choose a show tracker you won't regret (a post-TV Time checklist)

When TV Time shut down in July 2026, the real loss wasn't the app — it was the years of watch history and carefully tended watchlists locked inside it. If you are choosing a new home for your shows now, the lesson is worth keeping: a tracker is a place you deposit years of effort. Here are the six questions we would ask of any tracker — including ours.

1. Can you leave with your data?

The single most important question, and the one nobody asks until it is too late. Look for a real export — a file you can download today, in an open format (CSV or JSON), without writing to support or paying for the privilege. If a service treats export as a premium feature or buries it, that tells you how it thinks about your data. MovieSchedule's position: export is free, one click, JSON and CSV, for everyone.

2. Does it answer your actual question?

Most trackers are built around lists — what you watched, what you rated. But the question that brings you back weekly is a calendar question: when is the next episode, in my time zone? Decide which question dominates your use, and pick a tool whose home screen answers it. Ours is calendar-first: the schedule is the front page, and lists grow out of it.

3. Does it cover everything you watch?

Anime-only trackers do anime deeply; TV trackers often treat anime as an afterthought; movies fall between the cracks. If your watching spans all three, a unified tracker saves you from maintaining three apps. Check that each medium is a first-class citizen — not a bolted-on category.

4. How does it tell you something new happened?

• Push-only notifications die with the app install; email survives phone changes.
• A calendar feed (iCal) is the most durable channel of all — it lives in the calendar app you already check daily.
• The best answer is choice: follow a show once, then decide per-channel how you want to hear about it. We offer email notifications plus a personal iCal feed.

5. What does it cost — and what is the business model?

Free apps still pay their bills somehow. That is not a red flag by itself — ads and optional premium tiers are honest models — but be wary of any service where the free tier holds your data hostage to upsell you. The core promise to look for: everything about *your own data* (viewing it, exporting it, deleting it) stays free forever, and paid tiers only add comfort on top.

6. Is there a graceful exit if it dies?

TV Time proved that even an app with tens of millions of downloads can vanish. You cannot know a service's future — but you can check whether it is built for a graceful exit: open formats, documented data, IDs from public databases (so another service can re-match your shows). That combination turns a shutdown from a catastrophe into an afternoon of migration.

• Looking for a TV Time alternative?How MovieSchedule answers each of the six questions above.
• TV Time shut down — what to do with your dataThe rescue guide for stranded watch histories.
• The iCal feed, step by stepThe most durable notification channel there is.