Track What You Watch on Plex or Jellyfin, Automatically

4 November 2026

If you run your own media server, it already knows what you watched. Plex and Jellyfin both keep a played mark on every episode, with the date. What they do not give you is a tracker: a Watch List of what is next across every show, reminders when a new episode airs, a history that goes back further than your server.

OpenTV can read what you watched on your Plex or Jellyfin server and tick those episodes off for you. This article explains how to connect each one, what it does, and the limits worth knowing.

What it does

Once connected, OpenTV reads which episodes are marked played on your server. For every show you already track in OpenTV, it marks those episodes watched in your library, with the date the server recorded.

After that, it checks again each time OpenTV starts, and picks up anything you watched since the last check. Watch two episodes on the TV tonight, open OpenTV tomorrow, and they are ticked off.

The rules it follows

It is deliberately careful.

• It only reads. Nothing is ever sent to Plex or Jellyfin. Your server is not changed.
• It only touches shows you already track. Media servers fill up with things you never meant to follow. So a show that is not in your OpenTV library is left alone. Add it in OpenTV first, and the next check picks it up.
• It only adds. It never removes a watch. Unmark something on your server and OpenTV keeps its history as it is.
• It never counts an episode twice. An episode already in your library is skipped.
• It skips specials. Season 0 is numbered differently from one database to the next, so specials are left out rather than risk a wrong tick.
• It matches by id, never by title. Shows are matched through their TheTVDB id, the same database OpenTV uses for episode lists. A show your server never matched to TheTVDB is skipped.

Connecting Plex

Plex has a sign-in page for apps, so you never type a password into OpenTV.

1. Open OpenTV and go to Settings.
2. Open the Library tab.
3. Under Your data, tap Plex.
4. Tap Connect Plex. OpenTV shows a short code.
5. Tap Open plex.tv/link and enter the code there. You can tap the code to copy it.
6. Come back to OpenTV. It says Waiting for you to approve it… and then Connected.

Two things to know about Plex:

• Plex needs your own server. Plex only knows what you watched if you watched it through a server of your own. If your account has no server, OpenTV says so.
• Your server has to be reachable. If you are away from home and your server is not reachable from outside, OpenTV says no server answered. Try again on the same network.

The Plex screen also carries a short note asking you to check what the first sync adds. It only ever adds episodes of shows you already track and never removes anything, but a first look after connecting is a good habit.

Connecting Jellyfin

Jellyfin is self-hosted with no central directory, so you tell OpenTV where your server is.

1. In Settings, on the Library tab, tap Jellyfin.
2. Enter your Server address, such as jellyfin.example.com.
3. Enter your Username and Password.
4. Tap Connect Jellyfin.

Your password is sent to your own server once, to get a session, and is not kept. OpenTV stores only that session, in your phone's secure storage.

If it cannot connect, check the address, your username and password, and that the server is reachable from the network you are on.

After connecting

Each screen shows when it Last checked, and a Check now button if you do not want to wait for the next launch. When it adds episodes, it tells you how many, such as "Added 4 episodes". If there is nothing new, it says Nothing new.

Disconnect stops the checks. Nothing already added is removed.

About the dates

This is where a media server does better than some sources. Plex records when you last watched each episode, and Jellyfin records when you last played it. OpenTV uses that date, so an episode you watched last Tuesday lands on last Tuesday.

If you rewatched an episode on the server, it is the last watch that the server keeps. For older history from before you ran a server, an export from TV Time or another tracker will carry better dates. See how to get your TV Time history back and how to move your history from Trakt, Letterboxd, Simkl or IMDb.

Do you need an account?

No. Connecting Plex or Jellyfin is free and does not need an OpenTV account. The connection is between your phone and your server. Your library stays on your phone.

Using more than one

You can connect both, and Stremio too: it sits in the same list and follows the same rules. See Stremio watch history: track what you watch automatically. Each one only adds what is missing, so a show watched partly on Plex and partly on Jellyfin ends up with one clean history.

A good setup

1. Import your old history once, from TV Time or another tracker.
2. Make sure the shows you watch on your server are in your OpenTV library.
3. Connect Plex, Jellyfin, or both.
4. Turn on a backup: your own iCloud Drive on iPhone, or your own Google Drive on Android, under Settings, Library, Backup.

Your server does the playing, and OpenTV does the remembering.

Get OpenTV

OpenTV is free, open source and has no ads. Get it on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, or on Google Play for Android. Coming from TV Time? Start with the import your TV Time history guide. Comparing apps? See OpenTV vs Trakt.