How to Sync Your TV Tracker Between iPhone and Android, Free

23 October 2026

Plenty of households are mixed. An iPhone in your pocket, an Android tablet on the sofa, an old iPad by the bed. You tick an episode on one, and the next evening the other still thinks you are an episode behind.

Most trackers fix this with an account on their own server. Your history goes up to them, and every device reads it back from there. It works, but it means a company holds your whole viewing history, and often that the sync is the part you pay for.

OpenTV does it differently. Since version 2.0.0, your devices can sync through your own Google Drive or your own iCloud, for free, with no OpenTV account. This article explains how it works, how to turn it on, and what travels between devices.

How it works

Each device writes small files into a hidden folder in your own cloud. A file says what that device did: this episode was ticked, this film was rated three and a half stars, this show was added. The other devices read those files and do the same thing on their side.

Every file is written by exactly one device and never edited by another. Neither Google Drive nor iCloud has a way to lock a file, so this rule is what stops two devices from overwriting each other.

Nothing goes through OpenTV's server. The files sit in your Google account or your Apple account, and we never see them.

Which cloud to choose

There are two options, and you use one at a time.

• Sync through Google Drive works on any device, iPhone and Android alike. This is the one for a mixed household.
• Sync through iCloud works between your iPhone and iPad, through your own iCloud.

Pick the same one on every device. A phone on iCloud and a tablet on Google Drive would be writing into two different folders and would never hear each other.

Turning it on

On the first device:

1. Open Settings and go to the Library tab.
2. Tap Backup.
3. Under Sync between your devices, turn on Sync through Google Drive (or Sync through iCloud if every device is an Apple one).
4. For Google Drive, choose your Google account. Signing in here only connects your Drive. It does not create an OpenTV account or join the community.

Then do the same on the second device, with the same Google account (or the same Apple account for iCloud).

Turning on Google Drive sync also turns on the Google Drive backup, so each device keeps a full copy of your library in your Drive as well.

What happens the first time

The second device does not start empty. When you turn sync on, it takes the backup copy from your cloud and merges it into what is already there. Merging only adds: nothing on that device is deleted. It then sends its own library back up, so a third device gets everything from both.

If the second device is brand new, you can also start from the first screen. Tap Restore from Google Drive (it is on iPhone too, not only Android), sign in to the same Google account, and your library comes back. Then turn on sync in Backup as above.

What travels between devices

The everyday things you would notice being wrong on a second screen:

• Shows you add, and episodes you tick or untick
• Rewatches
• Episode and film ratings, half stars included
• How an episode made you feel, and your favourite character
• Following, favouriting and archiving a show
• Films you add, watch and rate
• Your profile's design

A few things do not sync yet: your custom lists, the order of your favourites, and posters or backdrops you picked by hand. Those stay on the device where you changed them.

How fast it is

With Google Drive, a change usually arrives within about a minute while OpenTV is open on both devices. With iCloud, it is usually a minute or two, but iCloud decides exactly when it delivers.

There are no push messages, because a push would need our server. So the other device picks changes up while it is open, rather than in the background.

On the Backup screen you can see Last synced and a list of Other devices that share the folder. If a row says Sync is not getting through, check the connection on both devices, and that both are signed in to the same account.

Where OpenTV Plus fits

OpenTV Plus is an optional subscription. One of the things it adds is backup and sync through OpenTV's own server, for people who would rather not use their own cloud. If you turn that on, it takes over, and the iCloud and Google Drive switches step aside so changes never arrive twice.

You do not need Plus to sync your own devices. Free sync through your own cloud stays free.

Turning it off

Switch the same row off on a device and it stops syncing. Your library on that device stays exactly as it is. The files stay in your cloud too, because they are your data, and a device that turns sync back on later catches up from them.

Other ways to keep a copy

Sync is not the only way to move a library. Under Settings, Library, Backup, Export my data saves everything as a ZIP in TV Time's own file format, which you can import on any phone. More on keeping your library on your own terms in how to track TV shows offline, with no account.

Get OpenTV

OpenTV is free, with no ads, on the App Store for iPhone and iPad and on Google Play for Android. Bringing a history with you? Start with how to get your TV Time history back or how to move from Trakt, Letterboxd, Simkl or IMDb.