What Happens to Your Watch History When a Tracker Shuts Down

21 September 2026

A watch history is a strange kind of data. Nobody thinks about it until it is gone. Then you realise it held years of small moments: the show you binged the week you moved house, the series you finished with a friend, the date you started a show you now love.

This article looks at what happens when a tracker shuts down, using the TV Time closure as a real example, and what you can do so it never costs you your history again.

What usually happens

Every closure is different, but the pattern is familiar:

1. An announcement, often with a few weeks' notice.
2. A window to export, if the company offers one.
3. The service stops, and the app stops working.
4. Personal data is deleted, according to the company's stated plan.

TV Time is a recent case. It announced its closure in early July 2026, and the service ended after 15 July 2026. MacRumors reported that personal user data was to be deleted after that date, and that users could request an export through a GDPR self-service tool before the cutoff.

That window was about two weeks. People who saw the notice and requested their export kept their history. Anyone who was away, missed the notification, or did not know what a GDPR export was had very little time to catch up.

Why it hurts so much

A tracker's value grows with time. In the first month it is a to-do list. After five years it is a diary. That is exactly why losing it hurts, and why you cannot easily rebuild it: you can remember which shows you watched, but not the dates.

There is also a social layer. Comments, friends, reactions. Those belong to many people at once, so no single export can bring them back. In TV Time's case, a community effort saved an archive of public conversations before the closure. That is why the TV Time episode comments are back in some apps today. It was a rescue, not something anyone can count on.

What you can do today, whatever app you use

You do not have to switch apps to protect yourself. A few habits cover most of the risk.

Find the export button now. Most trackers have one somewhere in settings. Press it today, not when the shutdown email arrives. Check that the file actually downloads and opens.

Do it again every few months. An export from two years ago is better than nothing, but it is missing two years.

Keep the file somewhere you control. Your own cloud drive, a computer, a USB stick. Not only inside the app that made it.

Know what format it is in. CSV and JSON are good signs. Other apps can read them, and so can a spreadsheet. If you have a TV Time export, here is what's inside the TV Time export ZIP.

Watch for the notice. If your tracker announces a closure, export first and look for a new home second.

Two ways to design a tracker

Under the hood, trackers keep your history in one of two places.

On a server. Your history lives with the company, tied to your account. You get it on every device and on the web. The trade-off is that your history depends on that company continuing to run the service.

On your device. Your history lives in a database on your phone. It works offline and needs no account. The trade-off is that you have to back up the phone's copy, because there is no server copy to fall back on.

Neither is wrong. What matters is that you know which one you are using, and that you have a way out.

How we handle it in OpenTV

We build OpenTV, a free, open-source tracker for iPhone, iPad and Android, and we chose the second model on purpose.

• Your library lives on your phone. If our servers disappeared tomorrow, you would keep your complete history. You would lose only the community features, like other people's comments and ratings.
• Backups go to a place you own. On iPhone, OpenTV backs up to your own iCloud Drive. On Android, to your own Google Drive. Both are free and need no OpenTV account.
• Export is always there. Under Settings, the Library tab, then Backup, Export my data saves your whole library as a ZIP in TV Time's own file format. OpenTV reads it back without losing anything.
• Imports are open too. OpenTV reads TV Time, Trakt, Simkl, Letterboxd and IMDb exports, so your history can come with you from elsewhere. See how to move your history from Trakt, Letterboxd, Simkl or IMDb.
• The code is public. The app is open source under MPL-2.0, at github.com/theopentv/opentv-app. If we ever stopped, the app would not have to stop with us.

We are a small team. We cannot promise to be around forever, and nobody honestly can. What we can do is make sure your history does not depend on it.

If it already happened to you

If your tracker has already closed:

• Search your email and downloads for an export you may have requested and forgotten.
• If you have the file, import it into a new app soon, while the format is fresh in people's memory and tools still support it. For TV Time, follow how to get your TV Time history back.
• If you do not have the file, the history held by that service is most likely gone. Starting fresh is not as bad as it sounds: add the shows you remember, mark whole seasons in a tap, and from today, keep a backup.

Keep your history yours

OpenTV is free, with no ads and no account needed. Get it on the App Store or Google Play. If you have a TV Time export, our import your TV Time history guide has the steps. If you are choosing a new tracker, see TV Time alternatives, OpenTV vs Trakt, and how to track TV shows offline, with no account.