this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
15 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

53670 readers
510 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
Cloak@lemmy.ml
mekhos@lemmy.ml
tmpod@lemmy.pt
14specks@lemmy.ml
15
How do you track the progress of show you watch? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 9 hours ago by Nebulous_Keito@thelemmy.club to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm mainly talking about anime shows but you can talk about overall all shows if you want to and this will be valid too. I'm looking for answers to the following questions:

β€’What do you use for tracking progress of shows you watch?

β€’What are the pros and cons of how you're tracking your shows, and is it worth it to be tracking shows this way? (If you're using a site for tracking, then mention the pros and cons of it with the name of the site)

Note: You can include more of your opinion and experience besides the questions' answers if you want to

top 20 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sakuraba@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

β€’What do you use for tracking progress of shows you watch?

Nothing, I just delete whatever I already watched from my hard drive and I know what I haven't watched just by being there.

β€’What are the pros and cons of how you’re tracking your shows, and is it worth it to be tracking shows this way?

The pro is that I don't have any hard data that could be harvested on an website. The con is I can only rely on my own memory to remember what I have watched.

I used to track my music/tv/movies/games but I don't really care anymore, it was that obsession with tracking that made it easier for me to trust platforms with my data (back in 2008 until like 2016 I tracked all that shit on last.fm, facebook, etc). I know there are self-hosted options now but as I said I don't care enough anymore.

[–] Nebulous_Keito@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for taking your time to answer the questions I provided there. You're the first one to do it and I'm glad you did..... + Yeah, honestly, I'm losing interest in tracking too, not that I ever had THAT much of an interest either in it... I'm starting to care way less now... I mainly use AniList and I have only been recently using it to find out more great anime and talk to people about different anime and learn their opinions. I'm using it more for these reasons rather than for tracking stuff honestly

[–] sakuraba@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

No problem, I imagined you wanted reasons behind our choices.

I used to track my anime on MAL, it's still a great place to discuss anime just like before social media but I'm not active there anymore.

I guess my 'great anime' backlog is so huge that I don't bother anymore and just try to keep myself up to date each anime season.

I also follow a Youtube channel called "Mother's Basement", I'm not really a fan of the guy but he makes a commitment to check out even the shittiest anime of each season and I discover some there.

[–] XenBad@feddit.uk 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
  • Anime - AniList with the MAL-sync browser extension
  • TV/movies - Simkl

Pros:

  • MAL-sync provides automatic tracking for anime/manga but it’s limited to certain websites
  • AniList is just a better MAL
  • Simkl has some nice list features

Cons:

  • I have to update Simkl manually
  • I don't have a way to automatically update AniList if I download anime, but its still more convenient to use the extension to update manually anyways
  • Simkl bugs you to buy premium
  • Neither of the sites are open-source
[–] Nebulous_Keito@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I had a MAL too but deleted it in a few days due to the bad UI. Then I made a AniList account and it's the watchlist service I use most (although, my watchlist isn't even much consistent but still). Then I tried Simkl and Trakt. In terms to Simkl, Aside from the bad UI, the only reason I haven't deleted it is because of the great importing feature. But I don't use it much. In terms of Trakt, I don't use it much either.

[–] hobata@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 hours ago

Not at all.

[–] Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I only watch stuff that's done. I hate neverending stuff like the millionth episode of One Piece or such shit. I don't like waiting on new episodes to arrive.

So when I watch something, I download it, and watch it. If I don't remember in my mind where I'm at exactly, I just open an episode and see if I recognize it. If I don't, I go back in the series, if I do, I go forward, until I'm at the episode that I haven't watched yet.

Most of the time, I just know where I'm at. If I don't, it takes like 30 sec max to find the place I'm in, less than the time it would take to enter my "watched" status on any service.

I can't really think of any cons or why I would use anything else. All those services are just wasted time/effort to me.

[–] baronvonj@piefed.social 2 points 6 hours ago

I try not to context-switch between shows. However much of a show drops at a time is how much I watch before switching to a different show. Then I can just use the relevant platform's "new episodes" alert to know when there's something to slot into my viewing time.

[–] Red5@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 7 hours ago

I self host RYOT. It is a great addition of to my homelab and helps to keep data off of cloud services that sell my data.

https://github.com/ignisda/ryot

[–] espentan@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Trakt + SeriesGuide.

[–] Alk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Jellyfin watch status and sonarr. I do use mal but really only for looking up the list of shows airing this season and adding some that I want to watch to sonarr.

It's all in one place and directly relates to the availability on my server. Just a couple clicks and it's tracked and downloaded.

[–] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 hours ago

https://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/

It's a calendar so its purpose is mainly for you to see when an upcoming episodes air.

When you create an account (which is simple and doesn't require any personal information or even an e-mail confirmation, if I recall correctly) you can subscribe to shows and mark episodes as watched.

I've been using it for years, it's great.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 hours ago

I unfortunately use Trackt but through a client called Showly, which is great.

Also using Kitsu for anime and stuff (idk got used to keeping track on both. It's just that I can log re-watches on Kitsu) through Kitsune

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 points 9 hours ago

I only use my head + the clues some streaming services provide marking shit as viewed.

[–] thermogel@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

i know it lacks shows, and is owned by a holding company, but i use Letterboxd. My 🚬 cinephile friends are there, so its cool to see what we log. I read that the platform is trying to cover shows as well as movies, but it is still noticeably lacking shows.

[–] Pandasdontfly@anarchist.nexus 2 points 9 hours ago

Manually via letterboxed and serializd

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I used Trakt in the past, but nothing recently.

If I started tracking again, the main use case would be looking up a person and getting a quick list of where I've seen or heard the person before. I don't know what sites do that.

Otherwise it can also be useful if a friend asks if I've seen anything good recently.

[–] sexy_animal_fucker@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I usually don't binge watch stuff tbh

[–] Nebulous_Keito@thelemmy.club 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

So, do you use anything to track your shows?

[–] sexy_animal_fucker@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 9 hours ago

If the platform I'm watching it on tracks it some way for me then yea but otherwise no

I'm very casual about what I watch