In an age where on-demand entertainment reigns supreme, tracking your streaming activity can provide more than just personal satisfaction—it can be an insightful way to evaluate your media consumption habits, share curated logs with fellow enthusiasts, or even gain a better appreciation of your bingeing tendencies. Whether you’re a casual viewer or a data-obsessed cinephile, maintaining a history of what you watched, along with metadata like ratings or viewing dates, can offer lasting value. Enter streaming export and archiving tools—powerful platforms designed to help users download and preserve their watch histories from major services.
TL;DR
A handful of trustworthy tools allow users to export their viewing history and metadata from streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. The top four tools discussed here include Trakt, TV Time, Reelgood, and the open-source project Exportify. These export options make it easy to track binge history, analyze viewing patterns, or share logs online. Each tool offers unique features, from automated syncing to manual exports, geared toward both casual users and data enthusiasts.
1. Trakt — The Gold Standard for Media Tracking
Platform Support: Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Plex, Kodi, and more.
Trakt is one of the most widely-used platforms for tracking TV and movie consumption. It integrates seamlessly with dozens of streaming apps and media centers. What sets Trakt apart is its powerful combination of automation and data fidelity. Once you connect Trakt to supported platforms or players through plugins or API keys, it automatically syncs your watch activity in real-time.
Export Capabilities: Users can manually export their entire viewing history along with rich metadata. The export file includes titles, dates watched, metadata such as ratings and genre, and even individual episode tracking.
Why It’s Useful: For those interested in long-term media analytics, Trakt provides a detailed dataset that can plug directly into visualization tools like Excel or Tableau. This makes it an ideal companion for content creators or just the data-obsessed viewer wanting to analyze trends.
Additional Highlights:
- Automatic watch history logging through integrations.
- Social features for sharing watch logs with friends.
- Supports CSV and JSON exports of entire viewing history.
2. TV Time — Tracker with Social Sharing and Export Support
Platform Support: Broad manual entry; some automation via partner apps and extensions.
Originally built as a social platform for TV enthusiasts, TV Time now offers many features including progress tracking, customizable watch lists, and rich metadata such as reactions and reviews. Its export options are not as extensive as Trakt’s, but they offer enough for users who want a structured archive of what they’ve watched.
Export Capabilities: TV Time allows premium users to request an export of their data through their settings. The data set includes the shows and movies watched, dates of first and last episode viewed, personal ratings, and tags.
Why It’s Useful: TV Time provides a user-friendly interface and visual media tracking. For those interested in sharing their viewing data in digestible or graphical formats (like end-of-year highlights), the export features make this feasible.
Additional Highlights:
- Includes user-generated content like ratings and comments.
- Year-in-review summaries offer fun recaps of viewing behavior.
- Export format available in spreadsheets or JSON after user request.
3. Reelgood — Aggregator with Robust Watchlist and History Tools
Platform Support: Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV+, among others.
Reelgood is primarily known as a streaming aggregator—it pulls together content across services to provide a centralized dashboard for finding, tracking, and organizing media. Unlike Trakt, Reelgood doesn’t directly log every single watch but allows users to manually mark items as watched directly in the interface.
Export Capabilities: Reelgood lets users export data related to their watchlists, completed shows, view dates, and personal ratings. While the export process isn’t automatic, users can request their data through the Help section or by contacting support.
Why It’s Useful: Ideal for users who value interface simplicity and want a consolidated view across all their subscriptions. It’s especially useful for tracking live content alongside been-watched material when you use multiple services.
Additional Highlights:
- Great for maintaining watchlists across services in one place.
- Frequent updates on where shows and movies are available to stream.
- Limited metadata depth compared to Trakt, but still comprehensive enough for casual archiving.
4. Exportify (formerly Flixable Exporter) — A Community-Driven Open-Source Tool
Platform Support: Netflix (primary), with various community-modified versions for other services.
Exportify is a free, open-source tool that revolutionized third-party access to viewing history. Initially designed for Netflix users reluctant to lose all their metadata in the face of un-exportable APIs, Exportify allows users to login with their credentials and download their full watch history, often including time stamps and title types (movie or show).
Export Capabilities: Users download data in CSV format after logging into their accounts through the tool’s secure interface. Metadata includes episode titles, season numbers, durations, viewing times, and content type classifications.
Why It’s Useful: Exportify has remained popular among more tech-savvy users because of its flexibility. Developers have forked it to create versions for other platforms, and being open-source means that it is consistently updated by the community.
Additional Highlights:
- Open-source, offering maximum transparency.
- Supports exporting granular Netflix metadata.
- Community-driven forks support additional services.
Use Cases and Final Thoughts
Whether you’re conducting personal analytics, documenting your favorites, or simply want to remember where you left off after canceling a subscription, these tools offer robust solutions to export and store your streaming history with full metadata. Many services are surprisingly opaque when it comes to letting users back up their data, so having reliable third-party support is crucial.
All four tools above vary slightly in their implementation, but they share the common goal of preserving your digital watch memories:
- Trakt for automation and unmatched compatibility.
- TV Time for community and visual tracking.
- Reelgood for cross-platform organization.
- Exportify for open-source transparency and deep Netflix insights.
As streaming competition and platform rotation continues to evolve, having control over your own viewing archival data may become even more important—not just to understand your habits but to retain a lasting record of your digital entertainment journey.
