Apps
Best TV Time Alternatives in 2026: Trakt, Letterboxd, and ScreenAtlas
TV Time shut down in July 2026. An honest comparison of the trackers still standing — Trakt, Letterboxd, and ScreenAtlas — and which one fits how you actually watch.
If you tracked your shows on TV Time, you’ve probably noticed: the app is gone. After more than a decade as a default place to check in episodes, TV Time shut down on July 15, 2026, and with it went its users’ watch histories, or at least the easy access to them.
That leaves former users asking so where do I track what I watch now? Here’s a map of three trackers still standing, what each is good at, where each falls short, and which one matches how you watch. (We re-checked each product’s public pages in October 2026.)
What happened to TV Time
A quick recap, because it shapes the “what now” answer. According to Wikipedia’s history of the service, it launched in 2011 as TVShow Time, was acquired by Whip Media in 2016, and rebranded to TV Time in 2017. Despite the name, it tracked movies too (from 2019). On July 1, 2026 the team announced a shutdown, and the website and app went dark two weeks later.
The lesson isn’t about TV Time specifically. It’s that a watch history you don’t control can vanish overnight. Whatever you pick next, keep an eye on whether you own the data, and whether it’s easy to get out if the lights ever go out again. (Our tracking guide covers the habits that make any tracker stick.)
The three trackers still standing
| Tracker | Best for | TV | Movies | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letterboxd | Film lovers who want the community half | ⚠️ Some series, no episodes | ✅ | Ad-supported |
| Trakt | Media-server scrobbling & your history as data | ✅ | ✅ | Free, with list and watchlist caps |
| ScreenAtlas | One calm shelf for TV and movies | ✅ | ✅ | Free today |
| TV Time | discontinued July 2026 |
Letterboxd: the film salon
Letterboxd isn’t really a tracker; it’s a social network that happens to log films. The diaries, the lists, the four-part reviews that end in a joke, the community is the product, and it’s genuinely the best film community on the internet.
Where it wins: movies, full stop. If you want to journal films, follow critics, and build lists, nothing else comes close.
Where it breaks: TV is an afterthought. Limited-run series and a small number of recurring series are loggable because it pulls from TMDB, but there’s no episode-by-episode tracking, the thing most TV watchers actually need. The free tier is also ad-supported; the paid Pro and Patron tiers remove the ads and add features, and a separate HQ tier serves theatres, festivals and other film organizations (both points per Wikipedia’s Letterboxd article). So if you want TV and an ad-free experience, Letterboxd isn’t the one. (Ready to move your diary? Our Letterboxd alternative page covers the export and import.)
Trakt: the data backbone
Trakt is the engineer’s choice. It tracks TV and movies, scrobbles what you watch automatically through plugins for players and media servers (Trakt maintains an official Plex plugin, and add-ons exist for Kodi, Jellyfin and Emby), and exposes the whole thing through a public API. It’s less an app than a personal viewing database with a face.
Where it wins: automation and data. If you run a media server, or you want your watch history as a dataset you can build on, Trakt is the serious option.
Where it breaks: the experience is utilitarian, built for people who enjoy the plumbing. Discovery is thin and the mobile apps are functional rather than pleasant. Tracking and scrobbling are free, but since January 2025 free accounts are capped at 2 personal lists of up to 100 items and 100 items each in the watchlist and collection; the paid VIP tier raises those limits. (Moving off Trakt? The Trakt alternative page walks through the export and import.)
ScreenAtlas: the one-shelf approach
We’re biased, so here’s the pitch plainly: most people don’t want a social network, a film diary, or a scrobbling backbone. They want one quiet shelf that holds TV and movies, knows the next episode, and takes seconds to update. That’s the entire brief behind ScreenAtlas, no social feed to scroll, no clutter, and a catalog with synopses, cast, and streaming homes built in.
Where it wins: friction. Check-ins are fast, TV and movies live together, and the app stays out of your way, open, tap, close. It’s built for the couch rather than the dashboard, and it’s free to use — Free on iPhone, Android, and the web.
Where it’s honest: we’re early and a small team, so the catalog and feature set are still growing, and how we monetize may evolve over time, but the core tracking experience (your shelf, check-ins, ratings, watchlist) is free today, and we’ll be straight with you if that ever changes. The one thing we won’t do is sell your viewing history.
So which one should you pick?
- You watch mostly movies and love the community half → Letterboxd.
- You run a media server or want your history as data → Trakt.
- You watch TV and movies and want one calm, free shelf → ScreenAtlas.
- You were on TV Time → this is your migration moment; pick the home that fits the next decade, not the last one. Our TV Time alternative page shows how to bring your export with you.
- You’re on Simkl and want something calmer → the Simkl alternative page covers that import too.
And if you’re still torn, the real answer is the one in our tracking guide: the best tracker is the one you’ll actually open at 11pm. Friction is the only feature that decides whether any of this survives week three.