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:

•What do you use for tracking progress of shows you watch?

•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

  • 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, and I only have to do that rarely.

    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.

    • Understandable because I also watch completed seasons and I’m more of a binge watcher. I’m not a weekly watcher type of person either. In terms of One Piece, I watched based on arcs and always have been…

      Valid way. Used to follow this way most of my life and this is what I like more honestly.

      Yup, I have done that most of my life too.

      True. Tracking is just a hassle for people like you and me.

  • •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.

    •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.

    • 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

      • 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.

    • 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
    • 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.

    • I love SeriesGuide for tv and movies. It shows upcoming episodes, so when a series comes back after a long break, I know a few weeks in advanced it’s coming back. Has some good categories for finding new movies as well. Being linked to trakt and IMDB to get reviews or actor info is helpful as well. Great frontend for trakt.

      For anime and manga I use MyAnimeList and Anilist through Aniyomi. It auto updates the episode/chapter as you go now.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 8 hours

    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.

  • 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

  • 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.