Choose your tracking routine
Media Tracker Comparison
Find a home for your media history that fits how you actually watch, read, listen, and play.
By OmniTrackr · Updated
Start with what you need it for
Pick a tracker for the thing you do every week: finding your next book, remembering where you stopped in a show, or recalling why a film stayed with you. Moving years of history will not help if that everyday task becomes harder.
OmniTrackr brings movies, TV, anime, games, music, and books into one library, which helps if you switch between formats a lot. If a film discussion community or automatic playback logging is the main reason you track, choose based on that first. You can use OmniTrackr alongside another service without rebuilding your entire history.
Compare the everyday use
The middle column summarizes documented features. The final column is our editorial advice about fit, not a ranking. On a narrow screen, scroll the table sideways to read every column.
| Option | What it offers | When we would choose it |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | A layout you control: your own columns, formulas, and files. Sharing and offline behavior depend on the spreadsheet software you choose. | Your custom fields or analysis matter more than a ready-made library. Try a few rows on your phone before committing to the layout. |
| IMDb | Lists for movie and TV picks, with public or private visibility and list export. See IMDb's Lists FAQ. | You already browse IMDb and want to organize titles there. Its TV support makes it a different choice from a film-only list. |
| Letterboxd | A film diary, ratings, reviews, watchlists, and following other members. See Letterboxd's feature overview. | Discussing films and following other viewers is a central part of your habit. Keep using that community even if you collect other formats elsewhere. |
| Trakt | Movie and episode history, including automatic playback tracking through integrations that send scrobble events. See Trakt's scrobbling documentation. | Logging what plays in your media center is the priority. Check compatibility with your actual player; OmniTrackr does not provide playback scrobbling. |
| Goodreads | Reading shelves, book recommendations, community reviews, and seeing what friends read. See Goodreads' overview. | Book discovery and a reading community are your main goals. Test whether your shelf and edition habits transfer before moving a book collection. |
| OmniTrackr | Six media categories, ratings, notes with category sharing controls, private journal entries, progress checkpoints for TV, anime, and books, collections, and JSON backups. Try the interactive demo. | You want one place to choose what is next and remember experiences across formats, and are comfortable updating your own progress. |
Test a routine before moving your history
If you mostly lose track of recommendations
Save three things you might start next, then return a few days later. Can you find them quickly and choose one? In OmniTrackr, Next Up lets you put a short list in the order you want. A huge imported backlog doesn't help if those three get lost in it.
If you forget where you left off
Try saving an episode or book page in the demo, then look at the checkpoint on that sample title's card. In your own library, recent unfinished checkpoints also appear in Continue. OmniTrackr checkpoints are manual reminders. If you need progress to follow your player automatically, evaluate a compatible Trakt integration instead.
If you want to remember what stuck with you
Write one sentence about something you finished. Decide whether it belongs in a private journal, a review, or a collection you choose to share. OmniTrackr separates those choices; the sharing guide explains how to check them.
Try it for one ordinary week before you migrate everything. Keep your existing tracker while you test the new routine, and decide which service holds your main record so the two lists don't drift apart.
Where OmniTrackr has limits
- No automatic account sync: importing a file is a one-time action. Later changes on Letterboxd, Goodreads, Trakt, or another service do not flow into OmniTrackr automatically.
- Manual progress: OmniTrackr does not connect to your streaming player to log viewing. Current episode, page, or chapter reminders must be updated by you.
- A migration is not a full copy of a service: supported CSV fields become library records. Social connections, custom source shelves, and likes are not recreated. A Letterboxd diary is the exception: its dated entries come over to your Journal.
- Duplicate matching is simple: the studio checks title and year for movies, TV, and anime; title and release year for games; title and artist for music; and title and author for books. It does not reconcile alternate titles or identify book editions by ISBN.
If those limits remove the feature you value most, keep the specialist tool for that job. OmniTrackr can still hold a smaller selection of favorites, current titles, and next choices across your other categories.
Bring an existing list with the Import Studio
You do not need to type an existing library again. In Account Settings → Import Studio, a file preview shows what would be added before you confirm. The studio accepts the export file a service gives you, including ZIP, CSV, XML, and JSON exports, up to 5 MB and 5,000 titles per batch.
- Keep the original export. Make a working copy for any changes. A Letterboxd or Trakt export can be uploaded as the ZIP it arrives in. Letterboxd's export page describes the files it provides.
- Choose a supported source. The studio understands Letterboxd, IMDb, Goodreads, StoryGraph, MyAnimeList, Kitsu, and Trakt exports, and can fetch a public AniList list by username. For a spreadsheet, choose Generic CSV / spreadsheet, select a media category, and map your columns if their names differ. Category templates are available in the studio.
- Preview a small batch. Select Preview import. This step does not save records. Inspect ready, duplicate, and invalid rows, including later pages of the results. Check the year, rating, and completion state against your original list.
- Check what transfers. Letterboxd, Goodreads, and StoryGraph adapters double five-point ratings: 3.5 becomes 7/10. IMDb, MyAnimeList, AniList, Trakt, and generic CSV ratings already use a ten-point scale. Review text comes over as a private note, and Letterboxd diary dates and rewatches arrive in your private Journal. Custom shelves and reading dates are not preserved.
- Confirm the batch. Confirmation imports all ready rows in that preview, skipping duplicate and invalid rows. Existing records keep their values. Imported review text is not published to public review pages, but friends can read it if you share the category. To import a smaller selection, reduce the file and preview it again.
- Check the result in your library. Review the created and skipped counts, open the relevant category, and set any current progress reminders. Download an OmniTrackr JSON backup after you are satisfied with the result.
Each supported service is covered step by step in the switching guide. If you have a CSV from another source, use the generic option and check every mapped field in the preview; do not assume its status or rating values have the same meaning. Missing years and different spellings can also prevent duplicate matches.
CSV migration and JSON restore are different. The Import Studio only adds new records. Restoring an OmniTrackr JSON backup can update matching library records. Use the export and import guide for worked examples, matching rules, and backup details before restoring a file.
Sources and how we compared
This guide was prepared by OmniTrackr, the maker of one of the tools being compared. Named product features were checked against the official pages linked above on . OmniTrackr's import details were checked against its supported formats and current preview workflow. Our content-quality policy explains how we approach sources and corrections.
The recommendations are our editorial judgment about common routines. We didn't run benchmarks, and we aren't claiming one tool is best for everyone. This is not an exhaustive feature or pricing comparison. Other services can change their features, export formats, and plans; check the linked documentation before making a choice. Send corrections through Contact.
Where to go next
Explore the demo before creating an account, or follow the import guide if you already have a list. For something new to add, Release Radar and Discover offer editorial starting points across media.