I would like to start off by thanking the Trakt team for creating and running a service that so many people enjoyed using. I understand that many of us, myself included, feel saddened and betrayed by the decision to force V3 on everyone when it does not meet our standards. Standards that V2 met very well. While I haven’t been nearly as vocal as other members, I have voiced my concerns many times about this new version of Trakt. In fact, my very first post on these forums was almost 2 years ago when they announced that Trakt would be getting a new look back in October of 2024. I was upset at the change, not only because the color scheme was changed from red to purple (my favorite color is red), but because there was no option to switch it back. While they later gave us the option to change the color, I should’ve realized something was happening. In that same October 2024 update Justin said, “We want you to feel at home.” Well with all of the changes that have happened in the last 2 years, I no longer feel at home anymore. So I think it’s time for me to finally kick the bucket and move out. It feels like such a waste to have 6 months left of my VIP membership, one that I’ve held for almost 4 years now, and not use it, but what good is VIP if I can no longer do the things I loved about Trakt.
This gave me an idea. I would like to encourage all of you to write about your experience with Trakt. Not just the things that are bugging you, but the things you loved. The things that brought you to this service in the first place, and what kept you going for so long. Tell us your story. I’ll begin by telling my story.
The year was 2021. I was in high school, and I had just discovered anime. Of course I knew what it was already, but I had never really watched anything other than a few episodes of Pokemon. But my dad had introduced me to Cowboy Bebop, and from then I was hooked. I started to binge anime like crazy, finishing full seasons of shows in a single day. But there were so many shows I wanted to watch, and was watching, that it was hard to keep track of where I was at. I jumped around a few sites, but nothing felt right. I needed something that I could mark exactly when I watched it. A lot of sites wouldn’t let you mark an episode as watched more than once either. I had almost given up hope until I discovered Trakt. I was immediately drawn in by how user friendly it was. Even as a free user, it felt perfect for me. I remember when I first made an account it asked me what shows I had seen, and so I marked all that I had watched. When I opened the main menu it had marked all of those as watched that same day. I think I spent a good hour or so manually fixing them so they would be marked as watched on release. I would, and still do, mark movies and episodes as watched on release when I don’t remember. It kept the watch data I wanted, but pushed them far enough out of the way to not mess up my current data.
I used the free version of Trakt for over a year before I wanted to get the VIP. I loved seeing all the random details of my watch habits, and I wanted more. What’s more is that I genuinely loved using the service, and I wanted to support them. Between August 5th, 2021 and today, I marked literally every episode and movie I watched down to the exact time. It became a habit. I would immediately pull out my phone to mark something as watched the moments the credits started rolling. I know a lot of people prefer having Trakt automatically mark episodes as watched, but I didn’t want that. I never liked it when programs made mistakes and messed stuff up, so I would manually put everything in, and that’s what I did on Trakt. It was perfect. I don’t recall ever having any gripes with the service up until October 2024 when things began changing.
At some point I decided to make a list of Star Wars media in chronological order. A lot of lists included random web series and kid shows, but I wanted one that just had the main shows and movies. So I made it, purely for myself, but people liked it. Last time I checked it had hundreds of likes, and many people commenting thanking me for making it, and for keeping it up to date. Curating this list was something I was very proud of. It’ll be a shame to leave it behind.
One notable event happened to me last year, which changed the way I used Trakt, just a little bit. I built my own home media server. I had gotten fed up with ads everywhere, and shows and movies becoming hard to find. To be honest, I started it because I wanted to listen to the CDs I owned wherever I went, but with some albums I owned being unavailable on streaming I couldn’t use a regular app. But the music part isn’t important, the movies and shows are. I took my collection and my family’s collection of physical media and put them onto my computer so I could watch them whenever I wanted. But there was so many it was hard to figure out which shows and movies I had, as well as which ones I actually wanted to watch. Fortunately Trakt had the collection feature. I added all of my home server media to the Trakt collection tracker and it was a game changer. Now I could see which episodes I had, and which were missing. I used it a ton in the past 6 months as my collection grew. Some days I would look at my Up Next To Watch and find ones that I knew I had in my collection and watch that. I was also easily able to sort my Watchlist by owned movies and find a movie to watch without having to worry if I had the right streaming service or not. It was amazing.
All of this is to say, Trakt has been a big part of my life. I have spent countless hours using it, making lists, and showing my friends and family the random stats I had. I feel proud to be a member of the community here, someone like all of you. I hope my message inspires you to leave your own experiences with Trakt in the comments. Everyone uses it a little differently, and I would love to read about it.
Thank you Trakt, for providing a wonderful service to all of us for the past many years. I hope that one day I can return to find things in better shape.
And thank you, community, for voicing your opinions, and for taking the time to read through this. I hope you all have a wonderful time reading through each others’ stories.