Limelight gives you one Watchlist and Seen List for movies and shows, plus where to stream each one in your country. Here's how it compares with five other places to land. TV Time closed for good on July 15, 2026, after 26.4 million lifetime installs.
26.4M
Lifetime installs
Jul 15, 2026
Shutdown date
6
Alternatives covered here
0
Ways back if you didn't export
In this article
Background
What actually happened
TV Time's parent company, Whip Media, announced the closure in the first days of July 2026 and pulled the app from the stores on July 15. The stated reason was that the free app wasn't financially sustainable and too few users wanted to pay for a subscription version. After an acquisition by Blue Torch Capital the company refocused on enterprise AI, and shut the app down. The apps left the stores, tvtime.com went dark, and personal data that wasn't exported through the company's GDPR portal before the deadline was deleted.
If you exported in time, your file holds your watched episodes, ratings, and watchlist, and Trakt's listing names a TV Time import. If you didn't, there's no way to get it back. Either way, the next app you pick should let you take your data with you.
A Watchlist, where to stream, and what to watch next.
You get one Watchlist and Seen List for movies and shows, plus where to stream each one in your country. Search any title and see where to stream, rent, or buy it. Turn on the services you pay for and you'll only see what you can watch right now. Mark what you've seen, and get picks in Just For You.
Limelight pulls data from many sources, not just TMDB. Find out which movies and shows started as books. With Limelight+, see what's in the Netflix or HBO Max Top 10 today in 107 countries, and compare ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic, and TMDB side by side.
Track shows at the show level, and get an alert with Limelight+ when a show you follow drops a new episode. Your lists sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. No ads, privacy focused.
Simkl Lists tracks TV, anime, and movies, and marks episodes by season or one at a time. It shows the next episode number you need in every show you follow. Watchlists update automatically from Simkl's own tracking apps, and alerts tell you when new episodes have aired.
It also carries a long list of importers, including Trakt, Netflix, IMDb, MyAnimeList, and Anilist, so a history built elsewhere can come with you. The app is a companion to simkl.com, where the account and the web tracker live.
Trakt's listing names imports from IMDb, Plex, Letterboxd, and TV Time, so an export file has somewhere to go. It indexes over a million shows and movies, and handles check-ins, an Up Next list, a calendar, and notifications when new episodes air.
Where to stream comes from JustWatch, covering hundreds of services worldwide, and you can push your own services to the top. It's social too: comments, ratings, community lists, and friends' activity. VIP adds detailed stats and unlimited personal lists.
Serializd is a TV log with a community attached: rate individual episodes, seasons, or whole series, write reviews, follow friends, and see what everyone is saying about the latest releases.
It keeps a log of every series you've watched, are watching, or want to watch, tracks your next episode, and sends notifications for upcoming episodes and release dates. Personal stats cover watch time, completed shows, and a genre breakdown. It's TV only, and its listing doesn't mention streaming availability, so it pairs well with an app that has it.
Moviebase started on Android and came to iPhone and iPad in August 2026, and it's the most thorough tracker here. Mark episodes season by season and keep a watch history with ratings and dates. Rewatches log as separate viewings, Up Next shows what's next in every show you follow, and statistics cover your watch time and habits.
A TV calendar covers upcoming premieres, with episode reminders so a season premiere doesn't pass you by. Custom lists can be private, unlisted, or public. It's a full Trakt client with two-way sync.
If you'd rather not rebuild any history, Matinee is the newcomer, built around what your friends are watching. Tonight's Pick puts one recommendation on your home screen each day, scored against your taste, your watchlist, and what your friends are watching. Movie Night invites friends into a shared swipe deck and lands on something the group can agree to.
Underneath it's a proper tracker: log movies and shows with one tap, rate in half stars, mark episodes watched, and filter by the services you pay for. PRO adds mood-based picks. It's new, so treat it as a fresh start.
Comparison
Side by side
App
Where to stream
Multi-source ratings
Scene recognition
Episode tracking
Imports history from
Community
Limelight
Yes
Four sources
SceneSnap
Show level
Not listed
No
Simkl
Not listed
IMDb and MAL
No
Yes
Trakt, Netflix, IMDb, MAL
No
Trakt
Yes
Not listed
No
Yes
IMDb, Plex, Letterboxd, TV Time
Yes
Serializd
Not listed
Not listed
No
Yes
Not listed
Yes
Moviebase
Not listed
Not listed
No
Yes
Via Trakt sync
No
Matinee
Yes
Not listed
No
Yes
Not listed
Friends
Checked September 2026 against each app's App Store listing. Limelight tracks at the show level, and tells you where every show is streaming in your country. Import tools and tiers change, so confirm on each app's own site before you commit a decade of history to it.
The lesson
Keep your history portable
The portability lesson
TV Time users with a Trakt sync kept their history in July. Everyone else lost whatever they hadn't exported. Whatever you pick next, spend five minutes setting up an export path or a sync.
Ask one question of any app before you trust it with years of data: can I get it back out, in a format something else can read? Limelight keeps your Watchlist and Seen List in your own TMDB account, so it travels with you. Trakt, Simkl, and Letterboxd all offer exports as well.
Whip Media said the free app wasn't financially sustainable and demand for a paid version was too weak. After the Blue Torch Capital acquisition the company refocused on enterprise AI and closed the app on July 15, 2026.
Only if you exported before the July 15 deadline, so check your downloads and email for the export file. The company said unexported personal data would be deleted, and the export portal went offline with the service.
Limelight, if TV Time was where you kept track of what to watch. You get one Watchlist and Seen List for movies and shows, plus where to stream each one in your country. Limelight+ adds an alert when a show you follow returns. For ticking off episodes one by one, Simkl is the free option, Trakt goes deeper, and Serializd covers the community side.
Limelight. It keeps one Watchlist and Seen List for movies and shows, shows where each one is streaming in your country, and tells you which ones started as books. It's free to download on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no ads.
Simkl, Trakt, Serializd, Moviebase, and Matinee all mark episodes watched. Limelight tracks at the show level instead, with an alert for every new episode on Limelight+.
Limelight covers the most of it in one app. You get a Watchlist and Seen List for movies and shows, plus where each one is streaming in your country. With Limelight+, you get an alert when a show you follow drops a new episode. For ticking off every episode, Simkl and Trakt go deeper.
Yes. Every app here is free to download. Simkl and Serializd put their tracking in the free tier, and Trakt and Matinee keep extras behind an optional upgrade. In Limelight, search, where to stream, your Watchlist, and your Seen List are free.
Yes, and it's the safest answer. Moviebase syncs through Trakt, so your history sits in an account you can export, not locked inside one app. Set that up on the day you switch, not the day an app closes.
Rebuilding your watchlist?
Limelight is free on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Watchlist, Seen List, and streaming availability, with no ads.
