--- {"title": "How to browse past watches by year for self-hosted diary fans", "description": "Browse your past watches by year with a simple dated list, plus the steps, tool options and common mistakes to avoid.", "url": "https://vlcleanplayer.com/how-to-browse-past-watches-by-year-for-self-hosted-diary-fans/", "date": "2026-11-01"} --- Browse your past watches by year with a simple dated list, plus the steps, tool options and common mistakes to avoid. Keep one dated list of what you watched, group it by year, and check that the tool you use shows the watch dates. Watcharr turns a public IMDb list into one link for Radarr and one for Sonarr. [^1] Its published details do not describe grouping by year, so check that before you rely on it. | Option | What it does for year browsing | Cost details | |---|---|---| | Watcharr | Turns a public IMDb list into one link for Radarr and one for Sonarr, with cover details for each title. [^1] [^1] | not published; the hosted version needs nothing to install and no account [^1] | | Plain spreadsheet | You sort and group the watch dates into years yourself. | not published | | Notes file | You write a heading for each year and list each watch under it. | not published | ## What you need before you start Start with a single dated record of what you have watched. Self-hosted diary fans often keep this in a notes file, a spreadsheet or a public IMDb list, and any of these works if every title has its watch date and its release year beside it. Check that the watch dates are complete for the years you care about, because a year with missing dates will look thinner than it really was when you browse it. Decide how you want to view the years: one year at a time, a month inside a year, or every title on one long page sorted by date. Keep the records in a form you can copy or export, so they can move to a new place without retyping. Gather any notes or cover images you want to keep with each title, so the browsing view is useful once you open it. Finally, decide whether the record is private to you or shared with people in your household, since that choice affects which tools suit your setup. ## Step by step Follow these steps in order, whichever tool you end up using. 1. Write down the title, the release year and the watch date for each thing you have watched. 2. Put all of those records in one place, so there is one list to sort rather than several small ones. 3. Sort the list by watch date, with the newest entries first. 4. Group the sorted list by year, with one heading for each year. 5. Read through each year group and fix any missing release years or watch dates. 6. Decide whether movies and shows stay on separate lists or sit together in one mixed list for each year. 7. Choose the tool that will display your year groups, and check how it sorts by watch date before you move your records into it. 8. Browse one past year at a time, and note any year that looks thin so you can fill in the gaps. 9. Repeat the grouping each time you add new watches, so the years stay current and the browsing view stays accurate. Keep the steps the same when you change tools. The grouping work is the part that carries over, so a clean list is worth more than any particular display. ## Tools that can do it Watcharr is made by the team that publishes this site, VLClean. You paste one public IMDb list and get one link for Radarr with the movies and one for Sonarr with the shows. [^1] The web app shows the list's covers in a row, and each cover opens TMDB's plot, genres, rating, backdrop and trailer. [^1] It accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list from the desktop site, the phone site or IMDb's other-language pages. [^1] The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account. [^1] Check whether the titles it shows carry the release year and watch date you need before you rely on it for year browsing. The plain spreadsheet and the notes file described in the steps above are the other options here, and you sort and group them yourself. No other tool is named because no source facts about other tools were provided. Before choosing a tool, check how it displays dates, how it sorts a list, and whether it keeps your records in a form you can export. ## Common mistakes to avoid Avoid trusting a list without checking its dates, since missing watch dates make a year look shorter than it was. Avoid picking a tool before you have a clean list. Grouping by year depends on the records, not on the display. Avoid assuming a shown title has the right year. Check the release year against a reliable source before you rely on the grouping. Avoid sharing a list without checking who can see it. Decide first whether the record is private or shared with the household. Avoid skipping the refresh check if you use an IMDb list. If you sign in, it re-reads your list about every 15 minutes and warns you when a list fails three reads in a row, so watch for those warnings. [^1] If a read fails, the links keep serving the last list that loaded correctly. [^1] ## Frequently asked questions ### How can self-hosted diary fans browse past watches by year? Start with one dated list of everything you have watched, then group the list by year and browse one year at a time. Check that each entry has its watch date and release year, because missing dates make a year look thin. The steps above cover the sorting and grouping in order, and they work whichever tool you pick, as long as it shows the dates clearly. ### Can Watcharr browse past watches by year? Watcharr's published details cover turning a public IMDb list into one link for Radarr and one for Sonarr. [^1] Those details do not describe grouping by year, so check the title view for release years and watch dates before you rely on it for that job. The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account. [^1] ### Does Watcharr need an account to read IMDb lists? The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account. [^1] If you sign in, it re-reads your list about every 15 minutes and warns you when a list fails three reads in a row. [^1] Signed-in users can also combine several IMDb lists into one Radarr link and one Sonarr link for the whole household. [^1] ### Can Watcharr read IMDb lists from other-language pages? It accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list from the desktop site, the phone site or IMDb's other-language pages. [^1] Each list gets the same two links every time, because the links are built from the IMDb list's id. [^1] If a read fails, the links keep serving the last list that loaded correctly. [^1] ### Can Watcharr be used commercially? The code is available to read under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence, and older versions remain under MIT. [^1] Commercial use is not licensed, and no commercial licence is for sale. [^1] Read the licence text yourself before using the code in any setting beyond personal use. Its code is available to read under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence; older versions remain under MIT. [^1] - [Visit Watcharr](/go/start-watcharr) ## Sources [^1]: Watcharr's own description of itself (the product of this site's publisher) (/go/start-watcharr)