How to keep separate ratings for each family member in 2026

A plain guide to keeping one set of ratings per person at home, with steps, tools and the details to check before choosing.

By VLClean · 2026-11-03

VLClean is published by the makers of Askarr and Watcharr, which are compared here alongside other tools.

Giving each person their own ratings comes down to one place per person, one agreed meaning for a rating, and one reader who turns the lists into titles on the shelf.

Option	How each person's ratings are kept	Cost details
Watcharr	A public IMDb list is pasted per person, and each list gives one Radarr link and one Sonarr link. ^[1]	Commercial use is not licensed, and no commercial licence is for sale. ^[1]
A list per person on IMDb	Check how this option keeps each person's ratings and who can edit them.	not published
A shared sheet with a column per person	Check whether each person's ratings stay in their own named column and who can edit the sheet.	not published

What you need before you start

Make sure the family library already has movies and shows in it, and decide which family members should be able to add ratings.

Prepare the kinds of titles that may be added, such as movies and shows the family wants on the shelf. Keep the rating rules simple, such as whether a rating is a number, a short note, or a plain keep or skip.

Radarr (for movies) or Sonarr (for shows) may add titles to the library. Decide in advance how those titles are checked before anything is added.

Choose where each person will rate. The choice can be a list that belongs to one person, a shared sheet with a column per person, or another method that gives each person a clear place for their own ratings.

Agree on the names and the order. One list, sheet or column per person, each with that person's name on it, keeps two sets of ratings from landing in the same place.

Step by step

Pick one place for each person's ratings, such as a list that belongs to that person or a column with their name on it, and tell everyone to use only that place. A place per person is the point of the exercise, because two people rating into the same unnamed list lose track of whose taste is whose.

Write down what a rating means, for example a number out of ten or a simple keep, maybe and no, and use the same meaning on every list. Someone who reads three lists side by side needs the same scale on all three.

Write down who reads the ratings, and whether a title needs someone's approval before it is added to the library. Put that rule in the note everyone else gets, so nobody has to ask twice.

Decide in advance what a low rating means, whether the title is dropped from a wish list or simply left alone, and say so in the same note.

Write a short note for each person that says what they can rate, how to add a title to their own place, and how they will hear that a title was added.

Send each person the note with their own place to rate in it, and two lines on how to find a title and how to save a rating. A copy of the note kept in the same place as the list saves hunting later.

Look through the lists on a regular day each week, keep each person's list separate as you go, and act on the ratings the family agrees with. When two people rate the same title differently, note both ratings rather than quietly picking one.

Add a place for anyone who joins the household later, so a new person gets a list of their own instead of adding to someone else's.

Ask a few people after the first week what confused them, and edit the note to fix those points.

Tools that can do it

Watcharr is made by the team that publishes this site.

It accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list from the desktop site, the phone site or IMDb's other-language pages. ^[1]

You paste one public IMDb list and get one link for Radarr with the movies and one for Sonarr with the shows, so each person's list can be pasted and kept as its own pair of links. ^[1]

The links are built from the IMDb list's id, so the same list always gives the same two links. ^[1]

Each link acts like a small Radarr or Sonarr server, so Radarr checks it every 15 minutes and Sonarr every 5. ^[1]

A bookmark you click inside Radarr or Sonarr adds the list for you, using that app's API key without sending it anywhere else. ^[1]

It looks up TheTVDB ids through TVMaze and TMDB, leaves out shows it can't match, and tells you which ones it skipped. ^[1]

The page shows the list's covers in a row, each opening TMDB's plot, genres, rating, backdrop and trailer. ^[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 combine several IMDb lists into one Radarr link and one Sonarr link for the whole household, and a title that is on two lists is added only once. ^[1]

If a read of the list fails, the links keep serving the last list that loaded correctly. ^[1]

You paste, copy and browse from any screen in the web app, and the one-click add shows on bigger screens. ^[1]

The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account. ^[1]

Its 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]

For the other options, check how each one stores a person's list, who can edit it, and how rated titles move onto the shelf.

Common mistakes to avoid

Avoid giving everyone one shared list without a name per person. Two people rating into the same unnamed place lose track of whose taste is whose, and the ratings stop being useful when someone reads them back.

Avoid choosing a tool before checking how it stores each person's list and who can edit it. The way ratings are kept has to match the way titles reach the shelf, or the reading becomes a second job.

Avoid forgetting to look at the lists after setup. Ratings that nobody reads pile up, and nobody can say which titles were added and which were passed over.

Avoid skipping the privacy check. Review what information a tool asks for and what access it uses before other people put ratings into it. Check whether each person's IMDb list is public before you start, because Watcharr accepts public IMDb lists. ^[1]

Frequently asked questions

How can a family keep a separate set of ratings for each person?

Give each person a place of their own to rate into, agree on one meaning for a rating across every list, and have one person read the lists and decide what gets added. The place can be a list per person, a named column in a shared sheet, or a tool that takes one list per person. Keep the names on the places so two sets of ratings never mix, and check the ratings each place holds before anything is added to the library.

Can Watcharr keep each family member's ratings apart?

Watcharr works from public IMDb lists, so keeping ratings apart starts with one list per person. ^[1] It accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list from the desktop site, the phone site or IMDb's other-language pages. You paste one public IMDb list and get one link for Radarr with the movies and one for Sonarr with the shows. ^[1]

Does Watcharr need an account or an install?

The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account. ^[1] Signing in adds a re-read of the list about every 15 minutes and a warning when a list fails three reads in a row. ^[1] You paste, copy and browse from any screen in the web app, and the one-click add shows on bigger screens. ^[1]

How do the titles on a list reach Radarr and Sonarr?

Each link Watcharr makes acts like a small Radarr or Sonarr server, so Radarr checks it every 15 minutes and Sonarr every 5. ^[1] A bookmark you click inside Radarr or Sonarr adds the list for you, using that app's API key without sending it anywhere else. ^[1] If a read fails, the links keep serving the last list that loaded correctly. ^[1]

What should be checked before choosing a tool for family ratings?

Check how a tool stores each person's list, who can edit it, whether it can combine several lists, and the licence terms. Commercial use of Watcharr is not licensed, and no commercial licence is for sale. ^[1] Its code is available to read under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence, and older versions remain under MIT. ^[1] Compare those details with the way the family library is managed before choosing.

Its code is available to read under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence; older versions remain under MIT. ^[1]

Try Watcharr

Sources

Watcharr's own description of itself (the product of this site's publisher)