Movie Tracker reads the exports of the apps it knows without being told anything. When your file comes from somewhere else, you can still import it: the app shows you the columns your file has and asks you what each one holds.
This guide explains what kind of file works, the one thing your file must have, and what happens to everything else.
What kind of file works
Movie Tracker accepts a spreadsheet saved as text: a file ending in .csv, .tsv or .txt. Almost every app that lets you export your data offers one of those, usually labelled CSV.
If yours only offers an Excel or Numbers file, open it in that app and use File, then Export or Save a copy, choosing CSV. That is the only preparation this guide asks of you.
You can also hand over a .zip. Movie Tracker opens it and goes through the files inside.
Beyond that, do not worry about how the file is put together. Whichever way your app separated the columns, and whatever alphabet your titles are written in, Movie Tracker works it out and your accents and characters arrive intact. A line of the app’s own name above the column headings is stepped over, and a title containing a comma stays in one piece.
The one thing your file must have
At least one column that says which title a row is about. Any one of these four will do:
| Column | Example |
|---|---|
| Title | Blade Runner |
| TMDB number | 78 |
| IMDb code | tt0083658 |
| TVDB number | 76107 |
That is the whole requirement. A file with none of the four names nothing that can be looked up, and nothing in it can be imported. The app tells you so on the mapping screen: the warning appears on all four rows at once, because any one of them answers the question and none of them is the answer.
A code is exact. If your file carries an IMDb code or a catalog number, the film that comes in is the right one, every time. A title is a question: the app searches for it, and where two films share a name it asks you which one you meant. Adding the year makes that far more reliable.
What else you can bring across
None of these is required. Map the ones your file has and leave the rest alone.
Which title it is
- Title
- Year, used to tell apart films that share a name
- Movie or TV show, explained below
- TMDB number, IMDb code, TVDB number
What you did with it
- Watch date, the day you watched it
- Rating
- Note
How you keep it
- Tags
- Date added
How each one is read
Watch date. A date means one viewing, on that day. This is the only thing that marks a title as watched: a file with no date column brings its titles in as not yet watched. If your export has a column that only says yes or watched, without a day, that information does not come across.
Rating. Movie Tracker keeps ratings out of ten. It works out which scale your file uses by looking at the highest rating in the whole file: anything above five can only be out of ten, so it is taken as it is; otherwise the file is read as out of five and every rating is doubled. Four stars becomes 8.
Movie or TV show. Useful, never required. A column saying movie, film, tv, show, series or episode is understood, in English, Italian, French, German and Spanish. Where your file does not say, the app works it out for itself: a catalog number is tried as a film and then as a series, an IMDb or TVDB code resolves either way on its own, and a plain title searches both.
Tags. Several tags in one cell, separated by commas or semicolons, are read as separate tags.
Anything else. Columns you do not map are ignored. There is no harm in a file having thirty columns when only three of them matter.
Step by step
- Open Movie Tracker, go to Settings, then Import.
- Tap Choose Files and pick your file. You can pick several at once.
- Movie Tracker tries to recognise the app it came from. When it cannot, it says so.
- Tap the list of apps and choose Another app at the bottom.
- Tap Continue.
You now see the mapping screen. Every row is one thing a film can have, and beside it a menu of the columns your file actually contains, with an example value from your own data so you can tell them apart. Columns that are empty in every row are not offered, and the ones whose shape fits are listed first.
Movie Tracker fills in what it can before you start. It recognises around two hundred and sixty column names that other apps commonly use, in several languages, so a file with ordinary headings often needs nothing more than a glance.
When you are done, tap Continue.
If you chose more than one file
The app goes through them one at a time, showing you which one you are looking at and how many are left: ratings.csv, File 2 of 4.
Two things make this quicker than it sounds:
- A mapping is carried forward. When a later file has the same columns as one you already answered for, it arrives already filled in and you only have to confirm it. Several apps write their exports with one shared header, so this is the common case rather than the exception.
- You can skip a file. If nothing in it says which title a row is about, the button says Skip this file instead of Continue, and it stays tappable. Skipping is not an error. An export often contains files that have nothing to do with your library, and leaving them out is the right answer.
After the import
Movie Tracker looks up every title, shows you what it found, and lets you correct any of it before a single thing is written to your library. A copy of your library is taken first, every time.
When it is over you get a summary of everything that happened, including every row that did not come in and why. You can save it as a PDF, together with a spreadsheet of the rows that need correcting, so you can fix them in your original file and import again if you want to.
If something goes wrong
- The app will not open the file. It is probably still an Excel or Numbers document rather than a CSV. Open it in that app and export a copy as CSV.
- Accented letters or other alphabets came in wrong. Your file was saved in an older format that lost them. Open it in Numbers or Excel and export a fresh copy as CSV, which saves them properly.
- Every row is in one column. The file was saved with a separator the app could not find, which usually means it is not really a CSV. Export it again from the app it came from.
- The mapping screen says one of these has to say which title. None of the four columns that identify a film has been chosen. Look through the menus for a title column: it may be called something unexpected, such as Name or Film.
- A title came in as the wrong film. It was matched by name, and something else shares that name. Map the year as well and import again, or correct it on the review screen.