⏰ Hard deadline: TV Time deletes all watch history permanently after July 15, 2026. Anything not exported by then is gone.

TV Time export stuck or not working? Every way to save your data

Since TV Time announced its shutdown, millions of people are trying to export at once — and the official GDPR tool is visibly struggling. Exports hang on “preparing,” emails arrive late or never, and some downloads fail. Here is the complete playbook, fastest first.

1. The official export — how it's supposed to work

1. Go to gdpr.tvtime.com/gdpr/self-service and sign in with your TV Time account.
2. Request your data export.
3. You'll receive an email with the ZIP download link. Some exports are password-protected — the password then arrives in a second email (check spam for both). Others come as plain ZIPs; that's normal too.
4. Download the ZIP. Don't unzip or rename it — import tools (including ours) read it as-is.

2. Export stuck on “preparing” or email never arrives?

• Wait, then retry off-peak. Load spikes are worst evenings US/EU time. Early morning requests complete more reliably.
• Check spam and promotions folders — the two emails often land there, sometimes hours apart.
• Give it 24–48 hours before re-requesting; duplicate requests can queue behind each other.
• Don't rely on the email-based GDPR request (support says up to 30 days — that's after the deletion date). The self-service tool or the extensions below are the only realistic paths now.

3. Backup plan: community rescue extensions

These browser extensions read your library directly while you're logged in at app.tvtime.com, completely bypassing the overloaded GDPR queue:

• TV Time Out by Refract — Chrome extension; exports shows & movies as JSON/CSV.
• TV Time Liberator — exports shows, movies, favorites and lists as JSON (adds IMDb ids).
• TV Time Data Extractor — simple one-file CSV of watched episodes and movies.

Any of these outputs works as a rescue copy — and they can be combined with the official ZIP later.

4. You have the file. Now what?

Deciding where to go can wait — exporting can't. Once the ZIP is on your disk, the deadline stops applying to you.

• Keep the original ZIP forever — it's the master copy every future importer will accept.
• Weighing where to go? How TV Capsule compares to Trakt, Simkl & Serializd →
• Moving to a new tracker? Trakt, Simkl and TVmaze import the GDPR ZIP directly.
• Want to actually see a decade of watching — and keep a clean archive you own?