Turn your Netflix viewing history into a film diary

Get the file from Netflix

1. In a web browser, on a computer or a phone, open netflix.com/viewingactivity and sign in if asked. It takes you to Watch History and Ratings for the profile you’re using. (The Netflix app can’t download your history; the website can.)
2. Check the name under the title says “For” you. If it’s someone else’s profile, switch with the picture at the top right.
3. Scroll to the very bottom, past Show More, and choose Download All. Careful: Clear All sits just above it, and that erases your history on Netflix. A file called NetflixViewingHistory.csv lands in your downloads.

Each profile has its own history. If you watch on more than one, download each and bring them in one after another.

Bring it in

1. In Late Feature, open Sources → Netflix and drop the file on the page (or tap to choose it).
2. Say how far back. You see your films year by year. The last two years is the default: histories often go back a decade, and on a shared account the older years are more likely someone else’s watching.
3. Bring them in. Films Late Feature is sure of go straight into your diary on the day you watched them. Titles that more than one film shares are asked about, five at a time.

When a title could be more than one film

Netflix gives only a title and a date: no year, no running time. A film goes in by itself when exactly one film with that exact title had come out by the day you watched it, or when the others are shorts. When several real films share the title, Late Feature picks the likelier one, the way Plex picks a match: the only Netflix original among them (Netflix releases those worldwide, so it’s the same answer whichever country your account was in), or else the one far more people have seen. The import lists what it picked, and if one’s wrong, open it and choose wrong film?: the other films of that title are right there, or search for it, and the entry moves with its date and stars.

Only remakes are asked about, when both films are well known (Dune, 1984 or 2021?): you see them side by side, with poster, year, director and running time, and pick, or choose “None of these, or not me”.

Older years, five at a time

Films from before the years you chose aren’t thrown away. They wait in Catch up, which asks about them five at a time, newest first: “Did you watch Heat?” Seen it, or Not me. That’s how films someone else watched on your account stay out of your diary. Every answer is saved as you give it, so stop whenever you like; the rest keep.

Your TV goes to TV by Late Feature

Netflix lists every episode alongside the films. Late Feature is a film diary, so episodes (anything shaped like “Show: Season 2: Episode”) go to TV by Late Feature instead, the same account’s diary for series. They’re ready there when the import finishes, and that’s where you manage them: what’s next, seasons finished, shows you stopped. Films that only look like episodes, such as Kill Bill: Vol. 1, stay films.

Your history is kept

Late Feature keeps the file’s rows (each a title and a date), only for you. That’s what lets it ask a few at a time, never ask twice, and bring in more years later without a new download. Drop a newer file whenever you like and only what’s new is added. Forget this history, on the Netflix page, deletes it; films it put in your diary stay.

Can Claude or ChatGPT do this instead?

For Netflix the importer is the better route: it reads the whole file in one go and knows Netflix’s quirks. An assistant is for the services with no file to download. Bring in your history from anywhere else, or see every way to get your history in.