How to recover your TV Time watch history after the shutdown
Updated July 2026
TV Time (tvshowtime) shut down in July 2026 and a lot of people never grabbed the official export in time. Here's the part most posts miss: the app kept a full copy of your history locally on your device, separate from that export. If the app is still installed, that copy is very likely still there — and recoverable. This is a step-by-step for getting it off your phone, on both iPhone and Android.
bobin reads DioCache.db (and the TV Time export zip) as-is and keeps your original watch dates. Free, no ads, runs in the browser — drop the file in and your history is back.
Import your file into bobin →Before you do anything — do NOT do these
- Don't uninstall the app.
- Don't update it.
- Don't factory reset, and don't "clear cache" or "clear storage" for it.
Any of those wipes the local copy, and right now it is the only copy left. Get the file off the device first; decide what to do with it second.
iPhone / iPad
The file you're after is called DioCache.db — it's a copy of your history that TV Time quietly saved on your phone. Here's how to get it off an iPhone:
- Install iMazing (free trial, Windows or Mac).
- Plug in the iPhone or iPad and open it in iMazing.
- Find TV Time under Apps and export the app to your computer — you usually get a single
.imazingappfile. - Drop that
.imazingappfile straight into bobin. No need to rename or unzip it — bobin opens the archive and finds DioCache.db inside automatically.
3uTools works too if you'd rather not use iMazing. An old iPhone backup works as a source as well, if you have one lying around — you don't strictly need the live phone.
Android
Android is tougher, because it guards app data more tightly. If your phone is rooted, it's easy: a root file manager can open TV Time's folder and copy DioCache.db straight out. If it's not rooted, the one thing worth trying is a command from a computer — no guarantees, many newer phones block it:
adb backup -noapk com.tvshowtime.tvshowtime
If it makes a backup file, DioCache.db is inside it — drop that file straight into bobin and it opens it for you. Keep the whole archive as it is: next to the database there is usually a DioCache.db-wal file holding your most recent months, and pulling the .db out on its own leaves it behind. If the command is blocked and your phone isn't rooted, there's no clean one-click way yet — but your data is still safe on the phone. The important thing: don't uninstall or clear the app, and check back now and then, because easier tools keep showing up.
Samsung phones: Smart Switch backups are encrypted, but the free SmartSwitch Explorer tool can often decrypt them and export TV Time's data folder — worth trying before giving up (results vary by model).
What's actually in the file
Your shows and movies, how many episodes you watched of each, the dates you watched them, what you were following, and your ratings. One honest heads-up: the file always knows how many episodes you watched of a show, but not always exactly which ones — so if you watched episodes out of order, that part can come back a little rough. Shows you watched start to finish come back perfectly, dates and all.
Where to bring it once you have it
A few people have built parsers and importers for it. There's a browser-only extractor floating around where nothing leaves your machine, and several trackers now read either DioCache.db or the official GDPR export zip directly. It works no matter which tracker you land on — Trakt, Simkl, Serializd, whatever fits you. Getting the file out is the part that isn't recoverable later; the import is the easy part.
bobin reads DioCache.db (and the TV Time export zip) as-is and keeps your original watch dates. Free, no ads, runs in the browser — drop the file in and your history is back.
Import your file into bobin →Frequently asked
I already uninstalled TV Time. Can I still get my data?
If you have an old device backup (iPhone backup, or a previous Android backup) from before you uninstalled, the file may be inside it. If not, and the app is gone from the device, the local copy is likely gone too. The export zip, if you downloaded it before the shutdown, still works.
I pulled DioCache.db but only part of my history came back. Why?
TV Time ran SQLite in WAL mode, so the newest entries usually sit in a separate file next to the database, called DioCache.db-wal. Copy only the .db and the last weeks or months can be missing. Take both files (and DioCache.db-shm if it is there) and import them together.
Is my data safe — do I have to upload it somewhere?
There is a browser-only extractor that reads the file entirely on your machine, nothing uploaded. If you import into an online tracker, only the parsed watch data is sent, not the raw file — but you can always inspect what an importer does first.
Will my original watch dates survive?
Yes, if the tool keeps them. DioCache.db stores per-episode dates; a good importer preserves them instead of stamping everything as "today". The same episode can appear in several cached responses with different timestamps, so the tool should keep the earliest (the actual first watch).
What about the episodes I watched out of order?
The cache always knows the total count per show, but the exact per-episode list can be incomplete for shows you didn't watch straight through. Counts come back reliably; the exact which-episodes can be approximate for those shows.