How to Import Your Trakt Data Into Simkl (2026 Guide)

Simkl imports from Trakt directly. Sign in to Simkl, open the import page, pick Trakt, authorize the connection, and your watched shows, films, ratings, and watchlist copy across. For a typical library the whole thing takes about ten minutes, most of it waiting for the progress bar.

What the import leaves behind is the part worth knowing before you start. Obscure titles can fail to match, and anything you tracked outside Trakt (anime on MyAnimeList or AniList, most often) does not come along at all. It is also worth checking your oldest entries once the import finishes. The steps below cover the import itself and the cleanup afterward.

Last reviewed: September 6, 2026.

Quick verdict:

• The import: built into Simkl, free, one OAuth authorization, no files to download
• What survives: watched episodes and films, ratings, watchlist, watch dates
• What can break: matches on regional or obscure releases, so check your oldest entries too
• What never comes: anime tracked on other services, which needs its own import

Before you start: back up Trakt

Simkl reads your history through Trakt’s API, so nothing is deleted from Trakt during the import. Even so, take a copy first. Trakt’s settings include a data export that writes your history, ratings, and lists as files you keep. Download it, put it somewhere safe, and only then connect Simkl.

The reason is not the import itself, which is reliable. It is what happens two weeks later when you notice a missing season and want to check whether it was ever logged. A file on your computer answers that in seconds.

Step 1: connect your Trakt account

Create a Simkl account if you do not have one, then go to the import section under your profile menu. Trakt is listed alongside Netflix, MyAnimeList, AniList, and a handful of other sources.

Choosing Trakt sends you to a Trakt authorization page. Approve it, and Simkl gets read access to your history. Simkl does not store your Trakt password, and you can revoke the connection from Trakt’s connected apps page at any time.

Step 2: run the import

Once Trakt is authorized, Simkl shows what it found: watched shows, watched films, ratings, and your watchlist. Start the import and let it run. A library of a few hundred titles finishes in a couple of minutes. A decade of scrobbled TV can take closer to ten.

Do not start a second import while the first is running. Simkl matches each Trakt entry against its own catalogue, and a second pass over the same data creates duplicates you then have to clean by hand.

Step 3: check what came across

When the progress bar finishes, look at three things before you trust the result.

Ratings. Simkl applies your Trakt ratings to every title it matched. Open a few shows you remember rating and confirm the number is there. A rating on an unmatched title has nowhere to land, so expect to reapply those by hand.

Watch dates. Simkl says its importer is built to preserve as much date data as possible, and in most libraries dates come across intact. Still, sort your history by date and scan the oldest section. If anything there looks wrong, edit it before it throws off your yearly stats.

Unmatched titles. Simkl flags entries it could not match rather than dropping them. The usual causes are regional releases with different titles, shows that were renamed between seasons, and older metadata on Trakt’s side. For most libraries this is a handful of entries. Search each one in Simkl and attach it manually.

The gap the import does not cover: anime tracked outside Trakt

This is the real reason many people move from Trakt to Simkl. Anime you logged on Trakt comes across in the import and lands in Simkl’s anime category, but anime you tracked anywhere else does not.

Trakt files anime under TV or film with an anime genre tag but no separate category, so people who take anime seriously usually track it somewhere else. Simkl treats anime as its own first class category, with episode counts and seasons that match how the shows were actually released.

If your anime lives on MyAnimeList, AniList, Kitsu, or Anime-Planet, run a second import from that source. Simkl supports each one from the same import page. The Trakt import and the anime import do not conflict, because they cover different titles.

What to do with Trakt afterward

You do not need to keep Trakt for the data. The Simkl import is a one-time pull, and once it finishes Simkl holds its own copy.

Some people keep Trakt active a while longer because a media server plugin scrobbles to it. Plex, Kodi, and Jellyfin all have Trakt scrobblers that have been around for years. Simkl has its own scrobbling through browser extensions and its mobile apps, and once that is set up and logging correctly, the Trakt account can go dormant or be deleted.

If you are still weighing whether the move is worth it, Simkl vs Trakt covers what each does well. The short version: Trakt has the larger third-party app ecosystem and the deeper scrobbling support, though creating a new API app has required its VIP tier since 30 July 2026, a restriction Trakt has called a temporary anti-abuse measure, while Simkl has the anime category, a free API, and the friendlier free tier.

A common mistake: importing before deciding

Simkl is a good destination if your library is shows, films, and anime. If it also includes books and albums, you will end up with the same split you had before, one app for screens and another for everything else.

Achriom takes a Trakt username directly, or a pasted list of titles, and puts shows, films, anime, books, and albums into one library. It exports everything back out as CSV, so the move is not a trap. See the full tracker comparison for how Simkl, Trakt, and Achriom line up across the 17 apps we test.

Whichever you pick, do it once. Migrating a watch history every eighteen months is how dates get lost and ratings go missing. Back up Trakt, run the import, fix the handful of unmatched titles, and then stay put.