Is there one app to log films, books and music?

Why keep everything in one place?

You read the novel, then watch the adaptation. A film sends you to its soundtrack. A band you saw live becomes the album you play all winter. When each of those lives in a different app, the links between them disappear.

There's a practical side too. If you keep films in one app, books in another and music in a third, that's three profiles to keep up. Often one gets looked after and the others drift. A single log asks for one habit instead of three.

It also answers questions no single-medium app can, like "what was I into last March?" With one diary, that's one screen: the films, the book you finally finished, the album you had on repeat and the gig on the Friday.

Is there a Letterboxd for everything?

That's how a lot of people put it, and it's a fair description of what they're after: the Letterboxd habit of logging, rating and keeping a diary, but for TV, books, albums and gigs as well as films. Letterboxd started with films and is still best known for them, so the answer tends to be a different app.

A handful of apps now try to cover several media at once. They differ in which ones they include, whether they can bring in your history from other apps, and how much they lean on friends and community. Before you pick one, check it covers what you actually log: an app that handles films and TV is no help if half your year is books and gigs.

For the dedicated options, medium by medium, see Is there a Letterboxd for books, music and TV?

What should a media tracker app do well?

Putting everything in one app only helps if logging stays quick. These are worth checking before you commit to one:

• Fast entries. A rating and a line should take seconds, or you'll stop doing it.
• Real dates. The day you finished something, not the day you got round to typing it in.
• Repeats. A rewatch or a reread is its own entry, with its own rating.
• A "next" pile for each type. What you want to watch, read or hear soon, kept apart from what you've finished.
• A month view. Everything you logged, by date, across every type.
• Your choice of audience. Some entries are for friends, some are just for you.

When is a dedicated app the better choice?

If you only care about one medium, a specialist app may suit you better, and there are good ones. Letterboxd is built around films and has a large community writing reviews and making lists. Goodreads has one of the biggest book catalogues around, and The StoryGraph adds reading stats and recommendations based on mood and pace. Last.fm records what you play automatically from many music services. Serializd focuses on TV, and Setlist.fm documents the songs played at concerts.

You can also mix the two: an automatic listening history running in the background (the albums guide covers how that pairs with a log), and one log for the things that mattered. Nothing stops you keeping an old film diary as an archive while you start fresh somewhere else.

How do you move into one log without starting over?

The mistake is trying to import your whole life on day one. It takes an evening, and you end up with hundreds of entries all dated to the same afternoon. A gentler way in:

Start with your favourites. Add the handful of films, books and records you'd name if someone asked. They tell the story of your taste better than a complete history.

Then log forward. From today, log things as you finish them. After a couple of months the new log will feel more useful than the old ones, because it's current.

Backfill only what you remember clearly. If you know you saw a band in June, add it with that date. If you don't, leave the date off rather than inventing one.

In artsvibe, the things you pick when you sign up go in as undated entries, so your favourites are there from the start without pretending you watched them all last Tuesday.

What does artsvibe do?

artsvibe is a mobile app for logging films, series, albums, books and gigs. Each entry gets a star rating (half stars included), an optional line in your own words, the date, and whether it was a first time or a repeat. You can save an entry just for yourself, or post it to your friends or to everyone.

Your diary shows it all by month. Your shelf keeps three piles for each type: Up next, Now and Finished. And your profile is a pixel-art room, where you hang the covers of your favourites on the wall and move things around until it feels like yours.

There's a closer look at each part on the home page, and short answers to common questions in the FAQ.