Captures

Create point-in-time captures for restore, compare, and scheduled retention workflows.

Captures are a rollback tool.

A capture stores a point-in-time copy of provider data so you can restore it later.

You can also compare captures or keep scheduled backup-style snapshots over time.

Older builds called this feature Snapshots.

Captures are experimental and will stay experimental.

They are not a core CrossWatch feature. They’re a nice-to-have service.

Treat captures as best-effort:

• Use with care.

• Validate restores before doing destructive changes.

• Create a real backup first. Use your provider’s native export/backup

Captures are not backups

Captures are not the same as a full backup.

They are a best-effort copy of:

• one provider

• one profile

• one dataset (Watchlist, Ratings, History, Progress)

They do not include:

• provider credentials or tokens

• CrossWatch configuration

• Items outside the scope of the sync adapter

  • For example: History items without a date won’t be included in a capture, but the process can still clear them.

  • Plex note: this often means items that are only Marked Watched (the Plex “checkmark”) without a usable viewedAt / lastViewedAt.

    • If you want CrossWatch to also scan “Marked Watched” state, set plex.history.include_marked_watched = true.

    • This is still best-effort. Items without timestamps can’t be exported into a history capture.

    • More detail: Adapter: Plex.

• everything your provider may store (notes, list metadata, privacy settings, etc.)

If you want a real backup, prefer provider-native export/backup features. Captures are the fallback when those are missing.

What captures are good for

Use captures before you:

• run destructive tools (clear watchlist/ratings/history)

• clean up lists in bulk

• migrate accounts

What a capture contains

A capture is a JSON export of one provider, one profile, and one feature.

You can also capture All features together.

It includes:

• provider id (example: PLEX, TRAKT, SIMKL, ANILIST)

• provider profile or instance

• feature (watchlist, ratings, history, progress, or all)

• created timestamp and optional label

• basic stats (counts and media-type breakdown where available)

• the raw items needed to restore back into the same provider

Whitelisting impacts captures (media servers)

For Plex/Jellyfin/Emby, captures follow your library whitelists.

If you whitelist specific libraries for a feature, the capture includes only items from those libraries.

Example:

• History whitelist = only those libraries are exported in a History capture.

• Ratings whitelist = only those libraries are exported in a Ratings capture.

If you don’t configure whitelisting, captures include all visible libraries.

Guide: Library Whitelisting.

Where captures are stored

Captures are written to:

/config/snapshots/YYYY-MM-DD/

This folder name is legacy. It may still say snapshots on disk.

Filenames include a UTC timestamp, provider, feature, and optional label:

2026-01-27T19-12-45Z__TRAKT__watchlist__before-cleanup.json

“All” captures

If you choose All, CrossWatch creates:

• one full capture bundle (__all__) that references child captures

• one child capture per supported feature

This is useful when you want one complete restore point across multiple features.

It also keeps restore behavior predictable and lets you restore one feature later.

Create Capture

The Create Capture section lets you create a new capture manually.

Main options

• Provider: choose the source provider

• Profile: choose the provider profile or instance

• Feature: choose one feature or All

• Label: optional custom name for the capture

Available actions

• Create capture: create the capture immediately

• Queue for scheduler: send the current setup into Capture Scheduling

Use Queue for scheduler when you want to turn a one-off setup into a recurring automated capture.

Use short labels like before-import or after-cleanup.

Capture Browser

The Capture Browser shows all saved captures in one place.

You can:

• search by provider, feature, label, or path

• filter by provider

• filter by feature

• filter by type:

  • Manual: captures created manually

  • Auto: captures created by Capture Scheduling

For full captures, the browser can group and show child captures under the main All capture.

Click a capture to load it into Restore or Compare.

Click it again to clear the selection.

Restore

Restore applies a saved capture back into a provider profile.

Restore modes

• Merge: add missing data from the capture without wiping the target first

• Clear restore: clear the target feature first, then restore the captured data

CrossWatch restores what was captured.

The target media server or tracker may still interpret that data differently afterward.

Plex has no supported way to backdate a play.

If CrossWatch writes History into Plex, Plex records watched_at as now.

This affects history sync and History capture restores.

Restoring “All” captures

If the selected capture is a bundle (feature = all), Restore applies the chosen mode to each supported child feature.

Compare

Compare lets you select two matching captures and see what changed.

Rules

• both captures must belong to the same provider

• you can compare two single-feature captures

• you can compare two All capture bundles that contain multiple features

This is useful for checking:

• items added

• items removed

• items updated

Compare is designed to answer: “What changed between capture A and capture B?”

It does not answer: “Which provider is correct?” or “What should sync?”

More detail: Capture Compare and Capture Compare (Advanced).

Tools

The Tools area provides cleanup and maintenance actions for provider features.

That includes clearing supported feature data directly from the target provider.

Provider tools write directly to the provider. Use them carefully.

Available tools depend on what the selected provider supports:

• Clear watchlist

• Clear ratings

• Clear history

• Clear progress

• Clear all

Clear ratings trigger rating-scrobble listeners.

If you enabled rating scrobbling, this can instantly send “unrate” events.

That can wipe ratings on attached providers too (example: Trakt).

Before using Clear ratings, disable rating scrobbling first:

• Settings → Scrobble → Watcher → Ratings (Plex only)

• Settings → Scrobble → Webhook → Enable ratings (legacy)

Setup references:

• Watcher

• Webhooks

If a provider doesn’t support a feature, that tool is disabled.

Typical workflow:

1. Create a capture

2. Run a clear tool

3. Optional: restore a capture

Scheduler Integration

Captures now work much more closely with scheduling.

You can:

• create a capture manually right now

• queue that setup directly into Capture Scheduling

That means a manual capture setup can become a repeating automated capture schedule without re-entering the provider, profile, and feature.

Related: Scheduling

Scheduled Capture Retention

Capture schedules can manage retention automatically.

Available options:

• Label template: define how scheduled captures are named

• Keep captures for days: delete captures older than a set age

• Max captures to keep: keep only the newest number of captures

• Cleanup: enable automatic pruning after each successful scheduled capture

So Captures now support:

• manual restore points

• scheduled recurring backup-style captures

• compare and restore workflows

• automatic retention cleanup for scheduled captures

Deleting captures

Captures can be deleted from the UI.

• Select a capture

• Click Delete

• Confirm

If you delete an All features bundle, CrossWatch also deletes its child captures.

This only deletes files on disk under /config/snapshots/.... It does not touch provider data.

Notes and limitations

• Providers differ. A restore can be best-effort, depending on provider APIs.

• If a feature/tool is disabled, the provider does not support it (or is not configured).

• Captures are local files. If you move hosts, copy /config/snapshots too.

• Don’t forget: this is not a backup tool.