Watch History & Dynamic Era Cutoff

Curatarr integrates with Plex Media Server and Tautulli to correlate viewing activity against physical media inventory.

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Standalone Plex vs. Tautulli Telemetry

Curatarr is engineered to operate completely standalone or enhanced with Tautulli:

• Standalone Plex Mode: Curatarr queries Plex library section endpoints directly. It ingests native viewCount and lastViewedAt timestamps per item. This provides full coverage for smart categories (Never Watched, Stale, Abandoned TV) without needing Tautulli or any external companion software.
• Enhanced Tautulli Mode: When Tautulli is configured, Curatarr supplements Plex's global activity with Tautulli's granular per-user stream history, play durations, and individual user playback timestamps.

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The Pre-Tracking History Problem

Home media servers often run for years before logging tools like Tautulli or Plex activity tracking are installed.

For example:

• A user started their Plex server in 2012.
• Tautulli was installed in July 2017.
• Movies added in 2014 might have been watched dozens of times between 2014 and 2016, but show 0 plays in Tautulli's database.
• Naive pruning rules would flag these classic favorites as "Never Watched (>90d)", risking accidental deletion.

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Dynamic Per-User Cutoff Engine

Curatarr solves this problem using a dynamic era cutoff engine:

1. Calculates Historical Origin: During synchronization, Curatarr evaluates MIN(last_played_at) from watch_stats across your database:
   • Global server start date (e.g. 2017)
   • Individual user join dates (e.g. 2018 for fiveomustang, 2019 for Jordan, 2023 for Ginkel)
2. Missing Watch History Condition:
   • If an active user has watched the title (playCount > 0), watch history is recorded. The item does not receive a pre-history badge.
   • If the active user has 0 plays on the item, Curatarr checks whether the item was added or released before that user's cutoff year.
3. Dynamic Badge Rendering:
   • Items predating the cutoff receive a prominent amber Pre-YYYY badge (e.g. Pre-2017, Pre-2019).
   • Tooltips explain that the item predates watch history tracking for the selected user.

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Filtering by Era in the UI

In the Control Bar, the history filter adapts dynamically:

• When viewing All Users (Combined): Filter options display Hide Pre-2017 and Only Pre-2017.
• When filtering by a user who joined in 2019: Filter options automatically update to Hide Pre-2019 and Only Pre-2019.

[ All History ▼ ]
  • All History
  • Hide Pre-2019
  • Only Pre-2019

This ensures you can safely evaluate a user's unwatched requests without purging older titles that they watched before joining the server.