Track your game backlog across every platform you own

The full walkthrough, from empty install to a working backlog — or read on for the written version.

Your Steam library is not your collection

It is the closest thing most people have to one, which is exactly the problem. A storefront library only knows the games you bought there. It has nothing to say about the cartridge in the drawer, the GOG installer on your backup drive, the game a friend lent you, or the one you played on a console you no longer own.

There is a second gap, less obvious. A library lists what you have access to. A backlog is about intent — what you mean to play, in what order, and how you felt about the ones you finished. No store tracks that, because it is not what a store is for.

A library answers "what do I have?". A backlog answers "what should I play next?".

Where the data lives

In LifeTracker, your collection is a SQLite file in your own storage — that is the whole storage model, with no server copy that counts as the real one. In practice:

• Store-independent. A Steam key, a disc and an emulated ROM are all just entries. Nothing is tied to a launcher.
• It survives the platform. Storefronts and tracking sites come and go; a file on your disk does not depend on any of them still existing.
• No account. Open it and start. Registration exists only for the optional cloud plan, which adds sync and backup.
• Queryable. On desktop the database is a plain SQLite file: open it in any SQLite browser and ask it things no menu offers — hours per genre, say, or how long a game sat in the backlog before you finally started it.

Setting up a game collection

LifeTracker organises everything into categories and ships a Video games template, so the fields and filters are already in place.

1. Create the category. Choose the Video games template, then a style preset — the preset only affects how entries are displayed and can be changed later without touching your data.
2. Add a game. Search by title; cover art and metadata are fetched once and copied into your local database on save.
3. Set a priority. This is the field that makes a backlog usable. Bought-on-sale and genuinely-want-to-play are not the same thing, and only one of them should sort to the top.
4. Tick "Not released" if it is not out yet. That one checkbox is what separates the games you are waiting on from the ones already sitting in your backlog.
5. Leave the rest for later. Dates, rating, playtime and platform belong to the playthrough, not the purchase.

Four filters, and nothing to file by hand

Games get one filter more than the other collection templates, because wanting a game that does not exist yet is a different state from owning one you have not started.

Nothing here is filed by hand. Untick Not released on release day and the game leaves Future for the Backlog; set a start date and it becomes Current. A filter is a stored condition, not a folder — which is why a release you have been waiting three years for costs you one click when it finally lands.

Playtime and platform, without a storefront

The template already carries both. When you finish a game you record how long you played and which system you played it on, alongside the rating — so a collection spread over a PC, a console and a handheld still gives you comparable numbers.

That figure is yours: it counts console sessions, it counts the game you played at a friend's place, and it does not count the eleven hours Steam logged while the game sat paused in the background. If you have ever looked at a store's playtime and known it was wrong, this is the difference. And if you would rather not estimate, LifeTracker's built-in timers can accumulate the time for you as you play.

Fields you can add yourself

Beyond what the template ships with, you define the rest — which is where a general-purpose tracker pulls ahead of a specialised one:

• Completion state that is not binary — dropped at three hours is useful information, and it is not "unfinished".
• Whether you own it outright or it sits on a subscription that could remove it tomorrow.
• What you paid, so a year-end look at cost per hour is possible.
• Who lent it to you, and whether you gave it back.
• Whether it runs on your hardware, which matters if you play on Linux or a handheld.

And because LifeTracker is not a games app, the same database also holds your films, books, shows and habits. One tool, one file, one backup.

An honest comparison

Dedicated backlog sites do things this does not, and you should know which side of the trade you are on.

The automatic Steam import is the real one to weigh. A site that syncs your library populates itself in a click, where LifeTracker asks you to add games as you go. That is a genuine cost — paid once, at the start, in exchange for a list that is not limited to one store.

Frequently asked questions