tRakt lets you retrieve data from trakt.tv, a site similar to IMDb with a wider focus, yet smaller user base. The site also enables media-center integration, so you can automatically sync your collection and watch progress, as well as scrobble playback and ratings via Plex, Kodi and streaming services like Netflix and AppleTV+.
And, most importantly, trakt.tv has a publicly available API, which makes this package possible and allows you to collect all that nice data people have contributed.
Please note that while this package is basically an API-client, it is a little more opinionated and might deliver results that do not exactly match the data delivered by the API. The primary motivation for this package is to retrieve data that is easily processable for data analysis and display, which is why it tries hard to coerce most data into tabular form instead of using nested lists, which is what the direct translation of the API results would look like.
Installation
Get it from GitHub:
if (!("pak" %in% installed.packages())) {
install.packages("pak")
}
pak::pak("jemus42/tRakt")…or from r-universe:
install.packages("tRakt", repos = "https://jemus42.r-universe.dev")Usage
Search for a specific show from 2013 (and not the US adaptation) and get basic info:
show_info <- search_query("Utopia", year = "2013", type = "show")
glimpse(show_info)
#> Rows: 1
#> Columns: 9
#> $ type <chr> "show"
#> $ score <dbl> 5.787301e+17
#> $ title <chr> "Utopia"
#> $ year <int> 2013
#> $ trakt <chr> "46241"
#> $ slug <chr> "utopia"
#> $ tvdb <chr> "264991"
#> $ imdb <chr> "tt2384811"
#> $ tmdb <chr> "46511"We’ll use the $trakt ID for subsequent requests.
Get season information for the show using its trakt ID:
seasons_summary(show_info$trakt, extended = "full") |>
glimpse()
#> Rows: 2
#> Columns: 14
#> $ season <int> 1, 2
#> $ rating <dbl> 8.40741, 8.08333
#> $ votes <int> 351, 216
#> $ episode_count <int> 6, 6
#> $ aired_episodes <int> 6, 6
#> $ title <chr> "Season 1", "Season 2"
#> $ overview <chr> "When a group of strangers find themselves in possessio…
#> $ first_aired <dttm> 2013-01-15 21:00:00, 2014-07-14 20:00:00
#> $ updated_at <dttm> 2025-08-12 06:03:40, 2025-08-12 06:03:40
#> $ network <chr> "Channel 4", "Channel 4"
#> $ original_title <lgl> NA, NA
#> $ trakt <chr> "56008", "56009"
#> $ tvdb <chr> "507598", "524149"
#> $ tmdb <chr> "54695", "54696"Get episode data for the first season, this time using the show’s URL slug:
seasons_episodes(show_info$trakt, seasons = 1, extended = "full") |>
glimpse()
#> Rows: 6
#> Columns: 20
#> $ season <int> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
#> $ episode <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
#> $ title <chr> "Episode 1", "Episode 2", "Episode 3", "Episode…
#> $ episode_abs <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
#> $ overview <chr> "When five strangers from an online comic book…
#> $ rating <dbl> 8.14286, 8.03480, 8.02721, 7.99512, 8.12932, 8.…
#> $ votes <int> 1211, 977, 882, 820, 781, 801
#> $ comment_count <int> 9, 0, 1, 2, 1, 2
#> $ first_aired <dttm> 2013-01-15 21:00:00, 2013-01-22 21:00:00, 2013-…
#> $ updated_at <dttm> 2025-08-12 13:37:06, 2025-08-12 13:37:07, 2025-…
#> $ available_translations <list> <"de", "en", "es", "fr", "he", "nl", "pl", "ru"…
#> $ runtime <int> 60, 49, 51, 48, 49, 62
#> $ episode_type <chr> "series_premiere", "standard", "standard", "sta…
#> $ original_title <lgl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA
#> $ after_credits <lgl> FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE
#> $ during_credits <lgl> FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE
#> $ trakt <chr> "1405053", "1405054", "1405055", "1405056", "14…
#> $ tvdb <chr> "4471351", "4477746", "4477747", "4477748", "4…
#> $ imdb <chr> "tt2618234", "tt2618232", "tt2618236", "tt2618…
#> $ tmdb <chr> "910003", "910004", "910005", "910006", "91000…You cann also get episode data for all seasons, but note that episodes will be included as a list-column and need further unpacking:
seasons_summary(show_info$trakt, episodes = TRUE, extended = "full") |>
pull(episodes) |>
bind_rows() |>
glimpse()
#> Rows: 12
#> Columns: 20
#> $ season <int> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2
#> $ episode <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
#> $ title <chr> "Episode 1", "Episode 2", "Episode 3", "Episode…
#> $ episode_abs <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
#> $ overview <chr> "When five strangers from an online comic book…
#> $ rating <dbl> 8.14286, 8.03480, 8.02721, 7.99512, 8.12932, 8.…
#> $ votes <int> 1211, 977, 882, 820, 781, 801, 796, 701, 669, 6…
#> $ comment_count <int> 9, 0, 1, 2, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 2, 2, 6
#> $ first_aired <dttm> 2013-01-15 21:00:00, 2013-01-22 21:00:00, 2013-…
#> $ updated_at <dttm> 2025-08-11 21:19:50, 2025-08-12 00:25:28, 2025-…
#> $ available_translations <list> <"de", "en", "es", "fr", "he", "nl", "pl", "ru"…
#> $ runtime <int> 60, 49, 51, 48, 49, 62, 54, 51, 50, 50, 50, 53
#> $ episode_type <chr> "series_premiere", "standard", "standard", "sta…
#> $ original_title <lgl> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA
#> $ after_credits <lgl> FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALS…
#> $ during_credits <lgl> FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALS…
#> $ trakt <chr> "1405053", "1405054", "1405055", "1405056", "1…
#> $ tvdb <chr> "4471351", "4477746", "4477747", "4477748", "44…
#> $ imdb <chr> "tt2618234", "tt2618232", "tt2618236", "tt26182…
#> $ tmdb <chr> "910003", "910004", "910005", "910006", "910007…Or alternatively, get the trending shows:
shows_trending()
#> # A tibble: 10 × 8
#> watchers title year trakt slug tvdb imdb tmdb
#> <int> <chr> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 6995 Wednesday 2022 1739… wedn… 3970… tt13… 1190…
#> 2 4905 Dexter: Resurrection 2025 2496… dext… 4525… tt33… 2599…
#> 3 3138 The Gilded Age 2022 1522… the-… 3644… tt44… 81723
#> 4 2900 South Park 1997 2177 sout… 75897 tt01… 2190
#> 5 2777 The Institute 2025 2381… the-… 4511… tt10… 2533…
#> 6 2708 Last Week Tonight with John Oli… 2014 60267 last… 2785… tt35… 60694
#> 7 2673 Foundation 2021 1504… foun… 3669… tt08… 93740
#> 8 2205 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2022 1622… star… 3823… tt12… 1035…
#> 9 2044 Twisted Metal 2023 1882… twis… 3665… tt14… 1337…
#> 10 2020 Resident Alien 2021 1535… resi… 3681… tt86… 96580Maybe you just want to know how long it would take you to binge through these shows:
shows_trending(extended = "full") |>
transmute(
show = glue::glue("{title} ({year})"),
runtime_hms = hms::hms(minutes = runtime),
aired_episodes = aired_episodes,
runtime_aired = hms::hms(minutes = runtime * aired_episodes)
) |>
knitr::kable(
col.names = c("Show", "Episode Runtime", "Aired Episodes", "Total Runtime (aired)")
)| Show | Episode Runtime | Aired Episodes | Total Runtime (aired) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday (2022) | 00:42:00 | 12 | 08:24:00 |
| Dexter: Resurrection (2025) | 00:50:00 | 6 | 05:00:00 |
| The Gilded Age (2022) | 00:56:00 | 25 | 23:20:00 |
| South Park (1997) | 00:22:00 | 323 | 118:26:00 |
| The Institute (2025) | 00:58:00 | 6 | 05:48:00 |
| Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014) | 00:42:00 | 340 | 238:00:00 |
| Foundation (2021) | 00:42:00 | 25 | 17:30:00 |
| Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) | 00:55:00 | 25 | 22:55:00 |
| Twisted Metal (2023) | 00:42:00 | 15 | 10:30:00 |
| Resident Alien (2021) | 00:45:00 | 44 | 33:00:00 |
Please note though that episode runtime data may be inaccurate. In my experience, recent shows have fairly accurate runtime data, which is often not the case for older shows.
Credentials
The API requires at least a client id for the API calls.
Loading the package (or calling its functions via tRakt:: wil automatically set the app’s credentials for authentication, but for extended use you should set your own credentials via environment variables in your .Renviron like this:
-
trakt_client_idRequired. It’s used in the HTTP headers for the API calls, which is kind of a biggie. -
trakt_client_secret: Optional(ish). This is only required if you intend to make an authenticated request, which is only required by a small number of implemented API methods (seevignette("Implemented-API-methods")). You can use this package perfectly fine for basic data collection and you can authenticate using the package’s credentials without registering an application on trakt.tv.
To get your credentials, you have to have an (approved) app over at trakt.tv.
You theoretically never need to supply your own credentials. However, if you want to actually use this package for some project, I do not recommend relying on the package’s credentials due to API rate limits. In any case, trakt.tv is free.
Be nice to their servers.
Code of Conduct
Please note that the tRakt project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.