With so many streaming services and a constant influx of content, it can take a lot of effort to find something to watch, and especially keep track of everything you might want to watch. It’s definitely difficult to catch up on shows you may have missed when they first came out because everystreaming serviceand studio is constantly putting out more things for you to watch first. Your to-be-watched stack is just as tall as your to-be-read list.
When content pops up at the top of a streaming service, it’s easy to just click and dive into something instead of searching for just the perfect title. It’s because it’s not exactly the easiest to tag and track everything, so it’s much harder to properly sort content based on users or moods. While every streaming service offers a list that goes by different names where you can save or favorite content you’re interested in, they’re all pretty rudimentary and tedious to sort through. That’s why many , includingRoku, are looking to provide their own list.
Roku’s Save List endeavors to make life easier for dedicated content consumers. It boasts some useful features, but does it have everything a content connoisseur needs and deserves?
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What is Roku’s Save List?
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The Roku Save List is your collection of titles that you want to watch, conveniently stored on and accessed from your home page. Unlike lists within Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other apps, the Save List is not limited to one single service, instead populating titles on the Roku operating system regardless of where you end up watching them.
The Save List has replaced the Feed on Roku and aims to make it easier to not just keep tabs on what you’re interested in, but to get there as well. An “Add to Save List” option is located under most titles, and a simple click will store it until you decide to remove it from the said Save List. When you access a title from your collection, you can jump to the streaming service it’s located on, provided you have an account or subscription.
You can find the Save List on the menu on the left-hand side of the home screen. It’s only available for users in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom so far.
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How the Roku Save List helps your streaming
Store and search with ease
Most people employ more than one streaming service to enjoy entertainment, and I’d assume that there are more than a few people who, like me, might jump between six or more to find the exact title they want to watch. As such, it’s simply not enough to have a list within each app or service – you need one on your TV operating system that acts as an official collection of everything you might ever want to watch. It’s no longer practical to go through your favorites list on Prime and then compare it against the one on Disney+ and then check what you may have saved back in Max. Even in an age where load times are quick, that’s just way too much jumping around.
Not every app is created equal either, and some are better than others at saving titles and offering them in a convenient fashion (Crave, for Canadian readers, is not an app that makes any of this easy).
You can look through one single list on the OS home page.
The main benefit of the Roku Save List is simply having one single list for (almost) everything you want to watch. Instead of jumping from service to service in search of something to view, scouring each in-app list to determine what should be played next, you can look through one single list on the OS home page. It’s also conveniently located and easy to get to, unlike some other in-app lists that may take a bit of scrolling to get to.
Here’s how to use it.
Once you find something you want to watch on your Roku Save List, a button will take you over to the appropriate service, and you’re able to start watching. The Save List can be accessed from your TV as well as the mobile app, which is a plus for those who find scrolling and adding content on a phone to be easier and faster than a TV.
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Where the list can improve
Notable limitations
It’s a good feature, and definitely one that every Roku user should use, but the Save List does leave plenty of room for improvement and a bit to be desired.
Perhaps most significantly, Roku Save List does not allow you to add any Netflix original or exclusive content. Depending on how much you watch on the popular service, this could be a minor nuisance or a major hindrance. Netflix’s vast catalog includes a lot of content that you won’t find anywhere, particularly when it comes to foreign language titles or shows from countries that don’t have a home in the United States. This means Netflix is the exclusive provider, and you’re not going to be able to save the show outside the Netflix app. Having to jump between two lists is better than five or six, but the fact there is this Netflix limitation is a problem that needs to be fixed in order to create the perfect list.
You can’t create different profiles like you can with most streaming services.
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There is also only one Save List per device; you can’t create different profiles like you can with most streaming services. So, if you’re sharing the TV with others in the house, that list can become bloated and overly varied fairly quickly.
The Save List also has a cap of around 200 titles, which definitely isn’t enough for some users. It’s especially small if you have multiple people adding content regularly. A limit, for now, is probably for the best, because the Save List isn’t as sortable as it could and should be, either.
The Roku Save List is a helpful companion for those watching a lot of content and trying to keep up with titles new and old. It’s not quite at the level of Google TV, but it’s better than most offerings available and definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to content organization. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with entertainment, so when tracking shows and deciding what to watch, be sure to be prepared with the best tools available.
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