TiVo Icons

Decoding Your Screen: What Every TiVo Icon Actually Means is the definitive guide to understanding the graphical interface of TiVo devices. The on-screen icons on a TiVo box function as visual shorthand to tell you the exact recording status, remaining storage lifespan, scheduling priority, and content source of your shows at a single glance. Navigating your “My Shows” menu or the TV Program Guide becomes much easier once you understand what these symbols represent. 🔴 Recording and Live Status Icons

These symbols indicate whether a program is actively saving to your hard drive or broadcasting in real time. Solid Red Circle: The show is currently being recorded.

Red Circle with a Fragment Missing: This signifies a partial recording that was interrupted by a power failure or signal drop.

“Live” Text Icon: The program is currently airing live on broadcast television. ⏳ Expiration and Storage Lifespan Icons

TiVo uses a color-coded warning system to show you which recordings are safe and which ones are facing automatic deletion to free up hard drive space.

Green Circle: The show is safe and will be kept until you choose to delete it manually.

Yellow Circle: The recording is at risk. It may be deleted automatically within 3 days if space is needed for new scheduled recordings.

Yellow Circle with an Exclamation Mark (!): Space is critically low. This show may be deleted automatically in less than 24 hours.

Yellow Triangle / Yellow Triangle with Exclamation Mark: The show is facing deletion within 1 to 3 days specifically due to copyright or licensing restrictions rather than storage limits. 📅 Scheduling and Automation Icons

These icons populate your Guide and To-Do list, showing you how future episodes are slated to record.

Single Check Mark (Red Background): The show is set to record as an individual, one-off episode.

Double Check Mark: A OnePass recording is established, meaning the box will automatically record every episode of this series.

Blue Star: The show was caught and scheduled via a user-created WishList keyword search.

TiVo Silhouette / Logo Icon: The recording is a “TiVo Suggestion”. The device recorded it automatically based on your viewing history and “Thumbs Up” ratings. These are always the very first files deleted when your drive runs out of room. 💻 Source and Playback Icons