Apple Podcast App

What is the difference between saving a podcast and downloading a podcast? I have noticed that after a podcast is downloaded, it can also be saved, in which case it will download a second time. After the second download a status of SAVED is assigned to it. Alternatively, I believe, one may also assign a download podcast the “SAVED” status without causing a second download to occur but I haven’t done this in a long time, (why would one do so?). Further, I can detect no difference in the behavior of saved vs downloaded podcasts. For example they both stay downloaded until or unless I do something about them, (which is fine with me). The question now can be seen to have two parts:

1) What is the purpose of the status: SAVED?

2) Does a second download duplicate the first download and thereby impact memory usage? (And what then.)

My intuition is that this all has something to do with the options one elects relative to a given subscription. Perhaps the SAVE status overrides the automatic deletion of a downloaded podcasts episode, based upon a specified limit of some sort, like “Only keep 5 episodes” or “Only keep ‘current’ items as may be defined by some sort of date variable? If this is the case I would like to know because there are certain episodes I would like to protect against deletion even if I make the mistake of electing a bad option.

I appreciate everyone with the patience to slog through the all above. If you got this far I will assume that you share my adversity to quick assumptions and sketchy answers. Be that as it may, I will see it I can test out what may be going on. If you already know, please reply.

Thanks