iOS 16.4 keeps deleting my unplayed downloaded Podcast.

Still occuring in 16.6.1. Hard to figure out precise reproducible results.

• Generally, I will have a partially played podcast episode.
• Then a new episode appears and is downloaded.
• I will play that new episode.
• The half-played episode will be tagged as "played" even though more than half the episode is left to listen too.

I'm experiencing the same issue. The only workaround I've found so far is to resync the episodes with iTunes and keep the Podcast app open at all times. If I close the app (swipe up) or restart my device, the episodes disappear again. It's quite frustrating.

I can confirm that the 16.5 update has resolved the problem for me. I think it's safe to move forward with installing it as a fix. A couple of additional things to share:

There is NO MENTION of a fix for this problem in the release notes for 16.5. In fact, there is no mention of any changes having anything to do with the Podcasts app in the release notes. That said, I spoke to a friend of mine who until very recently worked as a developer for Apple in their Pittsburg office. My friend said that any .x.0 release (like this one--16.5.0) has "thousands and thousands of fixes in it", and he estimates that only 0.1% of the fixes get mentioned in the release notes. Exceptionally poor documentation and change management from Apple, but exactly the kind of egregious service we've come to expect from them.

Second, it looks to me like all of the other bugs remain intact. These include (but aren't necessarily limited to):

• Sorting downloaded podcasts by date order does not work correctly.
• Some downloaded free podcasts appear as premium podcasts and refuse to play without a subscription to a premium service (the same podcasts play without restriction in iTunes)
• Downloaded podcasts added to "Play Next" list do not appear in the list and may or may not actually play next
• Some downloaded podcasts that were NEVER added to the Play Next list suddenly appear on Play Next list anyway, sometimes even after they are removed.
• Not all downloaded podcast episodes for a show appear in the list of available episodes in Car Play.

Of course, this thread was about the disappearing podcasts, not all of the other bugs, so I'll either go look for another thread for them or start one of my own. But it appears that, as of 16.5, the Mystery of the Disappearing Podcasts (sounds like a title for a Hardy Boys novel) has been resolved.

I can confirm from Apple support article HT201222 that iOS 16.5 dropped today, 5/18/2023. I have just installed it to my iPhone 13 mini using iTunes 12.9.5.5 on macOS 10.14.6 "Mojave". I have also just re-synchronized all of my un-listened podcasts from iTunes to the Podcasts app.I'll have to test it for at least 48 hours to determine if the "disappearing podcasts" problem is fixed, and will post back here once I have done so.

However, the option to sort by "Date Published" is still badly broken. When doing so, podcasts tend to clump together and don't necessary sort in correct order.

*sigh*

Jesus H., Apple! Can you people seriously not get anything right? I've been using your software since the unmitigated bug-tastic crapfest that was NeXTStep 1.0, and after almost three decades you STILL. CAN'T. GET. IT. RIGHT. To quote from the movie TRON:

"This system's got more bugs that a bait store."

Same issue, started happening right after the 16.4 iOS update. I listen to podcasts all the time and I sync with my computer to download as many as possible in order to avoid having to use mobile data. After the update all downloads were gone. I tried syncing again, but then they disappear after some time. I assume the app autodeletes them or something. Hope Apple is working on fixing this bug. Do not make things worse with updates please.

Also, not to mention that a bunch of podcasts I had already listened to before, are now showing as unplayed again, so I have to mark them as played one by one, and we all know that this cannot be done in bulk on iOS. Really amateurish Apple, really amateurish.

I don't synchronize with my computer, but I'm noticing that quite often that if I switch from playing one podcast to playing another, it marks the previously listened to podcast as played. It is very annoying, and while I have had issues in the past with the podcast app marking something as played (even though I hadn't finished it), it is much worse now. I am hoping Apple will fix this because having to memorize where I left off is dumb, and that is what software is supposed to do. When I mark the podcast as unplayed, it doesn't remember where I left off.

I'm having the exact same problem. I updated my iPhone 13 mini from whatever the last 15.x release was to 16.4.1 on April 10, 2023. Ever since, the Podcasts app has acted odd.

I download all my podcasts in iTunes on my iMac and then sync them to my iPhone every few days. I have things configured so that podcast episodes are NEVER deleted--not from the iPhone nor from iTunes. Listened-to episodes are removed from my iPhone then next time I sync new episodes. Since upgrading to 16.4.1, selecting Library on my iPhone and then tapping Downloaded is unpredictable... sometimes I see only a subset of downloaded (sync'ed) podcasts, sometimes I see none at all. I've even seen them suddenly disappear while I was staring at the phone! It doesn't matter how many episodes I download, nor how many shows, although I seem to have slightly better luck downloading a small subset of episodes... no more than a dozen in total.

I've also noticed the podcasts do still appear to be on the phone! With the phone docked and selected in iTunes, in the treeview on the left under On My Device, if I select Podcasts, I can clearly see all of the episodes I sync'ed to the phone. However, opening the Podcasts app doesn't show any of them. It doesn't appear that the episodes are actually being deleted per se, it's more like a bug in the Podcasts app is preventing it from seeing or displaying the episodes that are actually on the phone.

As a test, I tried downloading (i.e., syncing from iTunes) 2-4 episodes of 4 different podcasts. After the sync, I went into the Podcasts app on my phone, opened Library and tapped Downloaded. I saw only two of the four shows listed, and while I was staring at it, one of those two suddenly disappeared. While tapping around in the app, eventually the fourth show disappeared leaving the Library empty.

I've tried everything I can think of and nothing seems to help. I've rebooted the phone, and I've deleted the Podcasts app and tried reinstalling it from the App Store. Nothing seems to help. I'm trying the workaround listed above, and for the moment it seems to at least be helping.

I've also noticed the sort order is very badly broken. When I choose to sort from oldest to newest without grouping by show, the results are a jumble... most episodes are grouped by show (though not all), and things generally aren't in the correct order. Switching the sort order to newest to oldest is equally broken.

One final note: I've Googled these two issues and searched this and other forums extensively, and I'm seeing A LOT of other threads both here and at other sites (some dating back 3 years or more, and to iOS 14.x) complaining of the same types of problems: podcasts that mysteriously "disappear", and problems with date sorting. I've never found a fix or helpful workaround in any of these threads, and most suggestions mistakenly suggest adjusting setting from retaining and deleting podcasts within the Podcasts app setting.

It appears to be that the Podcasts app is a hot mess and there doesn't seem to be much to be done about it.

Two other bits of strangeness I just noticed...

First: One podcast I listen to is called "Radiolab". The episodes released on 7/15/2022 and 7/29/2022 are both now appearing on my iPhone with the words "RADIOLAB+ ONLY" next to the release date. If I attempt to play them on my phone, I am redirected to an advertisement requiring me to subscribe to a service called "Radiolab+" in order to play the episodes. HOWEVER, there is no such designation in iTunes: both episodes appear like all other episodes and I can play them unimpeded in iTunes on my iMac. Furthermore, if I check the show in the Store, both episodes are listed as regular season episodes for which no special subscription is required. This originally happened only with the episode dated 7/15/2023, but after a recent re-sync, it's now happening to both dated episodes.

Second: There are a couple of episodes I've listened to previously that were marked as Played on my iPhone. I then turned off all podcast syncing iTunes and clicked the button to Remove all podcasts from my iPhone. Then, in iTunes, I marked those couple of episodes as Unplayed. I then re-synced them back to the phone. With the phone docked and selected in iTunes, in the treeview under On My Device, if I select Podcasts, they're all listed and designated as unplayed. However, on the phone they continue to appear in the Library under Downloaded as Played! (In the past, they would have appeared as unplayed.)

Yes, I am getting the same. It's like something that happened a few years ago when they first trried to puss towards streaming which i convenent for everyone. I think its disgraceful that either Apple are this useless or they are deliberately trying to sabotagethe way some users operate. iTunes circa 2005 was better than this.

Been having this same problem. I'm able to reproduce it pretty consistently now by playing a podcast episode and then swiping up on it. That crashes the app, and when I reopen it, all the downloads are gone. I have to resync with iTunes to get them back.

Same issue here and it started with the 16.4 update. I have podcasts in iTunes that are marked unplayed. I sync them to my phone and they appear in the Apple Podcast app and in Settings/General/iPhone Storage the storage used by the app increases. I can play an episode, but if I close the app all the episodes synced with iTunes disappear and the storage decreases back to the starting amount.

However, episodes that I subscribe to and are downloaded directly (i.e. without going through iTunes) are not deleted.

I hope Apple is correcting this significant bug.

Just a brief update… The workaround posted above (keep the app open at all times) is helpful, and seems to allow me to keep the Podcasts for at least a but it doesn’t solve the problem. No matter what, at some point, I lose my podcasts and have to re-sync. Nothing seems to help.

The situation is so bad, and the Podcast app so unusable, that, out of sheer desperation, I have resorted to using an old iPhone 5 running iOS 10.3.4 as an iPod. I am able to successfully sync all my podcasts to it, sort from oldest to newest, and play them. Works perfectly.

Truly pathetic that a 10 year-old product works better and far more reliably that Apple’s latest offering.

Yep - read somewhere that they were improving podcasts with 16.4 update and true to form with any computing industry - their idea of improving is to make it worse.

Basically podcasts sync from computer to iPhone and can be listened to as normal. But if you have to stop listening for any length of time - every podcast that you have synced from computer has been removed. The only ones that remain are any your phone has downloaded directly from Apple servers over the internet.

This includes removing the podcast you’re half way through listening to and the ones you haven’t listened to yet. So it is not the delete after listening to setting that is the problem. This did not happen before the update.

Absolute pain. Sort this out asap please

As I write this, this MacWorld article (last updated 5/15/2023) says 16.5 RC 2 is currently out, so it's still in beta. The article goes on to say the final public release is expected "likely on May 15 or 16" Since today is the 17th, I'm hoping it'll be "any day now."

I have access to the beta but I'm not currently willing to install it on my phone. I'll grab the final public release as soon as its out, test it for a few days, and post my results here.

Kinda getting tired of carrying around my iPhone 6 as an iPod.

I’m having the same issue. I have changed my setting in Podcast on my iPhone, to NOT Remove Played Downloads. I want these to stay on my iPhone permanently. I sync with my MacBook Pro, and then go one by one, saving each episode, and go to listen to an episode while I’m driving only to find it is not there.

this has happened at least four times now in the last 6 weeks. So frustrating.

HELP!!!