How do you manually manage podcasts with the new iTunes?

I use a smart playlist instead of manually turning episodes on and off. I have one smart playlist that selects from a bunch of podcasts (searching on album title field for the podcast name), and then also testing for them to have a playcount of 0.

I have a seperate playlist for those "one off" podcasts that I want o listen to just one episode of (when I don't want to send all episdes of a podcast to my device). I drag individual episodes into that playlist, and delete them from the playlist after I've listed to them. I've combined that one with a smart playlist too, to delete them off my device after they have ben played (filter on Playcount = 0).

I sync both these playlists to my device.

In the top left corner of iTunes 11 is a small box which appears to be coloured half white, half black.

Opening that up reveals all the "view" options. One of those options is the ability to put the sidebar on the left hand side back in view, which will allow you to "see" your iPod when you sync it like you did before. You can then navigate to the podcasts options and add/delete as you wish.

I have never tried to manage podcasts the way you describe. Sounds like a headache. I've been using the playlist approach I described for years now. What I like about it is that I can adjust my playlists any time, not just when the device is connected. The next time I sync the device, all the changes are made, based on whatever adjustments I've made to the playlists.

Rock,

I think I figured out a way to do what you want to do - which is the same way that I use Itunes with my Ipod. (My Itunes libary was destroyed last year so I can no longer auto synch my Ipod as I would lose thousands of songs).

Funnily enough, I discovered this new way of manually moving podcasts while trying to figure out what cpragman was trying to say (I never could - he must be smarter than me, as I couldn't get his method to work).

1. Open up your Itunes in your regular Library view. Choose Pocasts from the left hand side (either in the sidebar if you have that enabled, or from the little "radio" icon if you don't.)

2. Mouse to the podcast you want to place on your Ipod.

3. Right-click it. A long menu will pop up.

4. Move to the "Add to Playlist" option. As you hover, all your playlists will be visible. But at the very top will be the name of your Ipod itself (whatever you named it originally). Choose THAT name, and voila! That podcast will now copy to your Ipod and be easily available when you disconnect.

A nice feature of this method is that you can shift-click several podcasts at once and do the same thing, and all your selected podcasts will copy over (if you're like me and update your Ipod only every few weeks).

Hope this helps - let me know if it works for you!

Thanks jockblue1, your solution worked for me. I was having the exact same problem as the OP; now I can use the sidebar to add and delete podcasts just like I did before the iTunes 11 update. Much better!

Instead of Add to Playlist I just drag-and-drop on the device in the left hand column.

Rather than delete a played episode from the device, I uncheck the episode in iTunes and then sync. That deletes the played episode and prevents the checked episode from loading onto the device again.

@Rocking: You should really use some third-party sofware to copy the music from you iPod back to your computer. If you don't, then you will lose all your music when your iPod suddenly dies some day. Also, if you bought it all from iTumes, you can re-download for free,

You just saved me from becoming hysteric 😁

Thank you thank you thank you!!!

I have my good, old podcast menu now 😉

Rocking, your solution almost worked for me, as I was having the same issue as rockbotle, however I realized I have anoter issue that may help others when troubleshooting:

I thought I had set it so I could manually manage my music on my iPhone, but it turns out I didn't and thus iTunes wouldn't let me add anything from my library to my iPhone. Changing this setting fixed the problem.

So double checking those options on your device may help others.

Hey guys. I was wondering whether anyone here knows how to stop the podcast list jumping right up to the latest podcast picked after an episode being deleted. What I mean by that is that, say, I pick a podcast episode to delete, and the moment I've deleted it, the entire list springs up instead of staying intact as in the previous versions of iTunes (even the previous one to the latest). Any ideas how to fix that?