Deleting Podcasts From iPhone

I came here looking for the solution to a simiilar question and just stumbled across the definitive answer to my question myself while randomly swiping the screen!

I didn't try the synching thing, which may work best for deleting LARGE amounts of episodes, but for deleting singular episodes from your iPhone on the fly, as you listen to them, try this:

In the home page "music" app, navigate to the list of podcast episodes, and swipe to the left, from the right edge of the episode you want to get rid of.

A red "delete" button magically appears on the right!

Touch that delete button, and ta-da, that episode is gone!

It's ridiculous to hide essental functions like that in a non-intuative manner! Hopefully someone in the Apple development department reads these comments and adds a delete button on the episode description page, or even an "edit" button at the top of the episodes list page which would give you the little red circle with a white dash in it, like in the text messages app!

I really hope iOS 7 solves these issues and more, as there is clearly room for improvement in functionality!

Hmmm, very interesting, while in the middle of listening to podcasts through the "music" app, I was prompted that in order to continue, I'd have to download the "podcasts" app, which I did, and it seems that now, my previous post is moot, because now there's an intuative way to delete episodes! Ask and ye' shall receive, I guess? LOL!

In reading through the responses here, although they were very helpful I thought I'd detail how I manage podcasts on my iPhone as this is what would help me. As the whole iTunes paradigm of 'syncing' is very non-intuitive from my perspective as opposed to simply selecting and deleting, or dragging and dropping, I've endlessly been frustrated in trying to deal with it.

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Step-by-step:

I connect my iPhone to my iMac and open iTunes.

Under DEVICES in the left sidebar, I select the iPhone icon.

In the main window, I go to the top center navigation and select the Podcasts button (position 8 from the left in the horizontal listing).

Under the navigation in the main window below the navigation I select the 'Sync Podcasts' checkbox in the top left.

In the left column of the main window, titled Podcasts, I select the Podcast I want to manage.

The episodes I have in iTunes show in the right column, each episode having a selectable checkbox.

I check the ones I want on my iPhone and deselect the ones I do not want on it.

At the bottom I select the 'Sync' button on the right.

This adds the newly checked podcasts to the iPhone, deletes the ones that are on the iPhone but that I've unchecked in the right column in iTunes, and leaves the ones on the iPhone that were checked and unchanged in iTunes. When I return the next time, the state of the checkboxes reliably represents which episodes are on the iPhone and which are not.

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The conceptual problem I have is that one can only really interact with attached devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad) through iTunes on a computer, not interact with the device directly. Now that apparently you can delete an podcast directly on an iPhone, it can add confusion as iTunes only recognizes that the podcast is missing, not that it necessarily has been deleted as it is still listed in iTunes' representation of the state of podcasts on the attached device.

HTH.

While your manual method works, it is NOT having to manually sync podcasts from my computer to my iphone/ipod/ipad and keep track of what has been played/not played that is the primary reason I have not switched to Android. To me, it doesn't get any easier. You subscribe to a podcast in iTunes, you set it to sync only unplayed episodes, and then voila, as you listen to episodes iTunes removes them from your device each time you sync, and then adds new ones that it has already downloaded (assuming you let it run even when you don't have devices connected). If I listen to an episode on my computer it marks it as played and removes it from my iphone. Then the only things that are left on my phone are unplayed and the space occupied manages itself. If you listen and watch a lot of podcasts that's the only way to go.

If you have no interest in keeping what has been played in sync w/ your computer and other devices, then I believe you can manage and download podcasts directly to your device. I have not tried that so I don't know how well it manages removing played episodes. However, now with iCloud you can effectively not use iTunes at all anymore (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-57557382-243/my-post-itunes-life/), but I still prefer to not rely on the cloud to do my backups.

Scoot - the swipe to show the delete button is the same way that mail has always worked too, so as sort of a well known gesture in iOS, it isn't quite as hidden as you suggest. I won't argue that everything in iOS is easy and intuitive, but neither are Andriod or Windows. And I can't say it enough, if you set the podcasts to only keep and sync unplayed episodes, everything manages itself and played episodes automatically get deleted. If you happen upon an episode you want to keep and listen/watch again, then just mark it as unplayed. Likewise, if there are episodes you don't want to keep, mark them as played in itunes or on your device and they'll get deleted.

I have read all your posts. I have an I Phone 5. I have updated the latest I-Tunes version and the lastest IOS 7 update. After deleting and unsubscribing to unwanted podcasts in I-Tunes, the best solution for me was to REMOVE the PODCASTS APP in I-Tunes on my PC, hit apply. Then reinstall the APP, and ofcourse, hit apply again. I was not able to find and Edit on the pull down menu. It might depend on who your carrier is. Anyway, this worked for me. Hope this helps!

I just updated my 4s to ios7, and the edit button is still part of the podcast app. you just drag down when on the my podcasts screen and then you get an edit button. see screen shot below. when you hit the edit button you get x's on the podcasts so you can delete them.

On the I-Phone 5, when I use the the pull down menu on the MY PODCASTS screen (center of the phone) I get messages from Apps that I have used. There is no Edit screen. Southsails offered the best way to delete unwanted Podcasts for me.

you can't pull from the top, you have to start in the middle of the screen. your phone is no different from anyone else's.

I upgraded to an iPhone 5s from an old 3Gs, and upgraded to iTunes 11.x at the same time.

Surprisingly my podcasts sync-ed pretty well.

I always download new episodes thru iTunes, but always listen on my iPhone.

I the old days I would delete episodes I'd listened to in iTunes at next sync. they were removed from the iPhone.

I think what I've learned is that with iOS7 / iTunes 11.x The best is to Edit--> Delete (or Swipe-delete) them from the iPhone and then at next sync. they will be deleted from iTunes. Did I get that right?

Thanks,

Jim

Oh for eff's sake! Thanks for your help on this. This is quite possibly the STUPIDEST design/ implementation I have ever seen!!! Who the **** would ever even know it was there??!!!!

jimbob5941 wrote:

I think what I've learned is that with iOS7 / iTunes 11.x The best is to Edit--> Delete (or Swipe-delete) them from the iPhone and then at next sync. they will be deleted from iTunes. Did I get that right?

Thanks,

Jim

Unfortunately this is not the behavior I get when trying your suggestion. I'm using an iPhone 5s with iTunes 11.1. When I delete an episode from the Podcasts app on the phone and then sync with iTunes, iTunes appears to win out and puts the episode right back on the phone.

The closest solution I've found is to delete the episode from both the phone and from iTunes prior to syncing. This is double the steps that it used to take, but for now it works. Unfortunately, the app still likes to occassionally show old episodes with the cloud icon.

I don't understand the app showing the old episodes with the cloud icon. There are mechanisms in both the app and in iTunes for the user to display old episodes, so why would the app display those old episodes (seemingly randomly) without any interaction from the user? If I want to see the old episodes, I'll click on the appropriate option.

*sigh*

Not sure if deleting from the iphone and then sync'ing works, I'd have to try that. I never manually delete anything from the iphone, I let the itunes sync take care of removing played items. If you have your podcast subscription set to only keep unplayed (and therefore partially played also) items, then once the podcast has been played to the end and you sync, the fact that it has been played is sync'd back to itunes, at which point itunes knows to delete it. So I've always assumed I should leave the played podcast on the phone so that when I sync it, itunes will pick up the fact that it has been played. If you delete it, not sure if/how it would keep track of whether or not you played it or if it is new.

Also you need to have the podcast checked in itunes to sync to your phone. It is somewhat confusing, because you can also subscribe to a podcast directly on your phone w/o itunes. Not sure how it happened but at one point that got deselected on my podcast and then itunes and my phone were out of sync and i thought the app was messing things up. Once I noticed that somehow the podcast had been deselected for sync and then rechecked it, it started working/sync'ing just fine again.

The one thing that is still somewhat of a mystery to me is that the played podcasts will still show up in my podcast list for a while, but they have the cloud symbol by them indicating that they aren't downloaded on my device anymore. I'm not sure what or how long it takes for them to roll off but they eventually do.

thanks Red!

I had historically just been deleting the episodes manually from iTunes as it gave me a chance to look at the titles of the ones I'd listened to and jot down notes if needed. On my iPhone I had the setting set at the default of:

"Keep all Episodes"

I think I will change that on your adivce to "Keep all Unplayed" and see if that fixes things up...

I only listen to podcasts on the iPhone never from iTunes as I can listen at 1.5x or 2x on the phone ...

Itunes 11.1.5 (5)

OS X 10.9.2

Is it just me or does it seem like everytime some update comes along suddenly things that worked for years don't work anymore? It's like Bill Gates bought Apple!

I have always simply refreshed podcasts on Itune then checked and dechecked what I wanted on my Itouch and my Ipad. Recently bought Iphone5s and noted yesterday that although titles of podcast on Iphone the actual podcast itself wasn't downloaded. Then also noted that previously listened to podcasts had delteted podcast itself but left shadowed title.

Played and played with settings on new Iphone but then noted same thing with Ipad. So I believe whatever last update Itunes did is where problem started. Not Iphone or Ipad etc. Suddenly it doesn't sync by checked and unchecked boxes anymore. Maybe shoudl rename UPDATE UPBREAK?

Don't even get me started on Maverick.

I ask again is it just me?

George in NY