iTunes 11.1 deleted my podcasts

Same problem. 😠

I'm fairly sure the reason for this is a due to a mismatch between options to Keep all episodes in iTunes and Keep all unplayed or some similar option on your device when the new option to Sync podcast subscriptions, settings and stations has been enabled. I lost all played episodes of all podcast series that I synced to my devices. 😠

Series that weren't synced were left untouched. iTunes still records both my default option and series specific options to Keep all episodes. iTunes doesn't manage my media folders. The deleted episodes were not sent to the recycle bin. 😕

I'll file a bug report later, but in the meantime here is the recovery process, assuming you have a backup of the deleted files...

1. Restore copies of all the deleted podcasts to the Podcasts folders from your backup.

2. Restore a copy of the pre-upgrade library from the Previous iTunes Libraries folder.

3. Rename the current .itl file with the suffix (BAD), then move it into the Previous iTunes Libraries folder.

4. Remove the trailing date from the library file restored in step 2.

5. Start iTunes, go to the Podcasts section.

6. Uncheck the option to Sync podcast subscriptions, settings and stations then click Continue. This should prevent a repeat of the deletions.

7. On your devices you may also want to change the Episodes to keep to All in Settings > Podcasts and then again with the settings for each subscription in the app.

8. If, like me, you updated a whole bunch of apps before realizing there was a problem, you may find the restored library has multiple broken links to any apps that you updated. Use File > Add Folder to Library and select your Mobile Applications folder. Accept the offer to replace older versions with the files you are adding. iTunes may prompt that certain files cannot be updated because it can't find the file to add. Keep a note of these as it looks like this happens when both the old & new versions would be given the same file name and iTunes unhelpfully erases the file that it is supposed to add. You can delete any remaining broken entries, close iTunes, then reopen and download from iTunes Store > Purchased > Apps > Not on this computer.

If you don't have the episodes to restore then at least visit iTunes > Preferences > Store and Uncheck the option to Sync podcast subscriptions, settings and stations before attempting to redownload any older episodes.

tt2

I had the same problem. I listen to six podcasts. I resubscribed to one of them, and iTunes promptly downloaded the latest episodes of all six podcasts! Back episodes of some are available, but others, like This American Life, only make the latest episode available for free.

I like to listen to podcasts in chronological order, so I created a playlist within Music and add the podcasts in chronological order. When iTunes deleted all the podcasts, the entire contents of this playlist were lost. Lucky for me, I have a month of unplayed podcasts on an old iPhone 3G that I use as an iPod and was synced before iTunes trashed all the podcasts.

This happened to me as well. This really is scarey -- what if you wake up one day and all your music has been deleted? How could Apple have wiped it completely off the computer? I also checked and it wasn't in my Recycle Bin either.

I was using Downcast a lot already, so I have decided not to use Podcasts on iTunes anymore, and rely 100% on Downcast. The only problem is this hurts podcasts who rely on subscribers for their ranking in the iTunes store. Hopefully, they can use other analytical data to get an idea of how many people they are reaching.

Sigh. This is really bad. I also saw in the App Store that the offical Apple Podcast app continues to be awful.

This seems to be working for me "

Podcasts playlist in iTunes is empty

If the podcasts playlist in the Source list of iTunes becomes empty unexpectedly, don't worry—they're still on your computer and can be easily added back into iTunes by following these instructions.

1. Open iTunes.
2. Open iTunes Preferences:
   Mac users—From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
   Windows users—On the Edit menu, click Preferences.
3. Click the Advanced tab. Your iTunes Media folder location is displayed in the iTunes Media folder location window.
4. Make note of your iTunes Media folder location. Click OK or Cancel to close the Preferences dialog.
5. In iTunes, add the podcast files back to the Library:
   Mac users—From the File menu, choose Add to Library.
   Windows users—On the File menu, click Add Folder to Library.
6. In the resulting window, navigate to your iTunes Media folder (the location you noted in step 4), select the Podcasts folder inside of it, and click Choose (Mac) or OK (Windows).

iTunes will add all of your downloaded podcasts back to your iTunes Library and to Podcasts in the Source list. To resubscribe to your podcasts, select Podcasts in the Source list, then click any desired Subscribe button.

Last Modified: Mar 27, 2012

going off of what turingtest said, it does seem to be a sync issue... created an account to tell you how I solved this issue for me so far. I just unsynced both my device and my computer and everythings peachy, you can still sync the device as a whole, but just make sure you go to preferences and specifically uncheck sync podcast subscriptions and same with your device. Hope it works, was real bummed out when I first had this happen to me, too.

I updated to iTunes 11.1 the same day the new version was released. My podcasts were intact after the process was completed, every morning I updated all the episodes, including yesterday, 09/22.

Yesterday afternoon a new iPad was activated and its settinges where taken from my previous iPad in iCloud, meaning everything is "supposed" to work the same way they worked with my previous tablet.

When it's time to configure the podcasts in the new iPad I see a replica of all the podcasts I had in my computer, did not understand why but decided to remove those that I do not listen in the mobile device and left the only three I had before. At the moment I go to the MAC I found that everything but the three that remained in my iPad where deleted too.

Now, we can blame settings or whatever we want, in my opinion, if you upgrade to a new version of any program / application, the minimum expectation is to have the new features the new App brings AND leave whatever was working before untouched, this included all my previous years of Podcasts downloaded. This looks like a huge glitch coming from lack of quality control, from the end user perspective I will refrain to vent my feelings.

I've just spent what feels like 6 months on the phone and chat with apple support regarding this, the best they could offer me was to redownload all my podcasts. They were no help with the issue of the unwanted podcasts still showing in list view. It is now half past midnight and my imac has been downloading podcasts since 2030 hrs, only 477 to go, thanks apple for waisting my time.

The podcast app and music app in ios7 and the new itunes makes listening to my podcasts in a play list with music (just the way I want to) impossible and there is no going back. One call centre person even asked me to re-install ios7 as a new phone cos that should make it work, it did not of course and now all my good stuff on the phone is to ****.

This is so frustrating, it should just work. I'm bleeding tired of this so I'm off to bed.

Nite nite all, hope you have better luck than me.

I went to my backup (my MAC performs a music BU every Saturday 5 AM) and restored the missing Podcasts. Using Time Machine restored the last Tunes Library file I knew had no problem and restored it.

Started iTunes and I see all my Podcasts where they were supposed to be, at the moment I click on Refresh.... everything was erased again. 😠

I have no idea about what the developers had in mind when they designed this version. Much worse is the department that is expected to LAB Test the App before it goes from beta to production. Probably I am mistaken but Apple is really losing its edge. My Aperture program does not work since the last two updates but this is another story and a different forum.

Seems that the users are no longer on top of priorities, unfortunately I had to download the new iTunes releease because it was requested by iTunes if I wanted to upgrade my iPnone to the new release...

Try rolling back the library again wittout restoring the podcasts. As soon as you launch iTunes with the restored library visit iTunes > Preferences > Store and Uncheck the option to Sync podcast subscriptions, settings and stations, then visit the Podcasts section of the library and confirm the choice as in step 6 above. Close iTunes and restore the podcast episodes from the backup. Hopefully this time iTunes won't throw them away again.

tt2

Thanks for the tip, I had no time to try your tip yet but certainly will.

Now, we can waste all our lives trying to figure out how to undo what the lack of criteria used by the developers caused to the users, there is a lot of people that loves to explore and research in order to support the community, the Team that is responsible for this mishap is well paid and it seems to me they did not care a cent about how miserable the life of the user is because of the frustration all this cause. I am so dissapointed with Apple...

This is a new low in a season of lows when it comes to "The Cloud" completely screwing everything up.

I have (or had) a pretty huge collection of old-time radio podcasts accumulated over several years, and with one unfortunate click of a button, they're all gone. Erased. Disappeared. Some of them I can just re-download, and some I can't.

And this is called an upgrade? It's ridiculous.

I'm not even going to bash Apple for this, because they're no worse (or really, they're just as bad) as every other screwed up cloud "solution" that eventually proves itself to be unsecure and unreliable.

That's it for me, folks. I will have a physical copy of everything on a physical backup drive in my physical presence. And in case of fire or some other calamity, I'll go back to what I did a decade ago: rotate backup hard drives between my home and someone else's home, and they'll exchange theirs with me as their own backup.

How will Apple justify going into my music folder and deleting thousands of files that were mine, not theirs? I already know that even if we get some kind of response to this, it will be to say that this removal of files off my hard drive without my permission is a feature, and not a ham-handed mistake.

I'm really discouraged by this.

Same thing happened to me. This is incredibly frustrating. Four years worth of podcasts vaporized.

I had the exact same problem, I also found that when I expanded Old Episodes, iTunes didn't accurately show what I had and hadn't previously played (some podcasts were unplayed, some were partial, some were played).

In the end I decided to trash my podcasts and start again from scratch. A day later, same problem! I'm going to wait for Apple to release an update before trying again, at least my unplayed podcasts are still complete.

Same problem. Years of saved podcasts, especially This American Life and Under The Influence, where the podcasts are only available for a limited time, are gone, completely wiped from the hard drive, not in the trash, no other trace anywhere.

What the heck are the engineers at Apple thinking? This is the stupidest, short sighted move I have ever seen in iTunes. I am mad as ****!