Donot Haveone

Q: Still trouble with ghost podcasts

I'd like to purge all  podcasts from iTunes on my laptop (using Downcast now on iOS devices).

 

I have deleted episodes and unsubscribed from all podcasts.

 

When I run my sequence for finding ghost tracks*, I still see a bunch of podcasts, including one that was a URL link to a Librivox recording and was never actually downloaded to my computer.  Most do not show the gray exclamation mark, and indeed I can click on them from the Missing Files playlist and they play.  Podcasts tab in iTunes shows as empty.  Searching for podcasts by podcast name or by episode title in Finder (with hidden files set to be visible by default) shows nothing.  So iTunes has most of them, and can play them, but they're not anyplace I can see them or get rid of them.

 

I have resubscribed and redownloaded the individual 'ghost' tracks, in the hope that they would be reassociated with their 'missing' selves, but the redownloaded show up appropriately and the 'missing' versions still show up on the Missing Files playlist.

 

Is there any way to definitively remove this leftover crap without rebuilding the iTunes library?  Doug's scripts for iTunes doesn't have anything that I can find for purging traces of podcasts.

 

 

*my ghost tracks revealer sequence, originally found here via the forums

 

1. Make a smart playlist called “All Files” with this rule: “Artist” is not “123456789″ (or any nonsense name that won’t be in your library).

 

2. Make a static playlist called “All Live Files”.

 

3. Make a smart playlist called “Missing Files” with these rules: Match all of the following rules, Playlist is “All Files”, Playlist is not “All Live Files”

 

4. Select all the files from “All Files” and drag them into “All Live Files”. The dead files marked will not copy over.

 

5. “Missing Files” will contain all of your dead files. Select all and delete. Voila, a nice clean iTunes library.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Jan 25, 2015 1:13 PM

Close

Q: Still trouble with ghost podcasts

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Donot Haveone,

    Donot Haveone Donot Haveone Jan 25, 2015 1:14 PM in response to Donot Haveone
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 25, 2015 1:14 PM in response to Donot Haveone

    (forgot the obvious:  iTunes 11.4, Mavericks 10.9.5)

  • by kap_papeach,

    kap_papeach kap_papeach Jul 18, 2016 3:40 PM in response to Donot Haveone
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 18, 2016 3:40 PM in response to Donot Haveone

    I did everything listed here in the solution. The missing files indeed show up in the Missing Files smart list. The problem remains though: you cannot delete something from your computer by deleting it from a smart list or even from a regular list. And when I select the items and click "delete" nothing happens.

     

    So, while now I have a list of all my Ghost Items (which is handy), I still see no way to get them out of my iTunes/off my computer.