I suddenly can't delete podcast episodes from itunes library

Just had a similar experience. Found podcasts I had deleted years ago showing up in iTunes on my PC. I found if you go to "My Podcasts" you will see a list on the upper left of Recent Updates, Unplayed Episodes, and Saved Episodes. Click on Saved Episodes. This is where I found all the very old a previously deleted podcasts.

You can leftclick and select "Remove from Saved". You can remove large blocks of files by using the right click on the first file then shift and right click at the end, then left click and remove all at once.

As far as podcasts are concerned any episode that you see with a cloud symbol is something that currently exists on the podcast providers feed. It isn't stored in your iTunes cloud. That said, depending on the view, I think you should still be able to delete episodes that you no longer want to show in the feed. If you have the selection in the lower right hand corner showing Feed then you cannot delete episodes as you're looking at the list on the host server.

tt2

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Thank you turingtest2 for the explanation. Here's the thing, and Apple does this ALL THE TIME.

(I am mostly an Apple lover, but this stuff drives me crazy.)

They make something of a fundamental change to the UI, and expect that you will just "get it".

You make a casual comment about "That said, depending on the view, I think you should still be able to delete episodes that you no longer want to show in the feed." And you're right. But they change the view to be one that you didn't have before. And No obvious way to change it. If you don't believe me, look at all the threads under "delete podcast episode".

So of course, to change the view, one would click the menu option "View" and look at the options, yes? No! It's down at the bottom under "Show". Very poor UI design. And the intuitive choice (which I believe used to be the default) is now "Unplayed/My Episodes and Saved" (which is some kind of ***?, because even if an episode is played, it shows...)

Reminds me of when they arbitrarily decided to move the podcast refresh button, which looked very much like a browser refresh, and it disappeared from upper left corner, only to reappear as text in the lower left corner. I (like may others) was looking for the icon, not trying to "read" the screen. Took a while to find it. No huge deal, but WHY?

Anyway, through with the rant. My plea to Apple is to STOP arbitrarily changing the UI WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION, and really, without any benefit, IMO. Thanks!

You're welcome. 🙂

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

tt2

Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou.

I have been trying to solve this problem for months and have now cleaned up my iTunes Podcasts to which apple kindly re-added all my old podcasts, some back to 2007!!!!!

Just take care not to press refresh again or they all come back and have to be deleted again.

I agree completely that Apple expects their users to "get it". I don't understand why a company with their IT power and knowledge of human factors does NOT invest in a better Help feature. I moved over last summer from 1000 years on Windows. I struggle mostly when I try to help myself. Apple has commands in some apps in the menu bar. You want to find what it does "good luck with that". "It's for Apple to know and you to find out". One example is the "Choose" command. I still have not found out what it does.

To boot, when you talk to the support desk they don't know either. Thanks for the chance to vent.

I have received a lot of great technical advise on this forum and for that I am thankful. Thanks