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Level 1

3 points

Hundreds of old podcasts with dead links WON'T DELETE. Please help...

Hi People,

I've subscribed to podcasts for a really long time, and have upgraded iTunes, Macs, and OS X numerous times over the years with my iTunes data moving from one to the next and never getting a "fresh start"... and now I'm in the process of cleaning my library up and using the Podcasts app on its own, instead of iTunes, to manage my podcasts. The problem is that even though I have EMPTIED my iTunes from podcasts locally, I still have 734 VERY OLD podcasts showing up on Apple TV even though they have long since been deleted, and most don't even exist anymore on the internet, let alone on my Mac.

This seems to have been a problem for a handful of people, from what I can tell by searching around, but there aren;t many answers. I only saw one person's problem solved by a script of some kind and tbh, I am just not savvy enough to understand how to use/run a script. I followed the link to the one mentioned, and there aren't even instructions. 😟 I need help from someone knowledgable... and I am hoping I can get these old decrepit podcasts out of my system somehow without doing anything weird. Can I simply delete or rebuild the library file somehow? I wish I could just delete them but there doesn't seem to be a way.

I am able to see them in iTunes after making a Smart Playlist and setting iCloud Status to "is" and "error" and Media Kind = Podcast. But I can't delete from a smart playlist, so I'm stuck. But these are the same old, long gone podcasts showing up on the Apple TV in the Computer section.

PLEASE somebody help me clean this up. Anyone have an idea of the best way to do it?

Thanks much in advance...

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 21, 2016 8:52 PM

22 replies

Apr 5, 2016 9:27 PM in response to Rysz

I your case, are they also "ghost" podcast episodes that do not appear at all when you show your Podcasts library in iTunes? Or do they return as "normal" podcast episodes, visible in your Podcasts library?

Rysz

Level 8

44,391 points

Apr 7, 2016 11:53 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

I your case, are they also "ghost" podcast episodes that do not appear at all when you show your Podcasts library in iTunes? Or do they return as "normal" podcast episodes, visible in your Podcasts library?

They're visible only in the smart playlists, from which location they can't be deleted.

Apr 7, 2016 5:42 PM in response to Rysz

If you are signed in with an Apple ID, does it make a difference if you sign out, and then repeat what you did previously (what sonictonic did) do change Media Kind to something else, and Delete from that library?

cbearg1

Level 1

16 points

Jul 29, 2016 3:15 PM in response to sonictonic

Hi,

I have a similar problem -- ghost podcasts were appearing on the podcast smartlist in iTunes even though they had been deleted from iTunes and from my Mac. So I added a rule to my smartlist: Plays is less than 1. Then I clicked on the ghost podcast in the smartlist, clicked on the Podcast pulldown menu, and then selected Mark As Played. This immediately removed the ghost from the smartlist.

I (and Apple Support) have no idea why this is occurring, but I'm just happy to have the ghosts removed from my smartlist. Hope it helps you!

Dec 12, 2016 9:31 AM in response to sonictonic

I've had the same problem for some time. However reading this question gave me a new tactic. I created the smart playlist described in this question and when all of the ghost podcasts appeared, I simply added them to iCloud and they disappeared from Apple TV. The files were deleted from iTunes and the hard drive long ago.

turingtest2

Level 10

272,881 points

Jun 6, 2017 11:16 AM in response to jloSF

Switch to the classic list view and you can remove what you want to.

tt2

Jul 12, 2017 5:19 PM in response to sonictonic

Apples solution is not acceptable. Please work on fix. Who wants to tinker with itunes with a fake library

Hundreds of old podcasts with dead links WON'T DELETE. Please help...