How do I clear my podcast queue?

Before I can answer your question, I need to clarify a few characteristics of the Up Next Queue.

The Next Up Queue is created in one of two ways: automatically or manually.

Automatically Generated Queue

For the sake of discussion, assume that you have no Up Next Queue present yet. When you tap on a podcast episode, the Podcast app will automatically create an Up Next queue. The contents of that queue depends on where the episode was when you tapped on it.

1. If you tap on an episode in the Listen Now area or from it's listing under the Show, the Podcast app will add additional episodes from that show to the queue.
2. If you tap on the episode as part of a Station that you have created, the Podcast app will add the remaining episodes in the Station to the queue.

Episodes automatically added to your queue cannot be individually moved (although you can clear the queue, which I will get to below).

Manually Adding Episodes

You can also add episodes to your queue manually. This can be accomplished by 3-D touching on the episode or tapping "Details" and then pressing the icon with the three purple dots. At that time, you will be presented with a number of options, including "Play Next," or "Play Later." Both of these options will manually add your episode to your Up Next queue. Manually added episodes appear in the queue with the "hamburger" icon on the right. Either way you manually add episodes, they appear at the top of the Up Next Queue. So even if you say "Play Later" it just moves to the bottom of the manually added list. All of the automatically added episodes drop down.

You can momentarily tap and hold the hamburger icon to rearrange the manually added episode up and down in your queue. You an also swipe left on a manually added entry, after which you will be presented with the option to delete that episode from the Up Next Queue.

Clearing the Queue

You can clear the queue by deciding what you want to listen to next and just tapping episode (but not 3-D pressing). You will be presented with an option to Keep Up Next or Clear Up Next. Choose "Clear Up Next" to clear your queue — and potentially start a new automatically generated queue.

Understanding how the queue is generated can help you integrate automatically and manually generated queues. For example, I have a Station full of single tracks of songs of the day. Each morning I tap on the first track in the station and select "Clear Up Next" to automatically generate a queue of single songs as the backdrop for the day. Then, throughout the day I manually add audio podcasts that I want to listen to. When these audio episodes play out, I drop back to where I left off in the queue of songs. Nice.