Remove Played Podcasts

Quite unfortunately, Apple removed a very useful feature in iTunes 9.1. Previously, it was possible to go to the Podcasts pane and bulk-select the entire podcast list, and in the context-menu, select “Allow Auto Delete”.

This was an important feature, as otherwise, podcasts with set to “Do Not Auto Delete” would stick around after refreshing my podcast feeds. Of course, I had already set in the iTunes preferences that I only wanted to keep unplayed podcasts, but iTunes had this extra un-Apple-like complication of overriding that setting on a per-file basis.

Anyways, as a stop-gap measure, I wrote an Automator service to delete played podcasts.

The service is stored at http://sites.google.com/site/smithco/Home/remove-played-podcasts/RemovePlayedPodcasts.zip?attredirects=0&d=1 and can be installed by unzipping it and copying it to your Services folder (<user>/Library/Services).

The service is built for Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6).

This service contains AppleScript code from Rob Ryan (http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11316250#11316250).

Phantom Front Row Entries

I've been finding a number of dead entries in the Podcasts menu in Front Row lately. Podcasts that I've listened to and have long since been deleted. Mysterious.

It turns out that there is an enigmatic sequence of events that cause the iTunes database to retain entries for deleted items. I never did find out what are the particular causes for this to occur. However, there is a way to fix these phantoms of podcasts past.

After a few dead ends, I found a thread on the Apple forums about this issue. No one knew why it happens, but one astute poster had a solution. Luckily, Doug has a script that searches the iTunes database and excises incorporeal entries. One run of the script neatly solved the problem. Huzzah!

Tinkering with iLike

I've decided to give iLike a whirl. So far, it seems alright. However, I'm not convinced that it's as interesting as MOG or the Filter, but, the real time reporting it adds into iTunes is cool.

You can visit my iLike profile if you like. And, if you're using iLike, add me as a friend.