How I manage Podcasts on my iPod

I don’t like the iTunes subscription system as I get too many episodes that I don’t want. Also it is tricky to manage when to keep and when to delete, the iPod (now iPhone) seems to fool me every time just as I trust it.

Here is my way, I like it.

I subscribe to podcast sites via Google Reader, and then download only the episodes I want. Yes, I manually choose my listening. They go to my download folder. I copy them into Itunes. Sort them by Date added (that field needs to be set up as visible in iTunes) I make them all genre = podcast in iTunes.

I sync the mobile. They go into the iPod where they show up in an ordinary Smart Playlist I have set up in iTunes and set up to sync – called “0 Podcasts”.

The way I manage them on the iPod is to have two more Smart Playlists, based on star ratings:

* Podcasts
** Podcasts

the first is for delete, the other one is for the odd podcast I want to save.

After a sync, in iTunes I sort by rating and delete all items with one star.
I move & save items I want to keep off the iPod.

Try it, it is great! But I am open to hearing about improvements on that.

How do you manage podcasts on the iPod/iPhone?

Here is my Google Reader list of Podcasts I sub to..

One Reply to “How I manage Podcasts on my iPod”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.