Unlock Your iPhone/iPad Podcast Potential
By Tom Seest
How To Maximize iPhone and iPad Podcast Storage?
At PodcastBig, we help new podcasters develop strategies to create content, traffic, and revenue from podcasts based on our experiences and experimentation.
Apple’s Podcasts app includes tools for managing how many episodes are downloaded at once, helping ensure you don’t clog up your device’s storage with too many podcast episodes.
iOS 15.5 and macOS 11.3, released this summer, include features allowing users to automate removing downloaded items once played – here’s how you can use these options to easily organize podcast storage.
How To Maximize iPhone and iPad Podcast Storage?
Table Of Contents
Are Your Podcast Episodes Piling Up? Try This Storage Solution!
Podcast episodes can take up quite a lot of storage space on an iPhone or iPad if you’re an avid listener, but there are some simple steps you can take to free up that storage space.
Before anything, back up your data. This can be accomplished in various ways depending on your media host; most podcasts offer “Close Show,” “Delete Show,” or similar options in their settings that should prompt you to download your podcast to an external hard drive or thumb drive for safekeeping, in case of change of host or needing to reset its feed.
Now, under Podcasts, tap My Podcasts at the bottom of your screen. Here, you will see your downloaded episodes arranged alphabetically; any that have already been listened to are marked with a check mark while any unread episodes display cloud icons. To delete downloaded episodes permanently click ellipsis button in upper-right corner and choose “Delete Downloaded Episodes.”
Podcasts makes deleting unused podcasts easy; in addition to that feature, you can set it so downloaded episodes are deleted 24 hours after being played – this feature is great if you’re listening to multiple shows at the same time and don’t want them sitting there unwatched for too long!
This feature can be found in both the Podcasts app on iOS devices running 16.0 or later and in the Podcasts menu on Mac computers running 10.12.6 or later. To activate it, go into Preferences in Podcasts menu, General tab. When turning this toggle on, Podcasts will automatically delete episodes that haven’t been watched after being played back from downloads.
It’s great that podcasts allow us to automatically download new episodes when they come out, saving us storage space while making it easier to tidy up our storage. However, it might be more suitable to unsubscribe instead of delete episodes you no longer intend on listening to in order to clear away unneeded clutter in our storage.
Are Your Podcast Episodes Piling Up? Try This Storage Solution!
Ready to Declutter Your Podcast Library?
Podcasts have become an increasingly popular form of audio entertainment over time, expanding to encompass a range of genres such as advice podcasts, improv comedy sketches, role-playing games and scripted fictional tales. Unfortunately, an overabundance of unneeded episodes can quickly take up all available storage on an iPhone or iPad and prevent new photos, videos, applications from being saved etc. from being added.
Apple has provided several tools that can assist users with decreasing podcast download sizes, potentially freeing up gigabytes of space for other uses. Along with eliminating unneeded podcasts from being downloaded automatically, these tools allow users to set limits on how often an episode should download automatically – helping prevent out-of-control storage needs due to overly abundant podcast episodes.
Waiting until your storage capacity runs dry to delete episodes can leave an insurmountable stack of podcasts that you never listen to, even after recovering space. Apple’s latest iOS and iPadOS releases include tools to make deleting old podcasts easier by clearing out downloaded files more easily as well as restricting future downloads.
With Podcasts in the Settings app, select a show before tapping Options (). From here, choose whether to Delete Unplayed Episodes or Clear All Downloads as needed.
You can clean up specific shows by deleting episodes from the Library tab. This will prevent Podcasts from downloading more of that show’s episodes but won’t alter any already present in your library.
Alternately, you could reset the Podcasts app in order to clear away preferences and force a redownload of all library items. While this method will take longer than other methods, it’s an effective solution if you wish to purge an extensive amount of podcasts all at once. When using third-party tools designed specifically to clean device storage like CleanMyMac X this option becomes even quicker and simpler; these programs can reset various applications that may have Smart Initiation Protection enabled on them.
Ready to Declutter Your Podcast Library?
Need More Space for Your Favorite Podcasts? Try Uninstalling the App!
If your iPhone or iPad is running out of storage space due to an abundance of podcast episodes, built-in tools in the Settings app may help reclaim unused space by either deleting downloaded episodes or disabling automatic downloads altogether. With true crime podcasts like Serial and S-Town becoming increasingly popular along with advice podcasts, improv-based humor shows, role playing games, scripted fictional entertainment as well as advice podcasts taking over your audio file usage, it’s no secret audio files can quickly grow out of control unless action are taken against them!
Podcasts is a built-in app on Apple devices that enables you to subscribe, download, play, sync and sync podcasts across devices. While it can be helpful in terms of accessing shows with many episodes on them, this may take up a large chunk of storage on your device.
To view how much space Podcasts is taking up on your iPhone or iPad, navigate to the Settings app, tap “General,” then “Storage & iCloud Usage,” select Podcasts from the list of applications and you will see its total storage usage and each individual podcast episode’s individual storage usage – helpful when selecting which episodes should be removed or limited.
Reducing podcast storage requires taking steps that allow you to stream instead of automatically saving them to your device, freeing up space for other items. To stop automatic downloads, open the Podcasts app, go into Library then Downloaded Episodes then choose your show that needs stopping from automatically receiving new episodes and click Options (…) then Custom Settings on its respective button.
However, if Podcasts are no longer needed on your iPhone or iPad, they can simply be deleted without any hassle. While you can still listen to them online or via third-party apps, having an option to quickly redownload any episodes needed would be nice – iOS 10 offers just this functionality so no app needs to be fully uninstalled from the phone or tablet!
Need More Space for Your Favorite Podcasts? Try Uninstalling the App!
Maximize Your Listening Space: How Can You Manage Your Podcast Storage?
Podcasts are great ways to listen on the go, but downloading multiple shows at once can quickly fill up your mobile storage. Apple’s iOS and iTunes software make it possible to control how many episodes are stored automatically by opening the Settings app and selecting Podcasts under Preferences – you can choose whether to keep only newer episodes or limit their storage by days since publication; or enable an option that deletes downloaded episodes 24 hours after you play them back.
This feature can be especially helpful if you subscribe to shows with new episodes being uploaded regularly, which tends to consume an abundance of data over time. Furthermore, this helps avoid becoming subject to mobile data caps as podcasts will no longer consume your free allotment of data.
One way to save data while podcasting is ensuring that your directory listings are configured to hide old episodes automatically. This can help prevent listeners from downloading outdated episodes that waste bandwidth if downloaded by chance. If you aren’t using an RSS management tool like Seriously Simple Podcasting for RSS management, reach out to your host to determine their settings for directory listings.
If your audience is substantial, emailing out every time a new episode is released is an effective way of alerting listeners that a download has occurred and providing them with a link back to your website or podcast page so they can subscribe.
By applying these strategies to your podcasts, you should experience an immediate decrease in how much data they consume – this will not only save money on mobile data costs but will ensure subscribers enjoy the best experience from your content.
Maximize Your Listening Space: How Can You Manage Your Podcast Storage?
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