Antennapod: keep the newest N episodes of each subscribed Podcast

[JannesSchulz]

Feature Request: i want to be able to keep the newest N episodes of each subscribed Podcast. This is not configurable at the moment.

[domingos86]

By keep, you mean to not delete the downloaded media file?

[JannesSchulz]

yes

[domingos86]

Could you explain what your use case is and why it is a useful feature?

[JannesSchulz]

I'll give it a try: I have roughly 30 podcast subscribed and i want to have the newest f.ex. 10 Episodes of each Podcast available on my phones local storage. That makes me prepared for travelling, where i have no Internet but many podcasts available for listening offline :-)

I have used two commercial podcast catchers before and configured them that way. Now i switched to antenna pod and am missing that feature, respectively have not found a similar way to achieve the same.

[keunes]

Isn't it possible to achieve this using a large cache and automatic cleanup? (though indeed that means that you'd have to remove episodes from the queue manually, though)

Smells to me like it's somehow related to https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/1275#issuecomment-150541392. @JannesSchulz' proposal could be an extension to the one I refer to (as in something like 'delete the episodes older than the N newest').

But yeah, +1 for this feature request :)

[domingos86]

My guess is that, after we implement this, users will ask to be able to set that number (10) separately for each feed.

This is certainly not my use case (I just listen to everything - good thing I don't have as many subscriptions), but doesn't sound unreasonable.

[JannesSchulz]

Setting that number separately for each feed is something that other podcatchers support. I experimented with that setting once to keep flash storage space consumption lower and ended up buying a phone with more flash storage. In my opinion (and experience) setting that number individually is a feature that everybody wants to have but that satisfies nobody: It is time consuming to fine tune that setting and at the end you dont get that storage savings you wanted.

P.s.: Please add that feature to keep the newest N episodes of each subscribed Podcast - i needed to switch back to my previous podcast client because AntennaPod had that disk symbol with a exclamation mark beside it and was not downloading any podcasts anymore.

[mfietz]

AntennaPod had that disk symbol with a exclamation mark beside it and was not downloading any podcasts anymore.

That means the cache limit has been reached. Why not just play the episodes already downloaded and not download more episodes?
If you desperately want to download and play a particular, newer episodes, you can always download that one manually...

[domingos86]

I guess @JannesSchulz is happy with having unplayed episodes deleted to give room for the most recent ones.

[mfietz]

I think I can live with a global "keep N newest" setting. Having a setting for each and every podcast feels too much micro managing to me. I don't want AP to become too complicated and it is already heading in that direction... This feels like a setting for a desktop client, but Android is not a desktop OS.

[keunes]

I thunk you have the OP (and me) on your side for a simple global setting :)

[JannesSchulz]

I think I can live with a global "keep N newest" setting. Having a setting for each and every podcast feels too much micro managing to me. I don't want AP to become too complicated and it is already heading in that direction...

@mfietz I absolutely agree (as described above). Just as a footnote: Two commercial podcatchers i know manage this as follows: Global "keep newest N" setting and "keep newest N" setting for each Subscription exist. You choose the global setting and only if you are really interested you fine tune the "keep newest N" setting for your individual subscription - otherwise the global defined value takes effect. That way entry users are not overflooded with having to choose from too many options.

I guess @JannesSchulz is happy with having unplayed episodes deleted to give room for the most recent ones.

exactly - besides others i have some news podcast subscribed. If i did not listen to one of them for some days i certainly heard about the news of the last week somewhere else and do not need that old episodes anymore.

Why not just play the episodes already downloaded and not download more episodes?

@mfietz: Well, i guess i have too many subscriptions to listen to all episodes constantly. I normally do a lot of cherry picking and listen only to maybe one third of all downloaded episodes. (But to be able to cherry pick, the episodes need to be on flash memory).

[nbassler]

This is exactly the feature I miss so badly! I subscribe to several news podcasts, but often i don't manage to listen to them all, so they just stay in cache, blocking new feeds from being downloaded.

Purging them manually is too much work, so for some feeds I would like to have this "autoupdate" feature, always holding a (user-defined) number of the most recent podcasts ready and downloaded, no matter if they have been listened to or not.

[MaDill]

This feature I also miss. I listen very often some podcasts during driving. I want to have every time enough material on my phone to pick some what I'm interested in. An automatic delete of the older ones would be nice. The adjustable number should be per feed and not global. The settings can be global but for example if I setup 20, it should keep the newest 20 per feed.

[HifeFish]

I would personally like to have the option to individually set the number of episodes of a podcast I want to keep in my Playlist. For me this is not an issue of storage space but of convenience. As many others, I only care about the most recent episodes of news podcasts, so after a while of not listening to podcasts, I have to manually clean up the playlist item by item, which is unnecessarily tedious.

[wallzero]

+1 for this feature. After trying to use only FOSS apps, this was an important feature I was used to with DoggCatcher. I don't care if I miss episodes; just give me latest X! Otherwise thanks for this fantastic app!

[Slomo17]

i also would love to see this feature, i subscribed to a daily news show, but i don't watch it every day, but when i watch it, i want to see the shows for the last couple of days, i don't need the old shows

[spacecowboy]

Any updates/plans on this? This is pretty much the one thing I want a podcast app to have and I consider it essentially a deal breaker. I also have many subscriptions, which posts a lot of podcasts each, and I listen to one or two regularly but the rest are heavily filtered or mainly for travel.

If there is interest from the developers but not enough time/resources, I would be willing to implement the feature myself and submit at PR for it. (One global setting).

[ByteHamster]

@spacecowboy sure, go ahead and submit a PR. While I would not use the feature (thus I am not very motivated to implement it), I can see that there is a use-case.

[tonytamsf]

is this feature still in progress by someone, if not, @ByteHamster please assign to me. I solely miss this feature.

1) Allow for a global setting where I can download N episodes per subscription. Use case, is I want to have at least 3 episode per subscription on hand.
2) Allow for feed specific setting to override the global setting. Use case, for a news podcast, I just want the last episode.

[spacecowboy]

I have no intention of resuming my work on it. so for my part it's all good if you wanna take a fresh stab at it.

On 6 April 2020 05:07:00 CEST, Tony Tam [e-mail] wrote:

is this feature still in progress by someone, if not, @ByteHamster
please assign to me. I solely miss this feature.

1) Allow for a global setting where I can download N episodes per
subscription. Use case, is I want to have at least 3 episode per
subscription on hand.
2) Allow for feed specific setting to override the global setting. Use
case, for a news podcast, I just want the last episode.

[tonytamsf]

@ByteHamster go head and assign to me

[ByteHamster]

Please read the comments in @spacecowboy's PR before starting. I think it would be a good idea to rework the existing automatic deletion logic before starting with this. The settings are scattered through different pages and the logic is scattered through the code. Details: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/3912#issuecomment-596822961

[keunes]

think it would be a good idea to rework the existing automatic deletion logic before starting with this

Related: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/1275#issuecomment-150541392 ? (and #1486, #3118 to some extent) EDIT: See you already listed all in a milestone :)

[keunes]

in #2228 the following was suggested (emphasis added, as it's new vis-a-vis this issue's title):

Register to 2 podcasts: A (you want to keep - e.g. language lessons) and B (you need latest only).
Try to make A episodes to be kept forever, read or not, B episodes to be removed by number of episodes to keep, or by age. I cannot do this.

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/keep-x-latest-episodes/234/2

[spacecowboy]

@tonytamsf you still working on the keep latest feature?

[spacecowboy]

so yesterday I realized that antenna pod wasn't downloading anything again..

fastest fix was clearing the queue, then downloads could happen again.

so fastest fix here would be to just allow antenna pod to remove and delete items from the queue during sync. what do you think about me adding an option for that @ByteHamster ?

[sd0658]

@spacecowboy attempting to find how to enable that is exactly what lead me here. Having to remember to clear my queue before bed so that all my feeds will be able to update is a major annoyance. If you added this feature it would be amazing. I previously used BeyondPod Pro and loved that it had this same option.

[spacecowboy]

Here's what I'm thinking @ByteHamster , we just add a new cleanup option: When space is needed for new downloads (suggestion for a good succinct description welcome, maybe just When not favorited?).

It will do the same as When not in queue except of course not exclude things in the queue.

Seems like a simple addition without further UI complication and fills a gap in the cleanup settings.

Thoughts? Anyone else?

[spacecowboy]

Made another PR to take a stab at this: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/4693

[keunes]

new cleanup option: When space is needed for new downloads

I see your approach but this doesn't solve my personal use-case. I also have a full queue sometimes and then delete episodes to make space. But it crucial (for me) that such auto-cleanup (or 'keep N episodes') can be set per podcasts. I wouldn't use your proposed feature because it risks deleting non-newsy episodes that I really want to listen to.

EDIT: At the same time I think such 'global' setting would help many users. And such global setting could be later complemented at per-podcast level (with default setting being 'global' and other options being 'never' or 'n episodes'

[spacecowboy]

I see your approach but this doesn't solve my personal use-case. I also have a full queue sometimes and then delete episodes to make space. But it crucial (for me) that such auto-cleanup (or 'keep N episodes') can be set per podcasts. I wouldn't use your proposed feature because it risks deleting non-newsy episodes that I really want to listen to.

Indeed. But it's not the default either.

I think this could one of the most minimalist changes possible to alleviate this issue for a majority of people in the current version of AntennaPod.

Settings are getting messy, and would require an app-wide overhaul IMO. But that should not stand in the way of this change. I wouldn't mind helping with a larger overhaul but that would require a clear goal and direction decided by the maintainers.