iTunes Tip #36
When Apple added podcasting features to iTunes they helped make podcasting mainstream allowing many people to become aware of all the content available, in most cases it is all free. Before Apple added podcasting features to iTunes you had to use a separate software application to aggregate podcasts, then add them to iTunes and the iPod. There are many podcasting features in iTunes you may have missed as they may not be so obvious.

Let’s take a look together. This is kind of like “everything you ever wanted to know about iTunes and podcasts, and were afraid to ask” posts.

Subscribe to a Podcast
Go to the iTunes Music Store -> Podcasts section and look around for what interests you. There are thousands and thousands of podcasts available. Do not be afraid to dig past the iTunes Music Store’s podcast front pages to find interesting content by using the “browse” button on left. Podcast authors submit their content via an RSS feed and Apple lists these in the iTunes Music Store. Only the most popular podcasts make it to the front page and a podcast does not get popular until people find it and subscribe. You can subscribe to many podcasts right from the author’s websites. Look for the iTunes tag.

The downloaded podcasts can be played on your computer, on your iPod, or both. With play information synced between your computer and your iPod.

When you find a podcast that you would like to hear you can either just download the episode by clicking on the “Get” button.

The episode will be downloaded to your iTunes Library -> Podcast section.

Or subscribe to the podcast and iTunes will download new episodes automatically. Just click on the “Subscribe” button.

The episodes will be downloaded and handled by iTunes as they become available. You can control how iTunes handles podcasts you subscribe to.

iTunes Podcast Preferences
To choose how iTunes controls podcasts go to iTunes preferences -> Podcasts

Here you can decide how iTunes “automatically” controls the way it works with podcasts you have subscribed to. You can decide how often iTunes will check for new episodes.

Tell iTunes how to handle new episodes as they become available. You can have iTunes automatically download all the episodes, just the most recent one, or do nothing.

Tell iTunes which episodes to keep or discard.

iPod Preferences for Podcasts
iTunes can also automatically manage how your iPod will manage podcasts. Just go to the iTunes preferences -> iPod -> Podcast tab

Here you can tell iTunes which subscribed podcasts you want automatically synced to your iPod and which episodes.

Manual Choices in iTunes for Podcasts
iTunes allows you some ways of manually over-riding some of your iTunes automatic settings.

You can manually update any podcasts you have subscribed to by Control + click (or right clicking for multi-button mouse users) on any podcast in your iTunes Library and chose “Update Podcast” from the contexual menu.

You can manually chose and over-ride your auto settings for any podcasts you have subscribed to and decide “Not To Delete” any eposide. Just Control + click (or right clicking for multi-button mouse users) on any podcast in your iTunes Library and chose “Do Not Auto Delete” from the contexual menu (iTunes 6.02 and higher).

Get Information About Podcast
Another nice feature from the contexual menu is “Show Description”. Just Control + click (or right clicking for multi-button mouse users) on any podcast in your iTunes Library and chose “Show Description” from the contexual menu.

A Window will pop-up with a description about the podcast.

Use the iTunes Search Bar
Turn on the iTunes Search Bar if it is not already on, by going to the iTunes Edit menu -> click on “Show Search Bar”

Here you can easily search through your iTunes Library for podcasts when you have a large library.

    | Tags: iTunes, music, podcast