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Update podcasts and limit total size before syncing Apps
If you listen to a lot of podcasts on your iPod or iPhone, you've probably spent a ton of time on iTunes manually checking for new episodes and deleting old ones before syncing, just to avoid an insufficient-space error.

The following is a one-click solution using Smart Playlists and an AppleScript:
  1. Set your device to sync only checked songs and videos, and sync all episodes of all podcasts.
  2. Create a Smart Playlist called "Included Podcasts" where:
    • Podcast is true
    • Play Count is 0
    • Limit to X MB/GB selected by most recently added (X being the number of megs or gigs you want to allocate on your device)
    • Disable "Match only checked items"
    • Enable "Live updating"
  3. Create a Smart Playlist called "Excluded Podcasts" where:
    • Podcast is true
    • Playlist is not Included Podcasts
    • Disable "Match only checked items"
    • Enable "Live updating"
  4. Open Script Editor and create the following script:
You can save the script either into iTunes or as an app to put on the dock (my preference).

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one. In the AppleScript, you'll need to edit the path for your iTunes Music folder's Downloads folder, as well as the name of the iPod/iPhone you'd like to update.]
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Update podcasts and limit total size before syncing
Authored by: davearonson on Jan 24, '08 10:01:52AM
You don't need to use scripting on this, if you don't mind having your iThing treat your podcasts as music. Just have a smart playlist that includes your unheard podcasts, and synch that as music. (At least, that's what I did on my Nano; haven't tried it on my Shuffle or anything else.) You can even use several SPs to slice and dice it any way you like.

For instance, my wife and I share a PC for our iTunes library. (This is why I know my trick works fine w/o Apple scripting! PC vs. Mac flames > /dev/null plskthx.) I like some pods, she likes others. I have several SPs:

  1. "Dave's Pods" includes only mine ("any rule" of the pods I like). Don't sync this one, it gets huge! If you don't have any pods hanging around that you don't like, you can skip this one, and use "podcast is true".

  2. "Dave's Pods (Unheard)" includes only mine that I haven't listened to ("all rules" of "list is Dave's Pods" and "play count is 0"). I don't bother syncing this one, because I am catching up on a huge backlog. If you aren't, then you can just use this.

  3. "Dave's Pods (New)" is the important one to me, and usually very small. It includes only the ones I haven't heard yet, that are from this year. ("All rules" of "list is "Dave's Pods (Unheard)" and "year > 2007". Yes, I have to manually update that every year. I'd love to simply use "release date is under a month ago". This is where scripting could be useful!)

  4. "Dave's Pods (Old)" includes all the rest ("all rules" of "list is "Dave's Pods (Unheard)" and "year < 2008"), sorted by release date. If you're catching up on some huge backlogs, this could need limiting. As mentioned in the original hint, you can use the SP features to do that.

  5. I considered making a few more that slice them by past years, and/or size, but considered that overkill. If you want to, more power to ya. Geek on, bro!
-Dave (Mac user, but the wife ripped a lot of CDs on her PC)

---
"Specialization is for insects." -Heinlein
Work: http://www.davearonson.com/
Play: http://www.davearonson.net/

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