Why has the podcasts app started marking episodes as played when they are only partly complete?

For the last couple of months the podcasts app has become really irritating. I have some podcasts that I might listen to only once or twice a week, listening to other podcasts in between. These are podcasts with hundreds of episodes that I'm working my way through and I don't usually listen to a whole episode at a time.


Until a couple of months ago, when I went back to listen to a podcast, the episode I'd previously been listening to would still be there, marked as unplayed, waiting for me to pick it up from where I'd left off.


Now, even if I'm only 10% through an episode, if I come back to the podcast after a few days, the partially listened to episode has been marked as played. So first I have to scroll through hundreds of episodes to find the episode I was listening to and then I have to try to find the point I'd got to to restart listening.


This is worse!


I don't understand why this was changed and (assuming that there may be some people who prefer the new approach), I don't understand why it isn't an option that users can select.


Is it a bug or a feature? Does anyone know?

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 16

Posted on May 29, 2023 08:02 AM

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Posted on Dec 30, 2023 11:08 AM

A recent update for iPadOS made this start happening to me too. iPadOS 16.7.4, iPad Pro (original). Before, if a podcast was mostly done (e.g. 20 min podcast, 30 sec left) it would be marked as "Played" if I just started playing another podcast. Now it happens all the time when I start a playing a different podcast. Even a podcast only 1/3 through (2h30m podcast, 1h45m left) is marked as Played and disappears from my "Latest Episodes" list, which I have set to hide played episodes (which was handy, but now is a pain due to this new bug). Clearly a bug, since the behavior is now broken.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 30, 2023 11:08 AM in response to paulym666

A recent update for iPadOS made this start happening to me too. iPadOS 16.7.4, iPad Pro (original). Before, if a podcast was mostly done (e.g. 20 min podcast, 30 sec left) it would be marked as "Played" if I just started playing another podcast. Now it happens all the time when I start a playing a different podcast. Even a podcast only 1/3 through (2h30m podcast, 1h45m left) is marked as Played and disappears from my "Latest Episodes" list, which I have set to hide played episodes (which was handy, but now is a pain due to this new bug). Clearly a bug, since the behavior is now broken.

Sep 8, 2023 09:53 PM in response to paulym666

I have been experiencing the same issue for a few months as well, and searched multiple times and this is the first time I've found a thread with someone else experiencing the same issue. Did you get it resolved?


If I finish listening to a podcast, it will start playing a random podcast that's downloaded, which is often not the next one in the "que" (also a new frustrating development, but that's another matter). As soon as I pause this auto-selected episode and select the actual next podcast I want to play, the podcast that had automatically started (even if only 1 sec has registered), will be marked as completely played even though it hadn't really started. I have to then manually mark it as un-played to keep it from being automatically deleted.


I guess this has been incorporated as a "feature" to "helpfully" clean-up podcasts for listeners if they're done with them, but instead it has the effect we're experiencing. Very frustrating, I wish they'd return it to the way it was or make it a toggleable option.


If anyone else has some insight on this, it would be much appreciated.

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Why has the podcasts app started marking episodes as played when they are only partly complete?

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