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User profile for user: browngreg
browngreg Author
User level: Level 1
18 points

Apple Podcasts Sync Library Inconsistent Behaviour

TL;DR - some (but not all) of my podcast shows are out of sync on my Mac compared to my iPhone and iPad.


I have selected "Sync Library" for the Apple Podcasts app on my iPhone 12 (iOS 17.5.1), iPad (7th Gen, iOS 17.5.1) and MacBook Air (Early 2015, macOS Monterey 12.7.6).


For some podcast shows, the status is perfectly in sync between the 3 devices in terms of played/unplayed episodes and how many minutes are left on a podcast being listened to.


But for other podcast shows, the MacBook is completely out of sync. For example one podcast show (correctly) says on both my iPhone and iPad that there are no unplayed episodes. On my Mac, the same podcast show has 95 unplayed episodes, dating back more than 18 months.


Of the 20 podcast shows in my library, 6 are out of sync on my Mac, with the other 14 being in sync between all 3 devices.


Any ideas what's happening and how I can fix it?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Aug 24, 2024 5:58 AM

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User profile for user: fastasleep
fastasleep
User level: Level 1
53 points

Posted on Aug 26, 2024 5:19 PM

What's happening is syncing in Podcasts simply does not work, and never really has. Up Next doesn't match across devices, progress is often wrong, stuff that's been played appears in Up Next, so forth. And another thing I'll never understand, is the "Playing Next" queue doesn't sync across devices at all, which is infuriating if you have a list of stuff you're working through on one device and want to switch to another. I am not sure why I haven't switched to a third party player at this point other than I tend to hold onto hope that at some point they'll notice and actually fix all this. I've submitted all this in Feedback Assistant two years ago and it remains Open with no other Similar Reports.

¯\(°_o)/¯

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User profile for user: fastasleep
fastasleep
User level: Level 1
53 points

Aug 26, 2024 5:19 PM in response to browngreg

What's happening is syncing in Podcasts simply does not work, and never really has. Up Next doesn't match across devices, progress is often wrong, stuff that's been played appears in Up Next, so forth. And another thing I'll never understand, is the "Playing Next" queue doesn't sync across devices at all, which is infuriating if you have a list of stuff you're working through on one device and want to switch to another. I am not sure why I haven't switched to a third party player at this point other than I tend to hold onto hope that at some point they'll notice and actually fix all this. I've submitted all this in Feedback Assistant two years ago and it remains Open with no other Similar Reports.

¯\(°_o)/¯

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Apple Podcasts Sync Library Inconsistent Behaviour

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