Suscribing to a Podcast

The iTunes Music Store puts thousands of free podcasts at your fingertips. To find them, select Music Store in the iTunes source column; then click “Podcasts” to journey inside the Music Store. Once you’ve downloaded or subscribed to a podcast, click the Music Store button to return to the home page of the Store.

The iTunes Music Store is apart of the iTunes music player click on the link below to start installing the lastest version iTunes on your Mac or PC. iTunes is a free Download

Choose a subject

Looking for a specific podcast category? Try browsing podcasts in the iTunes Music Store’s featured podcast rooms. Each room lists popular podcasts that iTunes editors have selected for special feature by subject.

Play it again (and again)

Once an episode is finished downloading, a blue dot appears to the left of the podcast, indicating that it has not yet been played. As soon as you begin to play the podcast, the blue dot disappears. When the blue dot disappears, it’s a reminder that the episode will be automatically removed from your iPod the next time you sync it with your computer. If you want to make sure the episode stays on your iPod, right-click it and choose “mark as unread”.

Get smart playlists

When a podcast finishes playing, iTunes does not play the next podcast episode in your Source List by default. To keep a steady stream of episodes playing, consider creating a smart playlist. A smart playlist of podcast episodes allows you to listen to episodes continuously and to further refine your podcasts. For example, you might create a smart playlist for news podcast episodes longer than 40 minutes.

To build an all-podcast playlist, Choose “New Smart Playlist” from the file menu. From the first drop-down box, select “Podcast” and leave the second drop-down set to “is true”. To include only podcast episodes you haven’t yet listened to, click the “+” symbol to add a new rule and choose “Play Count”, “is”, 0. Add additional filters to further refine your smart playlist.

Keep podcasts forever (or just for a day)

It’s easy to tell iTunes how long to keep podcasts in your library. When browsing the podcasts you’ve downloaded, you’ll see a Settings button at the bottom of the jukebox window. Click it, and iTunes takes you right to the podcasts tab of the iTunes Preferences dialog. See the “Keep:” drop-down menu? It lets you decide exactly how long to keep podcasts, helping you keep your library neat and tidy.

Not in the Store? Not a problem.

If while surfing the web, you ever come across a podcast that you can’t find in the iTunes Music Store, here’s an easy way to subscribe to it anyway. From the Advanced menu, choose “Subscribe to Podcast...” and enter the podcast feed URL. iTunes will subscribe you to the podcasts and begin downloading immediately.