How do I get iTunes to delete podcasts?

Factual Questions
1

Is there a way to get iTunes to delete the podcast files after listening to them? It tracks whether or not the files have been completely listened to, so it seems like it should be able to.

I have my settings set to “Keep last [3] episodes” - I thought that meant it would keep only the last 3 episodes that weren’t listened to. But then I discovered my podcast directory was 25gb because it kept every file I ever downloaded.

There are some podcasts I may want to come back and listen to later, but not keep the whole library on my hard drive - so I can’t just delete the podcast folder - what happens in that case is that iTunes still lists that podcast in its directory, but when you try to click on it it’ll say “file not found”, not “file not found, so should I download it?” since it’s the worst software ever written.

You can select the podcast entry within iTunes and click “delete”, which gives you the option to delete the files. The problem there is that the podcast entry is deleted entirely from that podcast’s subscription, so you could never go back in the future and redownload an episode.

I’ve selected my entire library and selected “allow auto delete” but that doesn’t seem to do anything.

So is there some way I can make iTunes gracefully delete the files of the podcast without deleting the ability to download them later?

2

From here: collapse the list of episodes of the podcast in question, and then re-expand it while holding down the Option key. (Not sure what this is on Windows; my guess would be Alt.) Any episode you’ve already downloaded and then deleted will show up in the list, with buttons you can click on to re-download them.

This assumes, of course, that the podcast provider still has them available online. A lot of podcasters don’t leave up podcasts older than a month or two.

3

Huh. Shift-expand works. Thanks.

Yeah, that’s intuitive. Way better than simply deleting them after they’ve been listened to, as the options imply you can. I wish I didn’t have to use iTunes, it’s one of the worst crimes against computing ever.

Since there’s an “allow auto delete” right click option, any idea under what circumstances this would be used, or how to set it up?