# iPod Question: Listening to Podcasts in 'Release Date' order **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 28, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815 "2009-02-28T19:45:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/1 "2009-02-28T19:45:26Z")
My wonderful wife got me an iPod for Christmas, and I’ve been using it regularly, while I’m on the road on weekends. I subscribe to quite a few podcasts from NPR, which download into my iTunes, and are synchronized with the iPod itself. I’ve got iTunes downloading my unheard podcasts, which are downloaded newest at the top of the list. What I want to do is listen to the _oldest_ of the newest first, i.e. if I download daily episodes from last week all at once (say, Monday through Saturday in one block), I want my iPod to play Monday’s first, then Tuesday’s, yadda yadda all the way to Saturday’s last. For whatever reason, it wants to play Saturday’s first, then Friday’s, then Thursday’s, and I cannot figure out how to sort the play order on the iPod itself. Like I mentioned, I can sort the list in iTunes, but it doesn’t seem to want to synchronize that way onto my iPod. I looked, but haven’t seen any settings either on my laptop or my iPod itself to fix this. Anyone know how? Tripler It sucks when I get the “Car Talk” puzzler answer before I hear the actual puzzler episode (the week prior) itself. ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/2 "2009-02-28T19:52:30Z")
I haven’t tried this but if you create a smart playlist with the condition ‘Genre is Podcast’ and then have it sort by ‘least recently added’ it should store the playlists in the correct order as long as the podcasts are being added to the library in the correct order. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/3 "2009-03-01T13:46:32Z")
_One obligatory bump, as I’ll be on the road in a few hours, and am fishing for an answer before today’s trip_ Tripler Gone fishin’. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/4 "2009-03-01T16:37:35Z")
This is a bit of a hack, but you can use the “On-the-Go” Playlists to play them in order. (The following is what I would do on my iPod Classic, though the procedure should probably generalize to other models.)[ol][_]From the top menu, select “Podcasts”.[_]In the list of podcasts, scroll to the appropriate podcast (e.g. where it says “NPR: Car Talk Podcast / 3 episodes”), and _press and hold_ the center button. After a couple of seconds, the menu item will blink; this signifies that everything in that category has been added to your “On-the-Go” playlist.[_]Go back to the top menu, and select Music \> Playlists \> On-the-Go.[_]The playlist that you see should be of all the podcasts in the category you selected, but in the proper order. You can press play on the top one, and it’ll run through them all in chronological order.[/ol]I have no idea why it works this way — it bugged me for a long time. I’ll be watching this thread with interest to see if anyone else has a better way to handle this. ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/5 "2009-03-01T17:14:04Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > I’ll be watching this thread with interest to see if anyone else has a better way to handle this. I just put mine into a separate playlist and sorted them by date and they played in order. Apple just seems to have not made the default podcast directory behave like a regular playlist for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/6 "2009-03-02T13:07:43Z")
> [@HongKongFooey](#): > > I just put mine into a separate playlist and sorted them by date and they played in order. Apple just seems to have not made the default podcast directory behave like a regular playlist for some reason. The problem with this plan arises when you have several episodes of several different podcasts — you either have one playlist with all the podcasts interspersed, or you have to make a separate playlist for every podcast you subscribe to. Either way, it’s kind of annoying. It does seem like the kind of thing that should be easily customizable, and I do wish Apple had allowed this behaviour to be modified. ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/7 "2009-03-02T14:39:12Z")
That’s true. I only have a few so I set up a smart playlist for each one. I’m really surprised Apple hasn’t fixed this yet, it’s been a problem for quite a while now. You might want to look through the forums at [ilounge](http://www.ilounge.com/) to see if a better solution has been found. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/8 "2009-03-02T16:00:06Z")
> [@HongKongFooey](#): > > I’m really surprised Apple hasn’t fixed this yet, it’s been a problem for quite a while now. I’m still waiting for Apple to fix several problems I have (in addition to the one in the OP), specifically, the Ipod’s failure to recognize “album artist” data and failure to make composer, year, and other data accessible while a song is playing, and failure to scroll all display data. ---
**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/9 "2009-03-04T14:41:14Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > I cannot figure out how to sort the play order on the iPod itself. The simplest solution I’ve found is to create a smart playlist that will only grab a single podcast (right click “Get Info” and find something unique). The go to the smart playlist and right click the column headers to add the “Release Date” column. Click on the column header to sort from oldest to newest. Now when you sync your ipod the playlist and its sort order will be synced. Play your podcast from the playlist, not from the podcasts section. Not only will you have your podcasts in order, but they will play sequentially without you have to start the next one after one ends. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipod-question-listening-to-podcasts-in-release-date-order/487815/10 "2009-03-07T23:17:38Z")
I want to thank all y’all for the suggestions. **MikeS** , I ended up using a process similar to yours–I downloaded all of the newest podcasts, and then one by one, added them in the order I wanted to in the “On The Go” playlist. Yeah, it took about ten minutes manually, but it ended up working in the long run. Much obliged, y’all! Tripler Fourteen hours of _Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me_, and I only understand maybe the last few weeksworth of refrences. :smack: