# Itunes - Duplicate podcasts

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 30, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573 "2011-11-30T17:15:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 30, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573/1 "2011-11-30T17:15:30Z")

</div>

I’m subscribed to a lot of free podcasts on Itunes. I just noticed that for some reason, there are a lot of duplicates. For example, the “Freakanomics” podcast – I have _three_ copies of every episode.

What might have caused this? How do I prevent it? Is there an easy way to get rid of duplicate podcast episodes?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573/2 "2011-11-30T18:32:16Z")

</div>

I’ve seen the same thing…as far as I can tell it happens on the end of the podcast provider, when they somehow update or “refresh” their list of available episodes (I don’t know technically exactly how it works) and iTunes perceives them all as new content so downloads them. I don’t know there’s anything you can do except just delete them.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573/3 "2011-11-30T18:33:29Z")

</div>

Yeah, happens to me on occasion, with Freakonomics podcasts and a few others.

I just end up selecting all the dupes and deleting them.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 30, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/itunes-duplicate-podcasts/604573/4 "2011-11-30T19:24:27Z")

</div>

Guess it’s a manual job.