Mark episode as competed with X time left.
-
Hi! Most of the podcasts I listen to feature a pretty lengthy outro. Sometimes it’s ads, sometimes it’s just a recap or anything else.
I have a lot of podcasts that have like 30 seconds left in my list. I would love a feature where the app would mark an episode as completed when there’s only a certain amount of time left, so I don’t have to go through my podcasts anymore to mark each one as completed by hand.
-
Thanks for letting us know how you’d like to see our auto archived feature improved. I can see how some nuance in the settings to automatically archive episodes that just have 30 seconds left would be nice. I’ve shared that idea with the team for further consideration
One thing that might help you right now is to check out the Podcast Page settings for your podcasts that you know always have a longer outro. You can tell the app to always skip the last bit of the podcast, so it’s marked as played and moves on to the next one in the queue without you having to sit through 30 seconds of outro.
-
This is the single missing feature that I dearly miss from migrating away from Google Podcasts.
My typical workflow is to keep an ongoing queue, adding new episodes of interest to the top of the queue list as they are released (mostly current events -type episodes).
When listening from my queue, often I’ll be done with a show towards the end, as things are wrapping up and before the outros. This varies based from episode to episode, show to show. I’ll then skip directly to the next show in my queue, and repeat the process until I’m done listening for the session.
However, this creates a large amount of old shows stacked at the top of my queue each day which are only the endings I don’t need anymore.
So, next time I begin a session and add new shows to the top of my queue, I’ll eventually run into this large amount of shows that I was finished with instead of the un-listened shows (of interest) lower down in the queue.
Google Podcasts had a toggle feature which allowed the platform to recognize and mark an episode as “complete” when there was a certain amount remaining. I don’t remember if the metric was ‘time remaining’ (30 or 60 seconds) or ‘percent remaining’ (10% or 20%), but a settings toggle for something like “Mark episode as complete when less than 20% of time remains in the podcast” would be fantastic.
From that point, the user’s “completed podcast” behavior preferences would take over as normal.
Having this option would completely solve the headaches in my standard workflow! -
Hi there, @tmccarty3! Thanks for your feedback regarding marking an episode as played when there is still a little time left in the episode due to things like outros which you don’t need to listen too. I’ve submitted your request to our development team for consideration as we plan future updates.
Regarding removing the old shows from your queue, one thing you can try is bulk archive with multi-select. You can find detailed steps here: https://support.pocketcasts.com/knowledge-base/archiving-episodes-2/ -
Sorry, I think this is a bad idea.
For one thing, there’s already a solution: just tap Mark Played. Easy as that. And as helper-mobilefox mentioned, you can choose to auto-skip the last (or first) X seconds of a podcast when you know ads are always there. I’ve saved over 6 whole days of listening time this way.
I use a video player called Infuse. Great app, except it does have the very feature you’re asking for. Say I have to stop a 2-hour movie with only 10 minutes left. Infuse sees that I’ve watched 92% of it, so I must be finished. I either have to memorize where I left off or screenshot the progress bar.
-
The fact that you wouldn’t use it does not make it a bad idea.
The majority of podcasts I listen to does not use a fixed amount of time for their outro or ads. Skipping the last X seconds would often resultnin podcasts quitting before the actual content is finished.
What’s wrong with making this option a bit more flexible?
-
First you said this:
I have a lot of podcasts that have like 30 seconds left in my list. I would love a feature where the app would mark an episode as completed when there’s only a certain amount of time left
Then this:
The majority of podcasts I listen to does not use a fixed amount of time for their outro or ads. Skipping the last X seconds would often result in podcasts quitting before the actual content is finished.
Never mind that those are contradictory. Have you actually checked out the auto-skip feature? You can adjust X in increments of 5 seconds. How much more flexible can it be?
-
I think there is room for a feature like this, even if there could be some degree of overlap with existing features. It just depends on how you tend to interact with podcast episodes. But thank you both for sharing your additional thoughts on this!
-
One last thing: The auto-skip feature does mark episodes as complete/fully played. They don’t hang around with the circle virtually empty but for a tiny dot, so you don’t need to mark-as-played by hand.
-
I would love a function that automatically mark an episode as played after a given percentage of time left is done.
I mainly hear podcasts via Android Auto and therefore don’t have the full range of ui nor the hands free.
Doing an auto skip-after a given amount of minutes is a bad deal in my eyes, because sometimes the end of a episode is interesting and I want to hear it and sometimes not.
I can see a coexistence of both, the auto-skip feature as well as a new feature that alows me to setup a percentage before the episode will be marked played.
-
i came here, because I often have podcasts left on filters/smart playlists with 1 second to minutes left over that I know are watched and probably never get counted, and hang around, I have some podcasts set to skip the last 30 seconds, but it’s too strict/fixed to work clearly.
-
for example above at least 4 have been finished with ~10% of their time left, I just know this, and interestingly one with 8 minutes left hasnt event been started yet. So some more flexibility would work really well.
-
Thanks for the detailed explanation of how you’d find this feature useful, @alexdodd720c79876c! I’ve made sure to add your comments to our internal report that’s tracking this request.
Pocket Casts Forum 