recyclemac

Readers: I was recently asked about how to find and subscribe to Podcasts. Having written this tutorial for one of our MacRecycleClinic patrons, I decided to share it with you as well with a little editing.

First off: Podcasts (both audio and video) are easy to use and to watch or listen to! Apple has a great resource page for you here.

iPhone or iPad Podcast Players

Apple’s Podcasts App is part of the programs you get with a new or refurbished iPhone and is worth checking out.

That said, there are also a ton of third party Podcast players for your iDevice. Just check out the iOS App Store. As for me, I use Overcast – a free download. But because many of you have your own favorites, just let me know and I’ll be happy to include them here.

Podcasts on iTunes

If you want to access Podcasts from your Mac, then iTunes is the way to go:

Open iTunes:

From the menu on the left (“Music” is there by default) – choose “Podcasts” from the dropdown menu. (Note we will focus on AUDIO Podcasts here but videos are similar.)

If this is our first time, you’ll see:

Click “Continue” to get to the subscribe/download page (This is what mine looks like – yours might be different.)

Choose “Store” to get to the Podcast store (don’t worry – they are virtually all free).

Focus on Podcasts:

Look through the latest Podcast selections or go to the Search Box look for Podcasts you might like. As an example, let’s look for Freakonomics:

As you can see – there are a number of choices but the one we want is the first one – Freakonomics Radio. Choose that (click on the graphic) to see the FR page all by itself.

Note you can cursor down though each selection, choose it,  and a play button will automatically appear on the left. It can be played there immediately with a click.

If you want to subscribe, just click on the “Subscribe” button on the left under the program logo. That means iTunes will download all the old episodes and any new ones as well as they are posted. You can delete any or all of them later, download only a few, etc. as we’ll see.

If you want to download the Podcast to play later, just choose  “Get” on the right side to download that particular Podcast. We’ll choose the second one Once you’ve chosen “Get” – you’ll see a small download icon on the top right showing your progress – it’s pretty quick. 

Choosing “Unplayed” at the top menu will show all the Podcasts that are downloaded but yet to be played.

OR choose “Library” from the top menu (under the Apple logo), select the downloaded podcast and play. Note it also says “Not Subscribed” in this case (as I am not going to subscribe at this point).

See that gear icon on the right? It will let you choose to subscribe to the Podcasts (from this page) as well if you like, and make other settings…

Note the blue circle with the three dots at the top right- you can click on it for a dropdown box to subscribe as well.

OR if you highlight one of the Podcasts, you’ll also see three dots where the time listing was on the right. If also gives you many choices as to what to do with the Podcast.

You should make sure to subscribe if you like the program. Looks like a lot but it goes pretty quickly once you decide what you’d like to listen to. 

Podcasts are a growing part of the online experience and cover just about every interest. Like listening to the radio, you can listen anywhere at anytime. And there are lots of Podcasts for kids too – a great help on long vacation trips!